Business briefs: Wal-Mart leadership stays in family

Wal-Mart is keeping it all in the family. Greg Penner, vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s board of directors, has been elected board chairman, the company said Friday.

Penner succeeds Rob Walton, who served as chairman of the board since 1992 and will stay on as a director. Walton, 70, is also Penner’s father-in-law and son of company founder Sam Walton, who died in 1992.

“I’m deeply honored to follow in his footsteps and recognize the deep responsibility I have to our associates, all shareholders and the board,” Penner said in a statement.

Penner assumed his new role at the end of Friday’s annual shareholders meeting. He is only the third person to serve as chairman.

The 45-year-old has a master’s degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University. Penner began his career as a corporate finance analyst for investment bank Goldman Sachs and later served as a general partner at Peninsula Capital Partners in Detroit.

He also has a long history with Wal-Mart, first as a management trainee and later holding positions at walmart.com and Wal-Mart Japan. He joined the company’s board of directors in 2008.

Lloyds meted record fine for handling of complaints

LONDON – British regulatory authorities have fined Lloyds $180 million for treating customers unfairly in dealing with complaints on payment protection insurance.

The Financial Conduct Authority says the fine levied Friday on Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland and Black Horse was its largest retail fine ever. The authority says that between March 2012 and May 2013, Lloyds rejected 37 percent of customer complaints relating to 2.3 million policies.

Lloyds has apologized and qualified for a discount for settling early. The authority says Lloyds has made significant progress and has established a remediation program.

Fed leader, House lawmaker remain at odds on documents

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is balking at turning over some of the documents ordered by a key House lawmaker in his investigation of a possible leak of market-sensitive information.

Yellen has told Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who heads the House Financial Services Committee, that she can’t provide some documents sought by his subpoena because that could jeopardize a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

The move escalated a months-long battle between the Fed chair and the lawmaker over an alleged leak in 2012 of interest-rate information to a financial newsletter.

Hensarling issued a subpoena to the Fed last month, saying it had failed to respond adequately to the panel’s questions and requests for documents.

Mazda says older vehicles part of air bag recalls

DETROIT – Mazda is recalling nearly 540,000 older cars and pickup trucks in the U.S. and Canada, adding to the growing list of models under recall for air bags that potentially can explode with too much force.

The Japanese automaker said in documents posted Friday by U.S. and Canadian safety regulators that it is recalling nearly 503,000 cars to fix driver air bags and 35,000 small pickup trucks to fix passenger air bags.

Affected models with potentially faulty driver air bags are the 2003-2008 Mazda 6, 2006 to 2007 MazdaSpeed 6 and the 2004 to 2008 RX-8. The company also is recalling 2004-2006 B-Series pickup trucks to replace passenger side inflators.