Briefs

Yahoo! appointed Scott Thompson chief executive officer, four months after firing Carol Bartz for failing to drive a turnaround at the struggling Internet company. Thompson joins Yahoo from EBay’s PayPal unit, where he served as president, expanding the payment platform to mobile phones and in foreign markets. His background is in financial technology companies rather than media- and content-driven businesses. The incoming CEO will need to boost visitors to Yahoo’s sites and draw more advertisers while deciding which assets to sell. Meanwhile, Microsoft and at least two private equity firms are sizing up a possible bid for a stake in Yahoo, say people close to the companies.

An appeals court in Ecuador upheld an $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron for pollution in the Amazon decades ago. The company had appealed a February trial-court ruling that it was responsible for toxic wastewater dumped in the jungle from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001. Ecuador President Rafael Correa praised the ruling. Chevron, in a statement, said the decision is not enforceable. It is pursuing arbitration at the Hague and suing the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the case in U.S. federal court.