United States
AI
OpenAI announced its acquisition of Jony Ive’s hardware company.
Crypto
Bitcoin hit a record high of $112,000 as unease grips markets.
Data
Proofpoint has announced that it will acquire German based cloud solution security business Hornetsecurity for approximately $1.6bn.
A former McKinsey partner has been sentenced (subscription) to six months in prison for deleting documents connected with work for OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.
Regulation
FinCEN invited comments on the proposed renewal, without change, of rules requiring the reporting of certain financial transactions with foreign financial agencies.
“A Reckless Game of Jenga”: in a speech, SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw harshly criticized the agency’s deregulatory efforts, staffing cuts, and the “abandonment of swaths of our enforcement program.”
The Supreme Court ruled two fired members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board cannot return to work while they challenge President Donald Trump’s authority to fire them without cause.
China
China has threatened (subscription) to take legal action against anyone complying with US guidance advising companies against using advanced Chinese AI chips.
China has lodged (subscription) a complaint against the EU’s sanctions on Chinese firms relating to their business activities with Russia.
Canada
Quebec’s attempt to bring mutual funds representatives under the oversight of CIRO is rushed, industry participants said.
The Supreme Court of Canada denied Binance’s appeal arguing for arbitration in class-action lawsuit.
Biotech CEO was sanctioned for failing to file insider reports on time.
Toronto AI company Cohere asked New York federal court to dismiss claim by publishing companies that it had infringed on their copyright.
British Columbia’s Interior Health Authority hit with class action lawsuit over 2009 data breach.
EU
ESMA has asked for feedback from stakeholders on how retail investors engage with investment services. It is investigating whether regulatory or non-regulatory barriers are discouraging participation in European capital markets.
The EU has decided (subscription) to delay implementing tougher capital requirements for banks in relation to their trading business as it seeks to trim regulation in order to improve the competitiveness of its financial sector.
Hong Kong
The HK SFC warned retail investors of phishing mobile text messages with embedded hyperlinks purportedly sent by SFC-licensed corporations. Clients lured into entering account login details have reportedly suffered financial losses as a result.
International
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a study on the how expectations of job replacement by Gen AI affects the economic outlook and behavior of those potentially affected.
IOSCO issued a statement calling on online platform providers to combat the misuse of their products and services by bad actors targeting retail investors.
Singapore
Two construction companies were fined $4.6m by the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore for rigging three construction tenders valued at $56m.
Switzerland
FINMA has published a guidance document on risk in the real estate and mortgage markets aimed at companies participating in the mortgage sector.
UK
The Ministry of Justice confirmed that a breach of the Legal Aid online exposed a significant amount of sensitive information on applicants including criminal history, employment histories and financial data in addition to addresses, dates of birth and national ID numbers.
The PRA will require any international banks holding more than £300m in total retail and small business instance access deposits to operated a subsidiary rather than a branch in the UK in order to give the regulator increased visibility over firms operating in the country. The PRA said that this was “in part a response to lessons learned from the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.”
The UK has imposed (subscriptions) sanctions on an English accountant who had apparently acquired at least 25 second-hand oil tankers between December 2022 and August 2023 on behalf of Lukoil and at a total cost of more than $700m. The accountant’s lawyers claimed that he undertook “extensive due diligence” to establish that the purchases would not violate any sanctions. But tracking data showed that the vessels went on to transport oil from Russia.
A logistics firm that is a major supplier to leading UK supermarkets was hit by a ransomware attack. The attack follows closely on major attacks on Marks & Spencer and the Co-op. The former has blamed (subscription) human error at one of its third-party suppliers for the hack.
Builder.ai, “one of UK’s best-funded technology start-ups” has entered (subscription) insolvency proceedings. The start-up’s backers, including Microsoft and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund invested more than $500m in the company.
A Bloomberg terminal outage disrupted (subscription) UK and EU debt auctions before service was restored.
A judge held that a trader working at JP Morgan was unfairly dismissed despite concluding that “on the balance of probabilities” he had been engaged in spoofing.