PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business news - Feb 4

Feb 4 (Reuters) - The following were the top stories in The New York Times business pages on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* Trying to build buzz before the Super Bowl kickoff, many advertisers are offering previews of their commercials. Others are putting the full versions of their spots online.

* Senior executives at JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) expressed serious doubts about the legitimacy of Bernard L. Madoff's investment business more than 18 months before his Ponzi scheme collapsed but continued to do business with him, according to internal bank documents made public in a lawsuit on Thursday.

* The widow of a former employee of Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz says in a lawsuit that fiduciary duties were breached when employees were allowed to invest with Bernard L. Madoff.

* Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned Congressional Republicans on Thursday not to "play around with" a coming vote to raise the government's legal borrowing limit or use it as a bargaining chip for spending cuts.

* Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will present new ideas on Friday to save the euro and integrate euro zone economies.

* Mine Jeffery, in Asbestos, Canada, is hoping to export asbestos to developing countries like India and Pakistan, despite its links to cancer.

* Retailers kicked off 2011 with better-than-expected sales in January, with some relying on discounts to clear merchandise left over from the holiday season. But while the results exceeded forecasts, analysts said there were challenges ahead as rising costs pare profits.

* Nippon Steel Corp (5401.T) and Sumitomo Metal Industries (5405.T) of Japan announced their plan to merge, a move that would create the world's second largest steel producer.

* Faced with continued regulatory delays, Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSa.L) announced on Thursday that it was abandoning plans to drill for oil in Alaskan Arctic waters this year but that it remained committed to exploring in the area in the future.

* Viacom Inc VIAb.N, the big media company whose MTV show "Skins" has been in the spotlight for its racy portrayal of teenage sexuality, reported lower earnings and revenue Thursday. Gains in advertising failed to offset a sharp drop in DVD sales at its film studio, Paramount Pictures.

* The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges of insider trading against six people associated with expert network firms after criminal cases brought earlier by the Justice Department against the same group.

* Blackstone Group (BX.N) reported a 56 percent gain in fourth-quarter profit over the same period of 2009, and doubled its profit for all of 2010.