Magistrate Judge Darlene Smiths order said state law bans the video gaming machines created by HEST Technologies that were confiscated by the Beaufort County Sheriffs Office in September from a Bluffton operation.

She also ordered that the confiscated machines be destroyed.

Other magistrates across the state have reached a different conclusion, with five of them ruling in favor of HEST and similar machine manufacturers from Greenville to Richland counties, according to court documents.

Smiths order said the machines are illegal because they offer games of chance and customers pay to play, even if they dont insert money or tokens into the machines.

At the store, players would participate in the sweepstakes by making a donation to charity or requesting a free entry from a clerk, with up to four free entries offered per customer per day. The clerk would then give the customers a randomly generated pin number that determined if they won money.

The players could collect money on the spot from the clerk if the number was a winner or use it to play games on a computer that revealed if they won.

Smith ruled the pin number is the thing of value and deemed the clerk at the register an extension of the machine, and just a means to avoid depositing money directly.

Instead of having a coin slot, they had a clerk accepting money, said Carra Henderson, 14th Judicial Circuit assistant solicitor, who argued the case for the state. Instead of placing a bet, they called it a donation. Instead of having a lever on a machine, they used a mouse to click a start button.

HEST can dress things up as much as they want, but the bottom line is that these machines were being used as a tool for gambling.

At a Feb. 8 hearing before Smith, HEST attorney Johnny Gasser argued that the video gaming machines are legal because they dont accept or pay out money and the games they feature have no bearing on a players chances of winning. A HEST representative compared them to sweepstakes offered by McDonalds and other businesses, with predetermined prizes available only in a finite pool.

Gasser declined to comment on the ruling and said he is discussing what legal options to pursue next with his clients. Attempts Wednesday to reach HEST president Chris Canard and HEST spokeswoman Shannon Canard were unsuccessful.

Authorities have said the legality of sweepstakes and other video gaming machines probably will be decided in state Supreme Court because of differing magistrate opinions.

SC Law Enforcement Division director Mark Keel has said a statewide crackdown on the machines is being delayed as their legality is debated in court rulings and appeals.

A bill in the General Assembly also seeks to specifically outlaw the new breed of video gaming machines.

Duffie Stone, 14th Circuit solicitor, said Tuesday he is reviewing whether to bring criminal charges against HEST, in addition to the forfeiture proceedings decided by Smith. Misdemeanor charges of possession of unlawful gaming devices against a HEST employee, a 36-year-old Ridgeland woman who was working at the store at the time of the raid, also are pending, Stone said.

Follow reporter Allison Stice at twitter.com/LCBlotter.

* UKs Hoban says to focus on lowering credit costs

* Small businesses deterred by credit costs, tough
conditions

By Fiona Shaikh

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Britains top banks fell
short of their government targets to lend to small businesses
last year, official data showed on Monday, dealing a blow to the
Conservative-led coalitions hopes of removing a barrier to
economic recovery.

The Project Merlin deal had obliged banks to meet fixed
lending targets in recompense for state aid during the financial
crisis, and banks failure to meet their goal will raise
pressure on the government to toughen its stance on the sector.

Prime Minister David Camerons government is already under
fire for not doing enough to curb bank bonuses at a time when
many borrowers are being hit by punitive bank charges.

The government is looking to the private sector to drive
economic growth as it cuts spending. Since the 2007/08 financial
crisis, many smaller firms have found it hard to borrow to
expand, and they complain that Project Merlin failed to help
them enough.

Britains finance ministry has already said it will not
extend the agreement, and will replace it with a loan guarantee
scheme aimed at lowering the cost of borrowing for small firms.

The Bank of England said the five banks that signed up to the
Merlin agreement failed to meet their target for lending to
small and medium-sized businesses, making 74.9 billion pounds
($118 billion) available, below the 76 billion pound target.

However, banks beat their overall 190 billion pound target,
making available a total 214.9 billion pounds. The figures
confirm data from the British Bankers Association on Friday.

Treasury minister Mark Hoban said the Merlin scheme had at
least encouraged banks to bring forward lending. What we need
to do now is focus on … how we actually reduce the cost of
credit to businesses, he told Sky television.

TIGHT CREDIT

The government had hoped that its Merlin deal with Royal
Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, HSBC,
Barclays and Santander UK would boost private
sector investment to offset its own spending and job cuts.

