Company beat sales and profit expectations to join Apple and Amazon in prestigious club
Microsoft has become the third publicly listed US company, after Apple and Amazon, to boast a market value of more than $1tn after bumper quarterly results boosted its share price.
The company beat sales and profits expectations in the three months to 31 March, thanks in part to its cloud computing business, which signed up major corporate clients over the period.
Continue reading...Boeing says it’s abandoned its 2019 financial outlook and halted share buybacks in mid-March as it deals with the crisis
The global grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max jets will cost the company more than $1bn, the company said on Wednesday.
The jets were grounded after two fatal crashes that killed 346 people and have triggered investigations into the accidents across the world and left Boeing with one of the biggest crises in its history.
Continue reading...Preventing Iran’s oil from reaching the market will raise oil prices and US business costs
The past two and a bit years have shown that it is naive to expect Donald Trump’s strategic and economic policies to demonstrate coherence. Even so, the lack of joined-up thinking in the decision to end the waiver against sanctions from nations that buy oil from Iran takes some beating.
Related: US toughens stance on Iran, ending exemptions from oil sanctions
Continue reading...A letter on Github demanded companies comply with labor laws, limiting workers to 40 hours a week versus a 12-hour day standard
Microsoft employees have published a letter on the software development platform Github in solidarity with tech workers in China.
Workers at tech companies in the country have used the Microsoft-owned platform to complain about grueling working conditions and the “996” standard in the industry, a philosophy endorsed by the tech billionaire Jack Ma. The name is based on the idea of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo says any nation interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution
The US has announced it will no longer exempt countries from sanctions that aim to impose a complete oil embargo on Iran.
Officials said the Trump administration would not renew any of the sanctions waivers granted to a handful of countries, including China, India, Turkey, Japan and South Korea, when those waivers expire on 2 May.
Continue reading...The video, widely shared on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, shows the parked EV emit smoke and burst into flames seconds later
Tesla has sent a team to investigate a video on Chinese social media which showed a parked Tesla Model S car exploding, the latest in a string of fire incidents involving the company’s cars.
The video, time stamped Sunday evening and widely shared on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, shows the parked EV emit smoke and burst into flames seconds later. A video purportedly of the aftermath showed a line of three cars completely destroyed.
Continue reading...Leica, whose biggest growth market is China, say short film was not officially sanctioned
Western companies trying to do business in China learned long ago that they must bow, at least in part, to the political demands of an authoritarian state. So when the German camera-maker Leica released an advert featuring perhaps the greatest political taboo in contemporary Chinese history, it looked like an unusually audacious gamble.
In fact the short film referencing the Tiananmen Square crackdown appears to have been an extraordinary – and potentially very expensive – mistake.
Continue reading...Exclusive: in confidential internal report seen by the Guardian, bank says scandal has hurt global brand
Germany’s troubled Deutsche Bank faces fines, legal action and the possible prosecution of “senior management” because of its role in a $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme, a confidential internal report seen by the Guardian says.
The bank admits there is a high risk that regulators in the US and UK will take “significant disciplinary action” against it. Deutsche concedes that the scandal has hurt its “global brand” – and is likely to cause “client attrition”, loss of investor confidence and a decline in its market value.
Continue reading...Financial sector warned it risks losses from extreme weather and its stakes in polluting firms
The global financial system faces an existential threat from climate change and must take urgent steps to reform, the governors of the Bank of England and France’s central bank have warned, writing in the Guardian.
In an article published in the Guardian on Wednesday aimed at the international financial community, Mark Carney, the Bank’s governor, and François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Banque de France, said financial regulators, banks and insurers around the world had to “raise the bar” to avoid catastrophe.
Continue reading...Lawsuit could benefit 46 million people even if they have never owned the credit card
Almost every adult in the UK could receive a payout of up to £300 from Mastercard after a court ruling paved the way for a £14bn class action lawsuit.
The legal action taken by former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks claims that 46 million UK consumers paid higher prices in shops over a 16-year period because of allegedly excessive transaction fees charged by Mastercard.
Continue reading...Time likely to be too tight for referendum before end of October, says chancellor
Philip Hammond has played down the possibility that the UK could use the delay to Brexit to hold a second referendum and stressed that he still expects Britain to leave the European Union.
