Business news in brief

Merck & Co. won the first trial over withdrawn painkiller Vioxx brought by a state trying to recoup what it paid for the drug. U.S. District Court Judge Eldon Fallon in New Orleans ruled for Merck in a case brought by the state of Louisiana. Lawyers for Louisiana argued the state would have restricted sales of Vioxx through programs such as Medicaid if they had known more about the drug's risks of heart attack and stroke. Merck says Fallon's ruling found that Louisiana did not prove it would have cut off reimbursement for Vioxx if it had different data about the drug. - AP

The Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee said it won't block new rules requiring Marcellus Shale gas operators to adhere to strict wastewater discharge standards. Sen. Mary Jo White (R., Venango), the committee chairwoman, said the state's Environmental Quality Board can impose the new rules. In a letter to John Hanger, environmental protection secretary, she said the committee would address its objections in future legislation, but said "there is no disagreement over our shared responsibility and commitment to protect our natural resources." The rules require gas operators to treat wastewater heavily to remove salty total dissolved solids so streams do not exceed the safe drinking water standard of 500 milligrams per liter. The gas industry says it is increasingly recycling water used in hydraulic fracturing operations and reducing its discharges. - Andrew Maykuth

An Austin, Texas, software company asked European Union regulators to stop Germany's SAP from using tactics that it says illegally exclude it from a lucrative market for programs that help companies price their products. Versata Software Inc. says SAP refused to share information on its widely used business planning software, cloned its own version of Versata's pricing program, and gave it away with SAP's planning platform. An SAP spokesman said the company could not comment because it had not seen the complaint. SAP's U.S. base is in Newtown Square, Delaware County. - AP

Philadelphia Gear Corp., King of Prussia, said it won an $80 million contract to supply a major gear system for three new U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke Class guided missile destroyers. The potential for additional ships could bring the total value of the contract to $425 million. - Harold Brubaker

Allentown power provider PPL Corp. said Monday that it raised more than $3.64 billion in a stock and equity offering to help finance its $7.6 billion acquisition of two Kentucky utilities. PPL said in April that it was buying E.On U.S., the parent of Louisville Gas & Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities Co., from German power company E.On AG. - AP

Vitae Pharmaceuticals Inc., Fort Washington, said it received a $14 million "milestone" payment from its partner in developing a treatment for diabetes and other metabolic diseases. The payment from German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim was prompted by the start of clinical trials on a new compound, called a small-molecule inhibitor. Vitae has now received three payments from Boehringer, totaling $26 million, that recognize reaching specific performance targets on its work. Privately held Vitae is developing medicines for diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's. - Paul Schweizer

Fox Chase Bancorp Inc., Hatboro, said it sold stock worth $87.1 million in conjunction with the completion of its conversion from a mutual holding company to a stock company. - Harold Brubaker

The authors of sweeping energy legislation that is stalled in the Senate said Tuesday they were prepared to scale back their bill to get GOP support. They swiftly appeared to win a convert as a key moderate Republican said she might support a more targeted approach. Sens. John Kerry (D., Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) made their comments after meeting at the White House with fellow senators and President Obama, who is pushing for action after the Gulf oil spill. The bill by Kerry and Lieberman would tax carbon-dioxide emissions produced by coal-fired power plants and other large polluters as a way to reduce pollution blamed for global warming. The legislation has been panned by many Republicans as a "national energy tax." A more modest approach would limit the carbon tax to the electricity sector, something Kerry said Tuesday was under consideration. The idea won a critical Republican endorsement from Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe after she attended Tuesday's White House meeting. - AP

House and Senate negotiators assembling a bank regulation overhaul rejected a $19 billion bank fee they had previously written into the legislation. Republicans who had supported the bill before had voiced qualms about the fee and raised doubts about the legislation's passage. The negotiators voted along partisan lines to replace the bank fee with $11 billion that would be freed by ending the government's authority to use the $700 billion bank bailout fund. The balance of the cost could be covered by having banks with assets greater than $10 billion pay higher premium rates to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to insure bank deposits. - AP

Google Inc. said it would stop automatically routing users in China to its Hong Kong site after Beijing threatened the company with the loss of its Internet license in their latest skirmish over censorship. Google shut down its China-based search engine March 22 to avoid cooperating with the communist government's Internet censorship and has rerouted users to Hong Kong. But Google said regulators told the company its Internet license, which allows it to operate a music download service and other features in China, would not be renewed after it expires Wednesday if that tactic continues. - AP