But a survey by the Federation of Small Businesses showed
that the proportion of small businesses that have used a bank
overdraft or loan has fallen in the past two years.

Critics of the Merlin scheme argued that the targets were of
little use as they only measured gross lending, not net new
lending, and gauged only credit facilities made available,
rather than how much money has actually been lent. The BoEs own
data showed net lending fell by 9.6 billion pounds last year.

These targets were fairly meaningless in the first place
and there are plenty of reasons to expect credit growth to
remain a constraint on the economic recovery for a while yet,
said Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics.

Britains EEF manufacturers organisation said the high cost
of borrowing and stringent terms and conditions for bank loans
had deterred many small firms from seeking credit.

The governments Credit Easing initiatives will be
challenging to implement but seem to offer a prospect of making
some improvement on access to finance, EEF chief economist Lee
Hopley said of the loan guarantee scheme.

• There is an increasing focus on the lending of fixed income securities in the Australian market, according to eSecLending, a leading global securities lending agent.

  “While equities are still being lent and demand exists there is a shift toward more focus on the fixed income space in Australia,” says Giselle Awad, a senior vice president at eSecLending. “There has been a move towards introducing tri-party agents to the market, and that has brought more international players. The RBA [Reserve Bank of Australia] is very focused on the fixed interest space in the sense of bringing more liquidity to the market. There are a lot of high-grade assets that aren’t moving around the market. By introducing tri-party repo, having more participants and encouraging repo, it does help facilitate the general liquidity in the market.”

  There has been increased focus on lending and borrowing of fixed income assets driven by both domestic and international demand, Awad says.

  “I think it works both ways,” Awad says. “Superannuation funds are lending their fixed income assets, and there are offshore holders of Australian fixed income that are being encouraged to lend into the market. Insurance companies in Australia may also start to play a role because of the changes to APRA [Australian Prudential Regulation Authority] rules that they’re required to hold more fixed income on their balance sheets.”

  The Australian demand for fixed income assets to borrow is driven by market need to meet collateral obligations. Awad also points to the potential for the Australian market to then move on to lending cash in repo transactions, noting that Australia could follow on from developments in the US, in which corporate institutions that are long on cash are deriving additional revenue by using the cash in a repo transaction.

  “This hasn’t been a focus in the Australian market as yet, but it’s applicable,” she says. “For Australia, they’re just expanding on the fixed income market and building the infrastructure, which needs to happen before cash can be placed.”

  Meanwhile, eSecLending’s new ProxyValue service has attracted attention from clients in Australia. ProxyValue was launched last month in conjunction with Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) to provide clients with information to balance the objectives of generating revenue through securities lending versus the corporate governance responsibilities of proxy voting.

  “We found that there was nothing out there that says to the beneficial owner, ‘Here is a situation when you need to vote the proxy versus the profitability of the loan,’” says Peter Bassler, managing director of eSecLending. “As the fiduciary or the fund manager, you want to demonstrate strong corporate governance, and you want to generate the return. This gives the tools to manage the information on both of those competing objectives. It allows a client to set the metrics so they can customise on how they want to use this. It addresses a need – proxy voting is the one major right for a long holder that you give up when you loan your securities.”

  Awad notes that ProxyValue should fit well into the Australian market.

  “It has piqued interest, and it’s a service that we’re providing to clients for them to better manage the process and fulfil their fiduciary duties,” Awad says. “This might be one variable that might help potential clients make a decision in our favour, because it’s distinct to services in the custodial model. Australian funds do take corporate governance and voting obligations seriously, so it is something they’re interested in, and they’re familiar with ISS.”

  (RA)

If you have any comments about this story or news tips, contact Christopher Gohlke in New York at cgohlke@globalcustodian.com or Janet Du Chenne in London at jduchenne@globalcustodian.com.

