The news at a glance

Mortgages: A major lender halts foreclosures

GMAC Mortgage, one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, has temporarily halted foreclosure proceedings in 23 states, said Denise Pellegrini in Bloomberg.com. The company, a unit of Ally Bank, told its brokers to halt evictions, lockouts, and cash-for-key transactions while it takes what it calls “corrective action” on some foreclosures—primarily in the East and Midwest, where state courts are more actively involved in procedures. Ally Bank, formerly known as GMAC, has received more than $17 billion in bailouts from the federal government, which owns 56.3 percent of the company.

It’s unclear what prompted Ally to take such action, which it announced last week in an internal memo marked “urgent,” said Ariana Cha in The Washington Post. Some GMAC Mortgage brokers speculated that Ally may have come under federal pressure to ease up on foreclosures. But there may be another explanation. Last week a Florida court found that another mortgage lender committed fraud when it tried to foreclose on a home to which it didn’t have clear title. GMAC Mortgage might be using the moratorium to clean up its paperwork in order to avoid similarly embarrassing outcomes.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Smart phones: BlackBerry shows spunk

Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry smart phones, delivered a stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings report “at a time when many have started to write the company off,” said Rob Gillies in the Associated Press. The company earned $797 million, or $1.46 a share, in the second quarter, beating the consensus forecast of $1.35 a share. Analysts say the results suggest that BlackBerry is holding its own against Apple’s iPhone and phones using Google’s Android platform.

Pharmaceuticals: Chief of troubled J&J unit to retire

Colleen Goggins, head of Johnson & Johnson’s consumer-products division, will retire next March, “after a string of problems prompted a massive recall of children’s Tylenol,” said Jonathan Rockoff and Peter Loftus in The Wall Street Journal. The recalls, announced last April, cost J&J hundreds of millions of dollars. Goggins, 56, was seen as a potential successor to William Weldon as chief executive, but the recalls, “which revealed serious quality problems in the over-the-counter drug business she oversaw,” dimmed her chances of promotion.

Transportation: Mixed results at FedEx

FedEx last week reported first-quarter earnings of $380 million, more than twice the $181 million it earned in the same period last year, but a penny below analysts’ projected per-share earnings of $1.21, said Wayne Risher in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The company, “a leading barometer of national and global economic conditions,” said that while international shipments were accelerating, its U.S. freight-hauling business, still reeling from the recession, lost $16 million. FedEx will lay off 1,700 workers from the division, “a recurring weak spot in FedEx’s portfolio.”

Feuds: Hewlett-Packard settles with Hurd

Hewlett-Packard and its former CEO, Mark Hurd, have settled their messy divorce, said Brandon Bailey in the San Jose Mercury News. HP, which ousted Hurd in early August over a sexual-harassment scandal, sued its former CEO after he joined Oracle Corp. this month. To resolve the complaint, Hurd promised not to divulge confidential HP information and will relinquish $13.6 million in HP stock grants. Oracle and HP compete “in the billion-dollar business of selling complex computer systems to big companies.”