Speaking in Washington, the chancellor said time would be too tight to hold a confirmatory vote before the new deadline of the end of October unless it was triggered over the coming weeks.
Continue reading...Mixed picture shows rebound in country’s exports, creating $32bn trade surplus in March
Chinese imports slumped in March, driven by a slowdown in US trade amid the tense standoff between Washington and Beijing, raising renewed questions over the strength of the Chinese economy.
Imports fell by 7.6% in March compared with a year earlier, worse than City economists’ forecasts for the volume of goods bought from abroad to grow by 0.2%.
Continue reading...Prosecutors trying to force confession out of former Nissan chairman, says defence team
Carlos Ghosn’s lawyers have condemned his latest arrest as “inhuman”, claiming it has interrupted his treatment for chronic kidney failure and that prosecutors were attempting to force a confession out of the former Nissan chairman.
According to Reuters, Ghosn’s defence team said in documents prepared after he was arrested for a fourth time last week that Japanese prosecutors were attempting to frustrate their preparations for his trial – a date for which has yet to be set – and trying to force him to confess.
Continue reading...Villagers say mine run by subsidiary of UK-based firm has caused illness and deaths
Two thousand Zambian villagers who say their lives have been ruined by toxic runoff from the world’s second-largest opencast mine have won the right to pursue a claim through the English courts.
In a landmark judgment, the supreme court ruled that the mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources, which is based in London, and its Zambian subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) can be held to account by English judges, despite the companies’ arguments that they should defend themselves in Zambia.
Continue reading...In video message ex-chairman says he is innocent and talks of fears for company’s future
Carlos Ghosn has accused Nissan executives of conspiring to have him arrested over unfounded fears about his plans for the Japanese carmaker, and saying he had been unfairly portrayed as a “dictator” by “backstabbing” former colleagues.
In a video recorded shortly before he was rearrested in Tokyo last week, the former Nissan chairman said he looked forward to a fair trial – a date for which has yet to be set – and he feared for Nissan’s future.
Continue reading...Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa opened meeting with a speech outlining allegations against his former mentor
Nissan shareholders have voted to eject Carlos Ghosn from the board, as the detained former chairman fights multiple financial misconduct charges that have landed him in custody.
The extraordinary shareholders’ meeting at a Tokyo hotel was the first such gathering since the stunning arrest of the 65-year-old auto sector titan on 19 November.
Continue reading...‘We won’t back down’: protesters express concern over pollution and protected species
For Gilles Renevier, a vet from a village south-east of Lyon, fighting Amazon’s plans to build a vast logistics centre in his area was “common sense”.
The US firm was due to begin construction of a huge centre for packing and delivery beside Lyon airport in south-east France this year, but two local associations have lodged legal files to halt the build.
Continue reading...Experts say even nations that got rich on fossil fuels are seeing the future is green
Norway’s $1tn oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, is to plunge billions of dollars into wind and solar power projects. The decision follows Saudi Arabia’s oil fund selling off its last oil and gas assets.
Other national funds built up from oil profits are also thought to be ramping up their investments in renewables. The moves show that countries that got rich on fossil fuels are diversifying their investments and seeking future profits in the clean energy needed to combat climate change. Analysts say the investments are likely to power faster growth of green energy.
Continue reading...Investigators say pilots were unable to prevent plane’s nose from pointing down
The pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max that crashed last month killing 157 people correctly followed Boeing’s emergency instructions but were still unable to stop the plane’s nose repeatedly pointing down, investigators said.
In the final seconds before the crash, pilots tried desperately to right the plane by switching its anti-stall software on and off but to no avail. The jet hit an airspeed of 500 knots (575mph), well above its operational limits, before cockpit data recordings stopped.
Continue reading...Former Nissan chairman says prosecutors are trying to ‘break him’ with latest move
Carlos Ghosn has been put back under arrest over allegations he misused company funds, prompting the former Nissan chairman to angrily denounce his detention as “outrageous and arbitrary”.
Japanese TV showed prosecutors arriving at Ghosn’s apartment in Tokyo, less than a month after he was freed on bail following more than 100 days in detention.
Continue reading...