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By VICTORIA MCGRANE And JESSICA HOLZER

WASHINGTON—James Dimon may have some explaining to do on Capitol Hill.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska, a Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said he wants the J.P. Morgan Chase

& Co. chief executive to expound on the bank’s $2 billion-plus trading loss.

Other lawmakers said they didn’t necessarily need Mr. Dimon in person but sought more details to clear up what happened at the largest U.S. bank by assets.

“We need to get the facts out,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), also a member of the banking committee, echoing calls for a hearing on the bank’s trading loss. On Monday, the panel’s Democratic chairman, Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, announced hearings on financial regulation at which the J.P. Morgan trading loss is “expected to be discussed,” but not a specific inquiry into the soured bets.

Five days after disclosure of the trading loss, some government officials struggled to determine whether the trading loss would have violated the “Volcker rule” provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law. The Volcker rule prohibits banks from trading with their own funds.

The trading loss puts Democrats in an awkward spot because many pushed for Wall Street rules, some of which still aren’t in place four years after the financial crisis. It puts Republicans in a tough place because they have pushed for less regulation. Some Republicans pointed out that the loss wasn’t too large to be absorbed by J.P. Morgan and that banks often face losses, no matter how they are regulated.

At a fiscal conference Tuesday in Washington, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the J.P. Morgan loss made “a very powerful case” for the tougher financial rules the Obama administration put into law.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R., Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said lawmakers need a “a clear picture of what happened at J.P. Morgan so that we can determine whether the actions that caused this loss pose risks to our financial markets and our economy as a whole.”

House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R., Ala.) said Tuesday his panel would hold a hearing on the trading loss. It was unclear if Mr. Dimon would be called to testify.

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday tabled a set of bills that would curtail the Dodd-Frank law’s rules on derivatives so they could “ensure there are no unintended consequences of the legislation,” said Frank Lucas (R., Okla.), chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. Mr. Lucas said the legislation wouldn’t have made a difference in regard to J.P. Morgan’s trading loss.

“As always, Washington has a tendency to overreact,” he said.

—Victoria McGrane,

Jessica Holzer, Jamila Trindle

and Kristina Peterson

contributed to this article.

Write to Victoria McGrane at victoria.mcgrane@wsj.com and Jessica Holzer at jessica.holzer@dowjones.com

By PAUL SONNE And CASSELL BRYAN-LOW

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson and former News International executive Rebekah Brooks are to appear at the U.K. government’s Leveson Inquiry into ethics and the press in London. WSJ’s Bruce Orwall discusses. Photo: AP

LONDON—Two ghosts from U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s past will appear this week before a judge-led inquiry into British media ethics here, setting the stage for potential political headaches just a week after the Conservative leader’s party was trounced in local elections.

The pair—Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks—are former British tabloid kingpins with close connections to Mr. Cameron who have been transformed from consummate insiders into political liabilities. The reason: They are at the center of a scandal over illicit reporting tactics at News International, News Corp.‘s

U.K. newspaper unit, where police are investigating allegations of voice-mail interception, bribery, computer hacking and obstruction of justice.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of News International, in a photo from July 2011.

Now, the media ethics inquiry, led by Lord Justice of Appeal Brian Leveson, is expected to explore the relationships Mr. Coulson and Ms. Brooks developed with Mr. Cameron and other politicians. Mr. Coulson, age 44, testifies Thursday; Ms. Brooks, 43, testifies Friday. In coming weeks, Mr. Cameron himself will testify.

Adding to the intrigue, their testimonies—which are under oath—could come alongside the release of new evidence requested by the inquiry. That has been the case for past testimonies.

The inquiry hasn’t said what evidence it requested or might reveal. But last week, the U.K. government requested and was granted advanced access to the evidence.

A spokesman for Mr. Cameron declined to comment on the requested evidence.

A spokeswoman for News International declined to comment. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Coulson was the editor at News Corp.’s now-closed News of the World before resigning in 2007 when a British court jailed his royals reporter and a private investigator on the tabloid’s payroll for illegal voice-mail interception.

At the time, Mr. Coulson said he was unaware of phone hacking but stepped down because it occurred on his watch. Six months later he became Mr. Cameron’s top communications adviser, a post he kept when the Conservative Party leader became prime minister. But Mr. Coulson stepped down from his government position in early 2011 after police reopened a criminal probe into the tabloid phone hacking.

Ms. Brooks—also a former News of the World editor and the former chief executive of News International—resigned last summer at the height of the phone-hacking scandal.

