The Government's Week

Last week the U. S. Government did the following for and to U. S. business:

P: Secured sweeping indictments in its auto-finance, anti-trust case (see col. 3).

P:Accepted, subject to court's approval, nolo contenders pleas in its oil profit-fixing, anti-trust case (see p.48)

P:Approved the New York Stock Exchange's extension of SEC's rules on short-selling to odd as well as round lots. In January, SEC forbade short sales except at a price at least | of a point above the last transaction; odd lots--less than 100 shares--were specifically exempted. Before long almost a third of all odd-lot business was in short sales. The seven odd-lot firms on the floor agreed that something should be done. The governing committee of the Exchange drew up the new rule one morning, notified SEC at noon, had it approved by the governors in the afternoon. SEC Chairman William Douglas, in his new-found cordiality for the Exchange, expressed especial satisfaction in the Exchange's new-found speed.

P:Cut as much as 50% the fees paid the trustee, attorneys and advisers in the reorganization of Utilities Power & Light Corp., now in Federal court in Chicago. The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 gave SEC, instead of the Federal courts, the power to set maximum fees in reorganization. Last week was the first time SEC exercised this power. The ruling, which almost certainly will be regarded as a precedent, followed the trend for making reorganizations as inexpensive as possible.

P:Approved a daily average of 30 RFC loans to business. Since lending was resumed in February, announced Jesse Jones, RFC has approved 444 loans totaling $40,000,000. Pending are 2,868 more applications for $118,000,000.

P:Announced it would this week begin a public SEC inquiry into the complicated investment trust scandal involving Burco, Inc., First Income Trading Corp., Continental Securities, Reynolds Investing (TIME, May 30). New York's Attorney General John J. Bennett Jr. meanwhile ordered 41 implicated financiers, attorneys and stockbrokers to appear next week in supreme court; accused them of siphoning $6,000,000 worth of marketable securities from their various companies and replacing them with securities of questionable value; got temporary injunctions restraining various of the 41 in varying degrees from buying or selling securities.

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