1.   Also, the company avoids a reputation for being soft on creditors.

2.   An all-stock purchase by Time Warner would enable that company to avoid adding to its debt burden, while increasing its cash flow.

3.   As competitors, the two companies had carefully avoided each other, so there would be little overlap among their assets.

4.   Because Bio-Form breaks down into harmless components, the companies also avoid the kind of lawsuits many have run into charging them with contaminating their work site.

5.   Because shareholders could sue a company by arguing that they were misled by glowing company predictions, companies often avoided releasing much meaningful information.

6.   Before the indictments, Morgenthau added, almost all major national sanitation companies avoided the city because of threats of violence and unfair business practices.

7.   A body of the World Trade Organization has ruled that the United States must scrap a law that allows companies to avoid paying taxes on some overseas sales.

8.   A few fund companies avoid the practice, called directed brokerage.

9.   After failing to deliver on its ambitious plans to enter interactive television, the company now avoids such predictions.

10.   After talking with officials of Financial Cafe.com, Pelino said it was not clear to her how the company could avoid losing money on each free trade.