Ms. Brooks, a former top lieutenant of News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, ran the News of the World from 2000 to 2002, edited the Sun from 2003 to 2009, and then became chief executive of News International. She is part of the “Chipping Norton set,” a group of British elites that include Mr. Cameron and Mr. Murdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth, who keep homes and socialize near the Oxfordshire town of Chipping Norton.

The prime minister attended Eton College with Ms. Brooks’s husband, horse trainer Charlie Brooks, and has described him as a personal friend.

Just a few months after Ms. Brooks was appointed CEO of News International, the Sun—the unit’s influential weekday British tabloid—endorsed Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives, after years of supporting the Labour Party.

Mr. Cameron’s ties to both Rebekah and Charlie Brooks became a liability when the phone-hacking scandal mushroomed last summer, prompting Ms. Brooks’s resignation.

Both she and Mr. Coulson have been arrested in connection with the criminal investigation; neither has been charged.

A spokesman for Ms. Brooks on Wednesday said she denies wrongdoing.

Mr. Coulson didn’t return a call seeking comment on Wednesday and a spokesman declined to comment.

Ms. Brooks’s husband was also arrested in March on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. He hasn’t been charged. Last July, at the height of the scandal, security guards at the couple’s London apartment complex found his laptop in a parking lot trash can and turned it over to police. At the time, a spokesman for Ms. Brooks called the incident a mistake.

After the Leveson hearings last week, Mr. Cameron came to the defense of government minister Jeremy Hunt, who was accused of being too cozy with News Corp. while overseeing a regulatory review of its unsuccessful effort to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting Group

PLC last year.

An adviser to Mr. Hunt resigned last week but Mr. Hunt has said his own conduct was appropriate.

News Corp. executives have defended its lobbyist’s activities regarding BSkyB.

Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com and Cassell Bryan-Low at cassell.bryan-low@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 10, 2012, on page B4 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Former Tabloid Editors To Testify at Hearing.

By TERI EVANS

When Andrew Schuman bought Hammond’s Candies in 2007, the nearly 90-year-old candy company was operating in the red. Mr. Schuman, who says he knew nothing about the candy business, soon learned that an assembly-line worker, rather than an executive, had dreamed up the design of the company’s popular ribbon snowflake candy.

It was an “aha” moment, he says. “I thought, ‘wow, we have a lot of smart people back here, and we’re not tapping their knowledge.’ “

So last year Mr. Schuman decided to offer a $50 bonus to assembly-line workers who came up with successful ideas to cut manufacturing costs.

“They’re the ones making and packing the candy, so I thought they probably know how to do things better and more efficiently,” says Mr. Schuman, president of the Denver, Colo., company, which has about 90 employees.

The informal idea program, which is open to all Hammond’s Candies workers, has handed out more than $500 in employee bonuses since it began last year. One worker suggested a tweak in a machine gear that reduced workers needed on an assembly line to four from five.

Another employee devised a new way to protect candy canes while en route to stores, which resulted in a 4% reduction in breakage. “It’s these little tiny things that someone notices that help us in the long run,” says Mr. Schuman, who adds that the company was able to earn a profit this year.

Mike Hall

As more entrepreneurs turn to employees for innovation to gain even the slightest advantage in a still-sluggish economy, many are discovering the usefulness of cash incentives or other rewards to encourage workers to come forward with ideas. Particularly for small businesses with limited resources, it’s a relatively cheap way to gather “lots of ideas and get people proactively thinking about what would make the product, service or company better,” says David Hsu, entrepreneurship professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Mike Hall, chief executive of Borrego Solar Systems in San Diego, introduced two quarterly employee contests this year, each with a $500 prize. Beyond the competition, the company’s 55 employees are rated on innovation in their annual reviews.

One contest seeks the best business innovation, which Mr. Hall says must be formalized on paper to include the problem the idea solves, as well as its costs, risks and benefits.

The other competition rewards the best “knowledge brief,” which requires employees to share valuable information that can benefit the company as a whole. For example, one worker won for creating a glossary of acronyms in the solar industry.

“It accentuates the importance of disseminating knowledge and trying not to hold it in silos,” Mr. Hall says. Winners are determined by a companywide secret ballot.

Prof. Hsu says finding unique ways to reward employees for their ideas is a way to foster esprit de corps. “It’s why a lot of people work for small businesses in the first place; there’s a closer connection in the effort they put forward and the final product,” Prof. Hsu says.

Jared Heyman, founder of Infosurv, a market-research firm in Atlanta, says his company has long turned to employees for business ideas. “In every industry, as soon as one company creates an innovation everyone else is then playing catchup,” he says.

