Business in brief July 3

| The New Mexican and wire services

7/2/2008 - 7/3/08

Free gas promo at boutique

If the summer dresses hanging in the shop window doesn't get people in the door of Faith and Addictions Boutique, perhaps the loud pink sign with the words "Free Gas" scribbled in marker will.

Customers who spend $200 at the shop, which opened its doors May 1, will get a $40 gas card. Michael Gonzales, 21, who co-owns the shop on the downtown Santa Fe's eastern edge with his father, Charles, said he hopes the gas-card promotion will help lure Albuquerque residents.

The store at 839 Paseo de Peralta sells men's and women's clothing and accessories with a "fashion forward West Coast" theme, Gonzales said. The shop specializes in hand-stitched and beaded trucker hats, designer T-shirts, jewelry, dresses and artwork by local artists Low Low Medina and Bobby Garcia.

Charles Gonzales owned an art gallery in the same location called Arte del Mundo, but decided a clothing boutique could be more profitable.

As of Tuesday, two people had received gas cards, Michael said. The promotion runs through the summer, he said.

High court OKs Dell lawsuit

An Albuquerque resident who claims Dell Inc. sold him a computer with less storage capacity than promised is free to pursue his class-action lawsuit, the state Supreme Court ruled. The high court reversed a state Court of Appeals decision, sending the suit back to district court.

The state Attorney General's Office supported Robert Fiser's action against Dell, in which he claims the company sold him a computer with 7.3 percent less storage capacity then it promised, his attorney, Whitney Buchanan, said this week.

The state Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of Dell, which argued Fiser did not have a right to bring a class-action lawsuit because he was bound by an arbitration agreement that came inside the packaging along with the computer he bought on the Dell Web site.

According to Buchanan, Fiser brought a class-action suit four years ago because his total monetary loss of $10 to $20 for the storage space meant it wasn't economically feasible for him to file an individual lawsuit.

UnitedHealth cuts 4,000 jobs

MINNEAPOLIS — UnitedHealth Group Inc. on Wednesday announced a lower profit outlook, a restructuring that will trim 4,000 jobs and a $900 million payout to settle a class-action lawsuit over options backdating.

UnitedHealth said its restructuring would change operations on every level to focus more on regional coverage.

Analysts saw the announcements as perhaps the end of a long rough patch for UnitedHealth, the nation's second-largest health insurer.

The company has been wrestling since 2006 with the backdating scandal, which led to the forced departure of chief executive officer Bill McGuire, who helped build UnitedHealth into a managed-care powerhouse.

Factory orders see 0.6 percent gain

WASHINGTON — Orders to U.S. factories turned in the slowest performance in three months in May as a surge in demand for commercial aircraft was not enough to offset weakness in autos, heavy machinery and steel.

Factory orders rose by 0.6 percent in May, less than half the gains turned in during April and March, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. It was the poorest showing since factory orders had fallen by 0.4 percent in February.

Analysts said the figures for the past three months have been inflated by big increases in the cost of refined petroleum and related products such as chemicals, which have been soaring because of rising global oil prices.