Business news in brief

Drivers for UberBlack, the on-demand limousine service that operates legally in Philadelphia, protested Tuesday in Center City against UberX, a sister service operated by private auto drivers, which is operating in defiance of a ban by the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The UberBlack drivers complained that UberX's cheaper service was taking their business away. Jon Feldman, Philadelphia manager for Uber Technolonogies Inc., met with the drivers and said business would grow for both services. He blamed the taxi industry and the PPA as fomenting discord among UberBlack drivers. - Paul Nussbaum

The large electrical units that will power Keystone NAP's data center at U.S. Steel Corp.'s former Fairless Works in Falls Township, Bucks County, will arrive from Raleigh, N.C., next month after being manufactured by Schneider Electric. The first of several custom-built "KeyBlock" 400-kilowatt modular units will be combined to hold data from area corporations. Keystone NAP's Peter Ritz said the site's proximity to power companies and big data customers makes it appealing. An island on the site adds security. - Joseph N. DiStefano

Essent Group Ltd., a Bermuda-based holding company that operates a mortgage insurance business from Radnor via its wholly-owned subsidiary Essent Guaranty Inc., announced a public offering. It is offering six million common shares and certain shareholders are offering six million common shares. The company said it would use the cash for general corporate purposes, but would not get any money from the sale of shares by current shareholders. - Inquirer staff

Malvern-based Liberty Property Trust said it acquired a distribution property in Southern California for $27.3 million, and sold six properties in Texas and Minnesota for $70.7 million. - Inquirer staff

AstraZeneca P.L.C. chief executive officer Pascal Soriot asked investors for patience with his growth strategy as he outlined drug development plans a week before Pfizer Inc. is allowed to make another takeover attempt. Both drug companies have operations in the Philadelphia region. U.K.-based AstraZeneca remains committed to increasing revenue 75 percent to $45 billion by 2023, Soriot said at a presentation for investors Tuesday. - Bloomberg News

Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., which has operations in New Jersey, sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for revoking the company's tentative approval to make generic versions of AstraZeneca P.L.C.'s top-selling heartburn pill Nexium and Roche Holding AG's antiviral drug Valcyte. The FDA said Nov. 4 that it made a mistake in 2008 by granting Ranbaxy tentative approval to make the generics, according to the complaint. - Bloomberg News

Some of the biggest U.S. lenders will pay more into a fund that protects customer accounts against bank failures under new rules approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC's board voted unanimously to revise how banks calculate assessments for the Deposit Insurance Fund. The change eliminates a practice that allowed as many as six banks to claim a "significant reduction in assessments" starting in the second quarter of this year, according to the FDIC. Banks will have to use a standard approach to measure counterparty risk instead of internal models that led to skewed calculations, according to the FDIC. The change goes into effect Jan. 1. - Bloomberg News

Taking a different approach than predecessor George W. Bush, President Obama is leaving it to ports and their workers to negotiate an agreement in a simmering labor dispute on the West Coast. The White House is monitoring the disagreement, which has resulted in a work slowdown by dockworkers, and does not plan to step in to force a resolution. - Bloomberg

ICANN, the gatekeeper for Web addresses, said government attempts to impose rules on the Internet are doomed to fail as the group seeks to end its own formal ties with the U.S. government. Governments cannot effectively enforce laws on websites available in different jurisdictions, ICANN chief executive officer Fadi Chehade said. ICANN's full name is the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. - Bloomberg

U.S. safety regulators are demanding that automakers and Takata Corp. expand nationwide a recall of vehicles with certain driver's-side air bags equipped with inflators that can erupt and send metal fragments into the passenger compartment. Previously, cars with the inflators have been recalled only in areas along the Gulf Coast with high humidity. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is basing its latest decision on an incident that happened outside those areas. - AP