Five years ago, Mr. Heyman began awarding a $150 restaurant gift card every quarter to the employee with the best business idea. One employee won for developing a technology innovation that helped the company retain a major client that was about to jump ship.

“The [ideas] program has paid for itself a thousand times over,” Mr. Heyman says. “In terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement and efficiencies, it’s certainly in the six-figure range.”

This year, he upped the ante with a second contest, 100 Days of Innovation, in which the company’s 15 employees have to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year’s end in order to each receive a $100 reward. Employees write their ideas on post-it notes and stick them on the “Innovation Board,” created to provide a visual reminder.

“I think a lot of folks are motivated by the fact that if we fall short nobody wins anything,” Mr. Heyman says. “It reminds everybody that we work together and we’ll succeed or fail together.”

By PRASENJIT BHATTACHARYA

NEW DELHI – Indian road-building company IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd. is seeking to acquire highway projects from smaller construction firms to boost revenue, its chief financial officer Anil Yadav said Wednesday.

“IRB has already sought permission from its board to acquire a highway project in [the southern state of] Tamil Nadu,” he said.

Mr. Yadav was speaking after the company reported a nearly 17% rise in net profit for the fourth quarter through March to 1.20 billion rupees ($22.5 million) from 1.03 billion rupees a year earlier. Sales rose to 8.48 billion rupees from 7.67 billion rupees.

Mr. Yadav said the company would aim to acquire projects that have been operational for two to three years and collecting toll charges from users. “We are seeking projects where revenue is stable and growth prospects are good.”

The roads and highways segment has been the lone good performer in India’s infrastructure sector over the past year, as new projects continue to come up at regular intervals, unlike power generation, which has seen a dearth of greenfield plants. The federal government is keen to build 20 kilometers of highways a day as it seeks to ease traffic congestion and help goods reach consuming centers faster from factories often located in hinterland.

Mr. Yadav said IRB has an order backlog of 85 billion rupees, including for road-building, operations and maintenance projects.

“We have also qualified as bidders for new orders worth 350 billion rupees to 400 billion rupees,” he said.

Highway projects are offered by the state-run National Highways Authority of India, which either gives a grant for building roads and highways or allows private builders to put in their own money in building projects, which they fund through toll collections.

Mr. Yadav said the company expects to draw loans of around 15 billion rupees this financial year for various ongoing projects.

Write to Prasenjit Bhattacharya at prasenjit.bhattacharya@dowjones.com

Consumers at their wits’ end over a health-coverage problem sometimes try reaching out to the company’s chief executive. In a surprising number of cases, it works.

Billy Rogers of Dallas says he struggled for months last year to get Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield to process bills of around $1,350 from doctor visits. The holdup came because the company was investigating whether Mr. Rogers fully disclosed his medical condition when he bought his policy, he says. The 47-year-old political consultant says he was healthy, though one check after he was insured showed somewhat elevated blood sugar that he says quickly dropped in later tests.

Fed up, Mr. Rogers fired off an email with the subject line “Horrible Anthem Coverage.” It went to Chief Executive Angela Braly and a public-relations official at Anthem parent WellPoint Inc.

He also sent it to several reporters and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Within hours, Mr. Rogers says, he got an email from the WellPoint spokesman, and days later the claim went through. The tactic “sends a signal that you’re not going to give up on this,” says Mr. Rogers. “I was really, really angr

iStockphoto

WellPoint and other insurers say they don’t bend their rules just because a consumer carps to a top official. Indeed, companies say that only a tiny share of customer-service matters result in appeals to high-level executives and that such appeals are often unsuccessful. But in general, health-plan officials say they take such missives seriously, partly because they may reflect broader service breakdowns that need to be fixed.

“We want people to know we are very responsive to our members,” says Sam Nussbaum, WellPoint’s chief medical officer. He says he reads written individual complaints sent to him, and sometimes personally calls other company officials to help decide a response. WellPoint says it isn’t able to comment on Mr. Rogers’s specific situation because of federal privacy law.

Many health plans have special procedures for handling consumer issues that come in via their executive suites, though they usually don’t publicize them. These complaints often get reviewed by higher-level officials, rather than shunted back to front-line customer-service representatives. Cigna Corp.

says it refers such communications to a “specially trained service team that is staffed by people who are experts in resolving complex issues.” Humana Inc.

says its chief executive, Mike McCallister, “makes an effort” to read emails sent to him by members.

Reading Every Letter

Aetna Inc.

Chief Executive Ron Williams says he does “read every one personally,” and “when I see a letter that is particularly concerning for whatever reason…I will ask to see the response to really understand the issue.” Aetna has an executive resolution team that draws on internal experts to work out complex member problems that come in to top executives and board members. But the company says these officials “don’t have any extra authority” to alter its rules.

