Category: x.straitsTimes

NEW YORK – Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon will pay US$4.47 billion (S$6 billion) to resolve a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit over the company’s 2022 collapse, which wiped out US$40 billion in investor assets and shook the cryptocurrency world. The SEC on June 12 asked a federal judge in New York to approve the settlement. The deal was reached after a jury in April found Terraform and Kwon liable for fraud following a two-week civil…

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have reached a deal that allows them to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry, in the strongest sign of how regulatory scrutiny into the powerful technology has escalated. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission struck the deal over the past week, and it is expected to be completed in the coming days, according to two people with knowledge of the matter,…

PARIS – Journalists at AFP will hold a 24-hour strike starting June 6 at 0800 GMT (4.00pm Singapore time) to protest against potential changes in the status of journalists working outside France. The movement threatens to disrupt primarily the French-language production of Agence France-Presse during a period of major domestic news, with a ceremony for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, EU elections and a TV appearance by President Emmanuel Macron. Unions within AFP called for the strike after…

SINGAPORE – Offshore and marine specialist Seatrium has secured $11 billion worth of contracts to build two new floating production storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs) for Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras. Called P-84 and P-85, the FPSOs will be deployed in the Atapu and Sepia fields in the Santos Basin, offshore of the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro, Seatrium announced in a bourse filing on May 25. Construction will begin in the first quarter of 2025, with final delivery expected…

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s competition watchdog has assessed that ANA Holdings’ proposed acquisition of Japanese cargo airline Nippon Cargo Airlines (NCA) will not result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market in Singapore. The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) said on May 24 that it arrived at this conclusion after a six-month review, which also took into account public feedback. The commission launched the review after ANA and NCA submitted an application on Dec 7, 2023, arguing…

PARIS – France won a record €15 billion (S$21.9 billion) in foreign investment pledges on May 13, allowing President Emmanuel Macron to bask in the limelight with global CEOs, and forget about strained public finances and weak polls for a while. The bumper crop of pledges, in sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to pharmaceuticals to energy, stood Mr Macron in good stead as he hosted business leaders for the annual “Choose France” summit at Versailles Palace. The 2024 figure is…

  LONDON – Blackstone is nearing a deal to take L’Occitane International private, according to people familiar with the matter, potentially ending the global cosmetics and skincare giant’s 14-year run on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. The private equity firm may team up with L’Occitane’s billionaire owner Reinold Geiger for the buyout, said one of the people. An announcement could come as soon as in the coming days, the people said. Trading of L’Occitane was suspended before the Hong Kong stock…

Gold fell on April 8 after closing at a record high last week, as investors weigh a strong US jobs report that saw traders unwinding bets for steep US Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2024. The precious metal fell as much as 1.2 per cent in early Asian hours, pressured by a rise in Treasury yields after US payrolls rose in March by the most in nearly a year and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 per cent. Those numbers…

  SYDNEY – Qantas Airways will make millions more seats available for frequent flyers, but passengers will need to use more loyalty points to secure their tickets, as chief executive officer Vanessa Hudson overhauls a model that had increasingly frustrated customers. Frequent flyer members will have access to 20 million new seats for travel over a 12-month booking window, the airline said on April 8. They will be available for booking immediately on all international and domestic routes and in…

A unit of defunct lender Credit Suisse will seek to overturn an order to pay US$743 million (S$1 billion) to a billionaire client over the actions of a notorious rogue banker at Singapore’s top court on April 8. The sum was awarded after a lower court earlier ruled that the bank’s trust had failed to safeguard the assets of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former prime minister of Georgia. It was revised down from an initial US$926 million in a sprawling case…

  Shell and Saudi Aramco, which are competing to buy the assets of Temasek-owned liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading firm Pavilion Energy, are now locked in price negotiations after completing the due diligence process, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. The potential sale comes a decade after the Singapore state investment firm set up Pavilion Energy to focus on LNG-related investments. The assets could fetch more than US$2 billion (S$2.7 billion), two of the sources said. Pavilion Energy,…

Boeing’s latest 737 Max crisis has worsened an airline shortage of popular narrowbody aircraft, sending the cost of used-jet rentals to the highest level in years.  The US planemaker has slowed production of its bestselling model to address quality lapses tied to a near-disaster on a 737 Max 9 in January. With Airbus also struggling to lift output, available planes remain scarce. As a result, airlines are searching out leased ones – especially the largest single-aisle jets that carry more…

NEW YORK – US office vacancies hit a fresh peak in the first quarter as needs continue to evolve with hybrid work set-ups. Vacancies rose to a record 19.8 per cent, Moody’s Analytics said in a preliminary report on April 1, from 19.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023. Despite the increase, the firm said that the early data points to a stable quarter for commercial real estate. Tenants continue to downsize with the hybrid work model showing…

NEW YORK – An executive at a Swiss holding company did not get prison time for participating in a scheme to help US taxpayers hide more than US$60 million (S$81 million) in assets in a fraudulent arrangement known as the “Singapore Solution”. Daniel Walchli, 56, pleaded guilty in 2023 to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the United States for his role in setting up a structure for American clients of Privatbank Ihag to evade scrutiny by tax authorities….

NEW YORK – Citigroup implemented a fresh round of job cuts in its US investment bank last week, according to people familiar with the matter, as the financial giant completed a planned restructuring. Technology, media and telecom were among the coverage areas hit hardest at the Wall Street lender, with several senior bankers as well as those in more junior roles affected, the people said. Managing directors Yaseen Choudhury and Abhi Singhal, who both belonged to the financial technology team,…

LONDON – Just as they first ventured to do over a century ago, the world’s largest oil companies are staking claims far from home – this time to swallow, rather than spew, planet-warming industrial emissions. Carbon dioxide (CO2) storage is emerging as a potential multi-billion-dollar revenue stream for companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron, which are under global pressure to rein in the unfettered burning of fossil fuels. In Asia, which will generate the majority of this century’s carbon emissions,…