Business Briefs: Buena Vista Games, DirecTV, Southwest Water

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– Walt Disney Co.’s Buena Vista Games

purchased video-game developer Avalanche Software for an undisclosed price and opened a studio in Vancouver to be run by the former Canadian staff of Electronic Arts Inc., Burbank-based Disney said in a press release today. The terms of the acquisition were not released.


Avalanche Software, which employs more than 100 artists, programmers and game designers, will operate as a division of Buena Vista Games and will maintain its development studio in Salt Lake City.


The new studio in Vancouver, which will develop games for existing video game consoles and next-generation platforms, will be run by Electronic Arts staffers who helped create the successful NBA Street and Def Jam franchises.



– DirecTV Group Inc.

filed a federal lawsuit against 12 people, including 10 former company customer service agents, in Texas for their alleged involvement in a scheme to defraud the company. The El Segundo-based satellite TV company said it believes the individuals created accounts with false information and linked access cards to existing accounts that allowed others to receive DirecTV programming for free.


DirecTV said the suit was the result of an internal investigation into improper activities at a call center in Pharr, Texas, run by a third party. The call center employees implicated in the fraud have either been fired or suspended. This is the fourth federal lawsuit involving allegations of fraud filed by DirecTV in the past seven months.



– Southwest Water Co.

acquired the business of Novus Utility Services, Inc., a water contract services company based in Birmingham, Ala., in an effort to increase its market presence in the southeastern U.S. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ed Becker, who founded Novus Utility Services in 1991, will remain as president of the acquired business, which Southwest Water has renamed Novus Utilities Inc.

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