Radar warning, electronic countermeasures (ECM) and electronics
intelligence (ELINT) systems rely on critical measurements to identify
threats, map the electronic battlefield and ultimately implement
deceptive countermeasures

“Radar warning, electronic countermeasures (ECM) and electronics
intelligence (ELINT) systems rely on critical measurements to identify
threats, map the electronic battlefield and ultimately implement
deceptive countermeasures,” said Ian Dunn, Vice President of Mercury’s
Microwave and Digital Solutions Group. “To meet these critical
requirements, Mercury is delivering two new small form factor,
high-performance RF tuning and digitization XMC solutions that
underscore our leadership in leveraging state-of-the-art technologies
packaged for extreme density on SWaP-constrained environments. The
RFM-251-XMC Tuner features a high dynamic range, low phase noise and
fast tuning speed that support a very high probability of intercept, and
the Wideband DCM-V6-XMC Digital Transceiver’s ultra-high-speed digitizer
and on-board FPGA excel at signal processing and data movement,” Dunn
continued.

Part of Mercury’s renowned Echotek^® Series, the RFM-251-XMC
Tuner supports a broad frequency range from 20 MHz to 2.5 GHz,
converting detected signals to digital IF. The IF is pre-digitized via a
high fidelity analog-to-digital converter and routed onto a Virtex-6
Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) for filtering and protocol
processing. The Echotek Series DCM-V6-XMC Digital Transceiver combines
the latest wideband high-performance Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC)
with a high-speed, high-resolution Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) and
dual Virtex-6 FPGAs. It features direct digitization of L-Band signals
and can operate as an ultra high-speed transceiver. Both XMCs are
available in ruggedized versions.

For more information, visit mc.com/microwave-rf
or contact Mercury at (866) 627-6951 or info@mc.com.

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. – Where Challenges Drive Innovation^®

Mercury Computer Systems (www.mc.com,
NASDAQ: MRCY) is a best-of-breed provider of open, commercially
developed, application-ready, multi-INT subsystems for defense prime
contractors. With over 30 years of experience in embedded computing,
superior domain expertise in radar, EW, EO/IR, C4I and sonar
applications, and more than 300 successful program deployments including
Aegis, Global Hawk and Predator, Mercury’s Services and Systems
Integration (SSI) team leads the industry in partnering with customers
to design and integrate system-level solutions that minimize program
risk, maximize application portability and accelerate customers’ time to
market.

Mercury is based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and serves customers
worldwide through a broad network of direct sales offices, subsidiaries
and distributors.

Forward-Looking Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, as that
term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995,
including those relating to the products and services provided for the
products and services described above. You can identify these statements
by the use of the words “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “plans,”
“expects,” “anticipates,” “continue,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,”
“likely,” “probable, “and similar expressions. These forward-looking
statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such
risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general
economic and business conditions, including unforeseen weakness in the
Company’s markets, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional
conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing,
delays in completing engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in
customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in
technological advances and delivering technological innovations,
continued funding of defense programs, the timing of such funding,
changes in the US Government’s interpretation of federal procurement
rules and regulations, market acceptance of the Companys products,
shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality
issues with outsourced components, inability to fully realize the
expected benefits from acquisitions and divestitures or delays in
realizing such benefits, challenges in integrating acquired businesses
and achieving anticipated synergies, changes to export regulations,
increases in tax rates, changes to generally accepted accounting
principles, difficulties in retaining key employees and customers,
unanticipated costs under fixed-price service and system integration
engagements, and various other factors beyond our control. These risks
and uncertainties also include such additional risk factors as are
discussed in the Companys filings with the US Securities and Exchange
Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year
ended June 30, 2011. The Company cautions readers not to place undue
reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as
of the date made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any
forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the
date on which such statement is made.

Challenges Drive Innovation, Ensemble and Echotek are registered
trademarks and Application Ready Subsystem and ARS are trademarks of
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned
may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective
holders.

The KivuWatt lending group includes the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), the African Development Bank, and Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries NV/SA (BIO).#xA0; This award represents the third consecutive African Power Deal of the Year prize for ContourGlobal.

Located at Lake Kivu in Rwanda, the KivuWatt project is an integrated methane gas extraction and production facility and associated 25 MW power plant.#xA0; When completed later this year, the project will raise and process methane gas trapped deep in the waters of Lake Kivu for use as fuel to generate critically needed electricity for the people of Rwanda, while simultaneously safely removing harmful lake gases.#xA0; KivuWatt greatly mitigates the environmental hazards associated with the natural release of these gases, reducing the risk to the two million people who live around the lake. Phase I of the project will cost approximately $142 million to complete of which $91.25 million was financed by the lending group. The effort represents the first large-scale use of the gas and will be followed by three more phases reaching 100 MW.

