Tag: Region Asias

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is alleging Facebook “repeatedly violated its privacy promises” and is proposing a “blanket prohibition” on parent company Meta’s monetization of data of users under 18. The company, meanwhile, called the move “a political stunt.” The FTC on Wednesday moved to expand its USD5 billion privacy order with then-Facebook from 2020, claiming the company failed to comply with the order and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule, misrepresented access to private user data it provided…

A group of Credit Suisse Group bondholders in Asia challenged Switzerland’s banking regulator over the decision to write down about 16 billion Swiss francs (S$24 billion) of the bank’s riskiest debt, the first known move by wealthy investors in the region.

The filing was made in the Swiss courts on Wednesday, said Mr Mahesh Rai at Singapore-based Drew & Napier LLC. Mr Rai is acting for more than 60 investors across Asia for the case. He declined to specify the losses involved. 

The move appeals the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority’s (Finma) decision to prioritise shareholders over the additional tier-one bondholders, he said.

In Huawei’s head office last month, staff gathered to celebrate the in-house development of software to replace a US system that, thanks to Washington’s export controls, the Chinese technology company was no longer able to purchase. “Three years ago, we were cut off from the old ERP [enterprise resource planning] system,” said Tao Jingwen, a Huawei board member and president of its quality, business process and IT management department. “Today we are proud to announce that we have broken through…

The former manager used inside information from a deal Morgan Stanley was advising on to generate HK$4.2mn in profits for herself and a friend.

A Hong Kong court has granted an interim injunction order allowing the freezing of about HKD 8.2 million in assets in an insider dealing case.

The case was brought by the SFC (Securities and Futures Commission), which suspects two individuals – Ms Tsang Ching Yi and Mr Barry Kwok Sze Lok – of engaging in insider trading in the stock of I.T Limited, a software company that was privatised in 2021.

The SFC alleged that Tsang obtained information relating to the privatisation of I.T Limited through her employment as a manager at an investment bank, and shared such information with her friend Kwok, before both traded in the stock using the inside information.

Though not named in the SFC’s statement, the investment bank was identified through Tsang’s licensing record to be Morgan Stanley – which was the adviser for I.T Limited’s privatisation offer.

Low-cost carrier Go First has filed for bankruptcy at the National Company Law Tribunal. The airline has also suspended its flight operations for three days – May 3, 4 and 5. It has cited mounting losses for its decision to file for bankruptcy. The airline has attributed the losses to delays in the delivery of Pratt and Whitney engines. It said that delay in delivery of the said engines has resulted in grounding of half its fleet of aircrafts.

Meanwhile, the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) has served a show cause notice to the airline for the sudden cancellation of flights without sharing prior information with it. The DGCA has also asked Go First to submit its plan of action for the resumption of flights. In a statement, the airline said that once the NCLT admitted its plea, the court would appoint an Insolvency resolution professional who would take over Go First’s operations.

Air Moldova has submitted to court a request to enter a pre-insolvency accelerated restructuring procedure. The airline says the move will help it avoid bankruptcy and absorb some $50mn from unnamed investors, according to a company press release.

The company blames its difficult financial situation on the debts inherited on privatisation, the loss of revenues during the COVID-19 crisis and the ban on flights after the invasion of Ukraine. It highlights that the state did not extend any financial support, while foreign airlines were supported during the COVID-19 crisis.

The company suspended all flights and ticket sales starting May 2. The resumption of activity will be possible within three days from a positive court decision, the company said.

“Investors are ready to invest around $50mn in Air Moldova. These investments would settle the company’s financial problems and would allow the company to renew its own fleet. Investments cannot be made outside the accelerated restructuring procedure due to the increased risk of an attack from existing creditors,” says Air Moldova.

The airline said that the accelerated restructuring will allow the company to use the capital injection strictly for the development of the company, so that later, in time, the existing debts will be paid.

Air Moldova was privatised in 2018 but the identity of the investors was never made public.

The Chinese government has significantly increased the use of exit bans to stop people – Chinese and foreign nationals alike – from leaving the country since top leader Xi Jinping took power in 2012, according to a new report describing how a web of vague laws are being expanded for political reasons.

The report comes amid growing concern about the environment for foreign businesses in China, after the wide-ranging overhaul last week of the country’s espionage law and raids on corporate consultancies Mintz Group and Bain & Co.

Shares in Asia are set to decline after Wall Street fell on renewed concern about the banking sector before a Federal Reserve decision on Wednesday where US policymakers are expected to raise interest rates.

Equity futures in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong all declined, while US contracts edged lower in early Asian trade. The S&P 500 slipped 1.2 per cent on Wednesday, with the financial sector the second-worst performer after energy. 

US regional lenders PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp both slid at least 15 per cent just a day after J.P. Morgan Chase’s acquisition of First Republic Bank seemed to bolster confidence in the sector.

The decline in energy stocks followed a 5.3 per cent drop for the US oil price, the biggest decline since July, in a sign of unease about global growth. The decline stabilised early on Wednesday.

