(12-19) 10:00 PST New York (AP) —

“Deeply disappointing” fourth-quarter writedowns have Morgan Stanley Chief Executive John Mack bypassing his year-end bonus Д and he is unlikely to be the only Wall Street CEO giving up tens of millions of dollars in holiday money.

Morgan Stanley said it was forced to take $9.4 billion in writedowns during its fourth fiscal quarter, which ended Nov. 30, because of bad bets on securities backed by mortgages.

“Ultimately, accountability for our results rests with me, and I believe in pay for performance, so I’ve told our compensation committee that I will not accept a bonus for 2007,” Mack said in a statement.

Mack received a stock and option bonus in 2006 that, at the time of the award, was worth $40 million.

Top executives at Bear Stearns Cos., including Chief Executive James Cayne, may forego year-end bonuses as well, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. Bear Stearns will report its results for the quarter Thursday morning.

Like Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns is expected to report losses and billions of dollars in writedowns for its fiscal fourth quarter.

It is not all bad news for all Wall Street executives, though. Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Richard Fuld will receive a $35 million stock award as an end-of-the-year bonus.

Lehman Brothers said last week its fourth-quarter profit was $870 million, as it was able to negate most of its $3.5 billion in writedowns through hedging.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has yet to announce how much its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, will receive, but some reports estimate he will take home as much as $70 million.

Goldman Sachs was largely able to avoid the mortgage market mess that has plagued its competitors in recent months.

Though he will not officially receive an year-end bonus, Merrill Lynch & Co.’s new CEO, John Thain, took home a $15 million cash bonus just for taking the job. Thain took over as CEO Dec. 1.

Thain replaced Stanley O’Neal, who was forced to retire after the investment bank took nearly $8 billion in writedowns in the third quarter.

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AP Business Writer Joe Bel Bruno contributed to this report from New York.

(12-19) 10:05 PST Tallahassee, Fla. (AP) —

A judge has allowed Florida’s quarantine to stand against the shipment of California citrus into the state.

Florida agriculture officials ordered the quarantine on Dec. 7 to protect the state’s $11 billion citrus industry from a plant fungus called Septoria citri.

Circuit Judge William Gary denied a temporary injunction sought by California citrus growers. He ruled in part that they had failed to show the quarantine is unconstitutional or that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm pending final resolution of the case.

The quarantine requires California fruit to be inspected and treated with a fungicide before it can be shipped to Florida.

The citrus industries in the two states are about equal in size, but most of Florida’s oranges are turned into juice, while the bulk of California’s crop is sold as fresh fruit.

A senior civil servant was jailed for 18 months today after using London Underground’s “Monty Pythonesque” fare refund scheme to feed his spiralling gambling addiction.

Trushar Patel, 30, who worked for former deputy prime minister John Prescott, recruited his wife, brother and mother to fill out thousands of customer charter forms and pocket 22,000.

Using their own names, as well as a string of aliases, they spent years pretending they had suffered an average of eight delays a day on the Jubilee Line.

Once the refunds had been delivered to their home in Honeypot Lane, Stanmore, Middlesex, they were used to the buy travel cards, which were then exchanged for refunds.

London’s Southwark crown court heard that although many of the details provided on applications were false, it was not until they had received 7,105 vouchers that the scam was uncovered.

“The refund policy of London Underground is operated under a customer charter scheme which enables refunds to be made to passengers if their journey is more than 15 minutes late,” said Francis Sheridan, prosecuting.

“As a scheme there is no doubt that it was a positive idea which encouraged efficiency within London Underground in that it was an incentive to ensure tubes ran on time.

“It was a good idea for customers in that those genuinely delayed would be properly compensated. That was the thinking behind the scheme.

“But that having been said, when it comes to its implementation it is right to say it was naive in its conception, it was naive in its execution, it was naivety beyond belief.

“The evidence in this case suggests the administration of this scheme was a complete shambles of Monty Pythonesque proportions,” said the barrister.

He continued: “The information on the forms was incomplete and still processed. The information on the forms was false and still processed.

“No checks were carried out on the tubes claimed for, let alone checks on whether they were late or how many of the given tubes were delayed on any given day.”

In the dock with Patel were his pregnant wife, Dipti, 25, and his mother, Hansaben, 53 - who both had their nine-month prison sentences suspended for two years - and his brother, Jital, 29, who was jailed for 12 months.

All pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to procure the execution of a valuable security between April 2004 and September last year.

The two men also admitted plotting to launder the proceeds of criminal conduct.