BANKING

FEC Drops Keating Case, Among Others: The Federal Election Commission moved Monday to improve its enforcement activities by dropping 137 investigations it considers too old or trivial to warrant further pursuit, including one involving Charles H. Keating Jr., the former head of failed Lincoln Savings and Loan, who has been convicted on fraud charges. Chairman Scott E. Thomas said closing low-priority cases will allow the 19 attorneys handling investigations to concentrate on more serious cases. The commission, which has been criticized as ineffective, also has been seeking higher civil penalties in more significant cases, he said. And the FEC is in the process of hiring its first investigators since the late 1970s. Cases dropped included some, like Keating’s, where a parallel criminal investigation took precedence, or where a campaign opponent alleged violations in the heat of a campaign that proved trivial.