Also . . .

Qwest Communications International Inc., the No. 4 U.S. long-distance carrier, said it won a $1-billion subcontract to upgrade the Treasury Department’s communications system.

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Coopers & Lybrand “lost the plot” when auditing Robert Maxwell’s business empire and must pay a record penalty of about $5.4 million, according to the Joint Disciplinary Tribunal, a British accounting watchdog. Maxwell’s companies folded under huge debts in 1991, after the tycoon’s death exposed a web of fraud, including the use of pension fund assets as unsecured loans for his struggling companies. Coopers & Lybrand--now part of PriceWaterhouseCoopers--was fined $1.92 million and made to pay $3.36 million in costs for failing to report rule breaches by Maxwell-owned companies. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which accepted the findings, said it had fallen short of its own standards but stressed it had already made a contribution to make up the shortfall for Maxwell pensioners.

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Former Donnkenny Inc. Chairman Richard F. Rubin and two other former senior executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges that they inflated the sportswear company’s revenue to meet analysts’ forecasts. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., charged Rubin, former Donnkenny Chief Financial Officer Edward Creevy, and former Controller Ronald Hollandsworth with conspiracy to commit securities fraud from 1994 to August 1996. New York-based Donnkenny, which makes women’s sportswear under labels such as Pierre Cardin, settled separate Securities and Exchange Commission charges by agreeing to be subject to stiffer sanctions if it commits similar violations.