BUSINESS BRIEFS

Indexes rise on day of sluggish, mixed trading

Tech stocks were the standouts in an otherwise sluggish day of trading on Monday, as investors gear up for the arrival of the heart of earnings reporting season.

Apple, Intel and several chip makers jumped more than 2%, and technology stocks in the S&P 500 climbed 1.2%. But the other 10 sectors that make up the index were evenly split between gainers and losers, and none moved by more than 0.5%.

Microsoft pays $25 million to settle corruption charges

Microsoft is paying more than $25 million to settle federal corruption charges involving a bribery scheme in its Hungary office and three other foreign subsidiaries.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says Microsoft will pay about $16.6 million to settle charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act involving its operations in Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Turkey.

The Justice Department says Microsoft will also pay an $8.75 million criminal fine stemming from the Hungarian bid-rigging and bribery scheme, which involved Microsoft licenses sold to government agencies and falsely recorded as discounts.

Volvo recalls some 500,000 vehicles because of faulty engine part

Volvo Cars is recalling about half a million cars worldwide because of a faulty engine component that may in extreme cases cause a vehicle to catch a fire.

The Swedish carmaker said Monday the affected cars are 2-liter, fourcylinder diesel engines manufactured between 2014 and 2019 in the following models: S60, S80, S90, V40, V60, V70, V90, XC60 and XC90.