This award recognizes the groundbreaking nature of the KivuWatt project and the commitment and hard work of the financing team, including Norton Rose and Clifford Chance, who produced an innovative financing that will enable a safe, low cost, and environmentally friendly source of power generation.#xA0;

Joseph C. Brandt, President and Chief Executive Officer of ContourGlobal, said: We are grateful for this recognition of our innovative and path-breaking KivuWatt project and are delighted to share this award with our finance and legal partners without whom this much needed project would not have been realized.#xA0; We look forward to bringing Phase I of KivuWatt into operation later this year.

Tim Turner, Director, Private Sector Operations at the African Development Bank, said: The AfDB is proud to support this project which is an example of how to adapt an advanced technology to a unique country situation: the methane which lies beneath Lake Kivu will be converted into critical electricity for Rwandans, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

From Orli Arav, Head of Project Finance at EAIF, Frontier Markets Fund Managers, fund manager of the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund, is extremely proud to be the co- lead arranger for this pioneering transaction that will transform the Rwandan power sector.

Huub Cornelissen, Director Energy and Housing said: FMO is delighted that the KivuWatt project has received this prestigious award for this financing. KivuWatt will provide affordable power using an indigenous renewable gas resource and will improve reliability and electricity access rates. It is delighted that its role of co-arranger is appreciated though this award, which fits well within FMOs mission.

Alain De Muyter, Head of Infrastructure Department at BIO, said: BIO is particularly proud to be part of this financing in Rwanda, a partner country of the Belgian Development Cooperation.

About ContourGlobal

ContourGlobal is a New York based international power company with 2,730 megawatts of installed gross capacity in operation or under construction in 14 countries.#xA0; Founded#xA0; in late 2005 by Chief Executive Officer Joseph Brandt and Reservoir Capital Group, a $5billion investment fund based in New York, ContourGlobals 1,500 people develop and operate electric power generation facilities in high-growth, under-served markets and innovative niches within developed markets.

For more information, visit www.contourglobal.com.

About the African Development Bank (AfDB)

The AfDB is a multilateral development bank whose shareholders comprise 53 African countries (regional member countries #x2013; RMCs) and 24 non-African countries (non-Regional Member Countries #x2013; non-RMCs). The Bank Groups primary objective is to contribute to the sustainable economic development and social progress of its regional members, individually and jointly. This objective is met by financing a broad range of development projects and programs through: (i) public sector loans (including policy-based loans), private sector loans, guarantees and equity investments; (ii) providing technical assistance for institutional support projects and programs; and (iii) emergency assistance grants. The Bank Group approvals in 2010 amounted to $6.5 billion. Through its private sector window, the AfDB provides a range of financial products to the private sector to complement its traditional lending operations to Governments, including financial and technical assistance for viable projects. Private Sector project approvals as at end of April 2011 reached $7.7 billion. Infrastructure, especially energy, is the core of Private Sector Operations priorities.#xA0;

About EAIF

The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) was established in January 2002 and is currently a $755 million debt fund. EAIF is a Public Private Partnership able to provide long-term USD or EUR denominated debt or mezzanine finance on commercial terms to finance the construction and development of private infrastructure in 47 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Sectors include telecoms, transport, water and power. #xA0;While EAIF lends on commercial terms, it aims to support projects that promote economic growth and reduce poverty, benefit broad-based population groups, address issues of equity and participation, and promote social, economic and cultural rights.

EAIF is managed by Frontier Markets Fund Managers, a division of Standard Bank Plc.

For more information visit the EAIF website www.emergingafricafund.com

About FMO

FMO (the Netherlands Development Finance Company) is the Dutch development bank. FMO supports sustainable private sector growth in developing and emerging markets by investing in ambitious entrepreneurs. FMO believes a strong private sector leads to economic and social development, empowering people to employ their skills and improve their quality of life. FMO focuses on four sectors that have high development impact: financial institutions, energy, housing, and agribusiness. With an investment portfolio of#xA0; EUR 5 billion, FMO is one of the largest bilateral private sector development banks.

For more information, please visit www.fmo.nl

SOURCE ContourGlobal

Georgian central bank keeps key lending rate unchanged at 6.5 pct