Business news in brief

A federal appeals court has ruled that Robert Stinson Jr., who last year started serving a 33-year sentence for defrauding at least 263 investors of more than $17 million, should receive a new sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia said U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson erred in applying a fraud enhancement to Stinson's sentence relating to his victimization of a financial institution. Starting in 2006, Stinson operated an investment fund, based in Philadelphia, called Life's Good S.T.A.B.L. Mortgage Fund L.L.C., which supposedly gave short-term mortgages to people who were rehabbing houses but in reality operated as a Ponzi scheme. - Harold Brubaker

A Dallas, Texas, private-equity firm, Panda Power Funds, is acquiring Moxie Energy's planned Liberty Generating Station in Bradford County, Pa., billed as the first power plant developed to use natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation. The 829-megawatt plant will produce enough power to supply one million homes. Panda will immediately start construction on the 33-acre site in Asylum Township and expects operations to begin by early 2016. The plant will contain twin combined-cycle Siemens gas turbines, manufactured in North Carolina. The generators will be cooled with air rather than water, eliminating the plant's potential impact on the Susquehanna River. Panda did not disclose a purchase price. It said the plant would contribute about $1.2 billion to the area's economy during construction and the first decade of operation. About 500 jobs will be created to construct the plant, which will employ 27 people to operate. - Andrew Maykuth

Hershey Co. should not be forced to turn over child-labor records for African cocoa farms to investors considering suing directors over the company's purchase of those suppliers' beans, Delaware Chancery Court master Abigail LeGrow has concluded. Lawyers for a Louisiana pension fund could not produce "credible evidence" of mismanagement tied to Hershey's cocoa-supply chain to support requests for files focused on what company executives knew about the labor force at Ghana and Ivory Coast cocoa plantations, LeGrow said in a ruling last Friday. The fund's suit provides no facts "from which I logically can draw the conclusion Hershey has knowledge of illegal activity," she said. "A stockholder's disagreement with a business decision is not evidence of wrongdoing." - Bloomberg News

MF Global Inc., the defunct broker headed by former New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine, cannot get court approval for a settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission until the firm determines whether an admission of wrongdoing will cause insurers to deny coverage to its directors and officers. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in Manhattan on Thursday ordered a trustee for MF Global to try to resolve the issue with insurers. If that effort fails, the trustee may have to pursue litigation, Glenn said. The settlement over MF Global's collapse calls for the company to repay customers in full and pay a $100 million civil penalty if it has money left over. MF Global Holdings Ltd., the brokerage's parent company, filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011, after a $6.3 billion bet on bonds of some of Europe's most indebted nations. Glenn said the CFTC seems to be joining the Securities and Exchange Commission in steering away from settlement language in which parties neither admit or deny wrongdoing. - Bloomberg News

Pennsylvanians made up a smaller share of new workers in the local shale-gas industry in 2012, according to industry data released this week, underscoring a shift from drilling to pipeline work. State residents accounted for 56.8 percent of new hires among drillers, pipeline companies, and contractors in the Marcellus Shale Coalition. That's down from 72 percent the year prior, according to annual surveys the group does of its workforce. Drilling rigs have left parts of the state for gas fields in Ohio, which contributed 19 percent of the new workforce in 2012, up 6 percentage points. Pennsylvania also has shifted to more pipeline work and does not have the skilled welders that sector needs, said the coalition's John Augustine. Pipeline welding requires from 15 to 20 years of experience, he said. - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

After reporting its sixth straight quarter of big losses and steep revenue declines, J.C. Penney Co. is adopting a plan to prevent a takeover attempt. It's the second time in recent years that the retailer has had a "poison pill" plan that could be put into effect should an individual or entity acquire 10 percent or more of the company's outstanding stock. The strategy allows existing shareholders to buy more shares at a very low price if that occurs. - AP

Average U.S. rates for fixed mortgages rose this week to their highest levels since July 2011, driven by heightened speculation that the Federal Reserve will slow its bond purchases later this year. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan jumped to 4.58 percent, up from 4.40 percent last week. The average on the 15-year fixed loan rose to 3.60 percent from 3.44 percent. - AP

The U.S. Small Business Administration has partnered with Microsoft to help small-business owners use technology to run their businesses more efficiently. Business Technology Simplified is a free online course that teaches small-business owners the benefits of using modern technology, including in expanding their customer base through exporting. The course is available at http://www.sba.gov/sba-learning-center/series/business-technology-simplified. - Diane Mastrull

To form part of a new linear accelerator at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America facility in the city's Juniata Park section, about 40 trucks poured 400 cubic yards of concrete Thursday morning. The walls range in thickness from three feet to seven feet, said Julia Scherer, a spokeswoman for the hospital. To ensure the integrity of the structure, the construction company used 26 temperature probes and 800 pounds of ice to keep the concrete at the proper temperature and will continue monitoring it for three days, Scherer said. The linear accelerator, used to deliver radiation therapy to cancerous tumors, is part of a $40 million hospital expansion expected to be completed in January. - Harold Brubaker