Free Republic

PPG said job cuts are part of company's cost reduction plan PPG — a global manufacturer of paints, coatings, and specialty materials — is laying off nearly 2,000 workers as it trims operation costs and sells off a chunk of its architectural business. The cuts will impact about 1,800 positions, primarily in the U.S. and Europe. PPG didn't disclose when the layoffs would occur. The Pittsburgh-based company said it is part of a comprehensive cost reduction program focused on reducing structural costs primarily in Europe and in certain other global businesses, along with other corporate costs. The program also includes...

Ed Baiden, who heads PPG’s traffic solution business, calls it “the beauty of our system in the U.S.” that each state has its own shade of yellow paint for road markings. “There’s a Kentucky yellow, a Pennsylvania yellow, an Iowa yellow,” Mr. Baiden said. And while the federal highway administration has spent years mulling a change in the width of those yellow stripes from a minimum of 4 inches to 6 inches, 24 states have already adopted the wider standard. And the rest are headed in that direction. And that means PPG gets to sell a lot more insert-state-here yellow...

A Chinese company has agreed to pay a penalty of $3 million after pleading guilty to the charges of illegally exporting high-performance coating to Pakistan's Chashma nuclear power plant, US federal authorities said. Headquartered in Nanjing, the Chinese firm Huaxing agreed to the maximum criminal fine of  $2 million, $1 million of which will be stayed pending its successful completion of five years of corporate probation. Huaxing was building Chashma II Nuclear Power Plant in Pakistan as part of a nuclear cooperation pact between China and Pakistan. Chashma II is owned by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, which is an...

Xun Wang, a former Managing Director of PPG Paints Trading, has been indicted on a charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Export Administration Regulations.She is accused of exporting and reexporting high-performance epoxy coatings to the Chashma 2 Nuclear Power Plant in Pakistan.She is a Chinese national and lawful permanent resident of the United States.In 2006, PPG sought an export license for the shipments of coatings to Chashma II. The Department of Commerce denied that license application. Following that denial, Wang and her co-conspirators agreed upon a scheme to export and reexport the high-performance...