The U.S. is sending Ukraine about $300 million in additional military aid, including an enormous amount of artillery rounds, howitzers, air-to-ground rockets and ammunition as the launch of a spring offensive against Russian forces approaches, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The new package includes Hydra-70 rockets, which are unguided rockets that are fired from aircraft. It also includes an undisclosed number of rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, mortars, howitzer rounds, missiles and Carl Gustaf anti—tank rifles. The weapons will all be pulled from Pentagon stocks, so they can go quickly to the front lines. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid has not yet been formally announced.

The latest shipment comes as Ukrainian officials say they are readying a counteroffensive — with Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov declaring they are in the “home stretch, when we can say: ‘Yes everything is ready.’” Ukrainian officials have said they are stockpiling ammunition to stow it along potentially long supply lines.

Reznikov said Monday that the key things for the assault’s success would be “the availability of weapons; prepared, trained people; our defenders and defenders who know their plan at their level, as well as providing this offensive with all the necessary things — shells, ammunition, fuel, protection, etc.”

Japan’s defense ministry said on Tuesday it scrambled a jet fighter after spotting a suspected Chinese drone between the Japanese island of Yonaguni and Taiwan.

The drone flew towards Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, the ministry said in a statement.

The Biden administration will continue to allow tens of thousands of Afghans who fled Taliban control more than two years ago to stay and work in the U.S., as congressional efforts have stalled that were meant to permanently resolve their immigration status, according to two people familiar with the plan.

As soon as this summer, eligible refugees will be able to renew temporary work permits and protections from deportation for another two years, according to two administration officials, who spoke to The Associated Press condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss plans that haven’t yet been released. The protections were initially given in 2021, and renewed last year.

The effort is a temporary fix for more than 76,000 Afghans who arrived in the U.S. following the military’s chaotic and deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops, some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency. Many of those who arrived in the country have worked with U.S. officials, some for many years, as translators, interpreters and other partners.

U.S. conservation groups on Monday announced they are suing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for not doing enough to protect the environment from SpaceX’s Starship program.

The move came after the world’s most powerful rocket exploded on its first integrated test flight, just four minutes after launching from Boca Chica, Texas on April 20.

SpaceX video showed a hail of debris being blasted as far as the Gulf of Mexico, over 1,400 feet (425 meters) away, while a cloud of dust floated over a small town several miles (kilometers) away.

The launch site also sits next to a vital habitat for protected species, including Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and the piping plover bird, according to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), which was among the groups that filed the lawsuit.

Last weekend, Russian authorities moved one step closer towards potentially locking up Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most prominent and outspoken human rights defenders. On April 29, the prosecutor’s office formally indicted him on charges of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian military, for which he faces a maximum three-year prison sentence. Authorities should immediately drop the charges.

Orlov is co-chair of Memorial, a leading Russian rights group. The government shut down Memorial in 2022 as part of the Kremlin’s effort to stifle critics and human rights work. Yet Memorial’s core activists continued their human rights work, some from abroad, and some, like Orlov, from inside the country.

On March 21, criminal investigators in Moscow interrogated Orlov, informing him they had opened a criminal investigation against him for repeated acts of “discrediting” Russian armed forces, based on his single-person anti-war pickets and his social media post containing his trenchant criticism of the war and of the government’ slide toward totalitarianism and fascism.  They released him later that day on his own recognizance.

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden told Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House on Monday that the US commitment to the defence of its ally was “ironclad,” including in the South China Sea where Manila is under pressure from China.

Mr Marcos, on the first White House visit by a Philippines leader in 10 years, stressed the importance of the United States as his country’s sole treaty ally in a region with “arguably the most complicated geopolitical situation in the world right now.”

US officials said the leaders would agree new guidelines for stronger military cooperation, as well as stepped up economic cooperation, underscoring a dramatic turnaround in US-Philippine relations over the past year.

“The United States remains ironclad in our commitment to the defence of the Philippines, including the South China Sea,” Mr Biden told Mr Marcos in the Oval Office, reaffirming a 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty that calls for the United States to act in the event of an armed attack on the Philippine military.

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) The United States should engage with other democracies around the world to help Taiwan fend off threats from China, former U.S. national security adviser and outspoken China hawk John Bolton told a pro-Taiwan independence event in Taipei on Saturday.

“The U.S. response to help Taiwan against the Chinese threat has to be fully global,” Bolton said at the Global Taiwan National Affairs Symposium hosted by the World Taiwanese Congress, suggesting the establishment of “new structures of deterrence” against China.

Taiwan is “the center of gravity of the Chinese threat” to the world, said Bolton, who served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019 and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

In February, Hong Kong proposed a set of welcoming rules to regulate crypto-related activities. Under the new legal regime, retail investors will be allowed to trade certain digital assets on licensed exchanges, replacing a 2018 framework that restricted trading to only accredited investors.

The city is also paving the way to legalize stablecoins. One startup, which is backed by popular exchange KuCoin and USDC issuer Circle, recently launched an offshore Chinese yuan (CNH)-pegged stablecoin, the first of its kind in Greater China.

To create a favorable environment for web3 businesses, the city is facilitating communication between banks and crypto startups, many of which are scrambling to find alternatives following Silvergate Bank’s meltdown.

These moves are contrasting with Beijing’s heavy-handed crackdown on the crypto industry; they also highlight the degree to which the former British colony enjoys policy exceptions in certain areas, such as finance.