Company News: JPMorgan Chase, Cablevision, Sainsbury's, Rabobank, Yahoo!

JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. bank, announced on Feb. 26 that it will eliminate as many as 19,000 jobs in its mortgage and community banking businesses by the end of next year. The lender, which currently employs about 259,000 people, wants to trim costs as the fallout from the mortgage crisis begins to fade. Analysts expect most of the mortgage staff cuts to come from servicing operations, which had expanded to deal with a flood of defaults. JPMorgan is the latest big bank to reduce expenses by culling employees. Citigroup announced plans in December to eliminate 11,000 workers. Bank of America said last year it would cut 30,000 jobs by 2015.

Pay-TV provider Cablevision filed an antitrust lawsuit against Viacom in federal court in Manhattan on Feb. 26 over the programmer’s bundling of networks. In a statement, the company said Viacom forces it to carry and pay for 14 “lesser-watched ancillary networks” by tying them to “must-have networks such as Nickelodeon, MTV, and Comedy Central.” Cablevision is trying to use antitrust law to force programmers to sell a la carte. Viacom says bundling helps consumer and that it will vigorously defend against the claims.