Mr. Williams says that in one incident, a consumer contacted him to protest that coverage through a former employer was mistakenly being cut off just before a major medical procedure. It turned out that because of a glitch in data from the employer, the person’s termination date was recorded incorrectly. The procedure was covered, Mr. Williams says.

Of course, consumers also lodge complaints with top officials in other industries. Airline passengers have received compensation for lost baggage and bumped and delayed flights after reaching out to company CEOs, says Thomas Hinton, chief executive of the nonprofit American Consumer Council. And the Consumerist.com blog is pocked with examples of people who have sought to resolve problems by contacting leaders of firms ranging from computer makers to rental-car companies. “It definitely can work to go straight to the top,” says Alison Southwick, a spokeswoman for the Better Business Bureau.

Trying to resolve problems with a health insurer can be frustrating. A recent consumer-satisfaction survey on health coverage by J.D. Power & Associates found that around 9% of more than 33,000 insured people polled had required three or more calls to resolve a service issue with their health insurer in the past year. Asked about their most recent contact with their health plans, 39% of the respondents said they’d had to repeat the same information to more than one person, and a quarter said they hadn’t gotten promised callbacks.

If you’re thinking of trying the executive-appeal route for a health-insurance issue, here are some strategies to improve your chances.

First, make sure you’ve exhausted all the standard customer-service approaches and appeals. Also, closely document your interactions and the results. If you don’t, you risk being brushed off and sent back to square one. “Stay on the phone until you get the answer that you need” from customer service, including requesting a supervisor, says Jerry Coy, senior vice president for customer service at Kaiser Permanente, the big nonprofit health system. Elevating something to high levels of a company is “for those things that need escalation, that can’t be resolved in that [lower] channel,” he says.

If your health benefits are through your workplace, and the employer has self-funded coverage, the ultimate decision maker may be there, not with the insurer that administers the plan. You may want to check with your human-resources department.

Nancy Davenport-Ennis, chief executive of the nonprofit Patient Advocate Foundation, says self-insured employers sometimes will make exceptions or change their rules. For instance, she says, one schoolteacher whose stem-cell treatment for breast cancer was being denied by her plan appealed to her community’s school board, which voted to start covering such procedures.

Prepare your case and be ready to document it, as you would for a formal insurance appeal. In the case of a denied claim, you’ll want to be ready with the history, including names of the doctors and other health-care providers you’ve seen, dates of services and other details, and records of your interactions with the health plan. You may also want to research scientific or other evidence for the treatment you seek. Consider sending a letter that includes the documentation, even if you plan to start with a phone call. This will help officials research your case more quickly.

Robert Skole, 80, a journalist in Boston, says he fought with Aetna for about seven months over a $1,650 bill for removing a cyst from his wife’s breast several years ago. The insurer said she wasn’t covered under his retiree benefits, though his former company assured him that she was. Finally, Mr. Skole sent a letter to Aetna’s then-CEO, including copies of several of his emails and other documents. A few days later, he got a check for the full amount. “I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. Skole says.

An Aetna spokeswoman says Mr. Skole “did not receive the level of service we expect to deliver, but we were pleased to have the opportunity to fix the problem.”

Strike the Right Tone

Think about the tone you want to take in your letter, email or call. Insurance executives say they give the same treatment to consumers regardless of their attitude. Still, says Jackie Jennifer, senior vice president for service at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, “the more pleasant, I think, the more people are inclined to feel, ‘I really want to help you.’ ”

After Blue Cross of California declined to issue a policy to her husband a few years ago, Becky Castle contacted WellPoint, the insurer’s parent. Ms. Castle says her husband had had a soft-tissue cancer near his ankle eight years earlier that hadn’t returned, as well as a heart condition that was corrected through surgery. She believed he should be able to get coverage because his conditions were in the past.

Ms. Castle, a 39-year-old fundraising consultant in Pasadena, Calif., went online to find the name of WellPoint’s chief medical officer, Dr. Nussbaum, and then made her way through the switchboard to his assistant. The assistant listened closely to Ms. Castle’s concerns, asked her to fax documentation, and promised to look into the matter. Within a week, her husband was issued a policy, though it included higher-than-normal premiums. “You just have to be dogged and not give up, and be polite,” Ms. Castle says.

Although WellPoint says it can’t comment on Ms. Castle’s case because of privacy law, Dr. Nussbaum says the company’s “goal is to try to find a way to cover” people. Sometimes a decision can be altered if a consumer presents new information, he says.

Write to
anna wilde mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com