WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Gay marriage may be the most anticipated issue heading for the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices also must tackle a host of business cases as they convene for their new term, including a patent battle involving Teva Pharmaceutical Ind... More »
(Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday dismissed claims seeking to stop the U.S. government from making Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pay a quarterly dividend to the U.S. Treasury. The dividend equals the entire net worth of each entity, minus a small reserv... More »
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina deposited a $161 million bond interest payment with a newly appointed local trustee on Tuesday, the Economy Ministry said, defying a U.S. judge who held it in contempt a day earlier for taking illegal steps to meet its debt o... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday voted unanimously to eliminate a decades-old rule that has prohibited pay-TV providers from airing some home sports games, such as NFL football, if tickets to those games did not sell out.... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission will publish on Tuesday its reasons for opening an in-depth inquiry into the Irish government’s tax treatment of Apple (AAPL.O ), a Commission spokesman said. The European Union’s competition watchdog is looking at ... More »
ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland’s UBS has begun settlement talks over allegations it was involved in manipulating foreign exchange rates, the bank said, and warned that it could face a material penalty in any deal struck. The terms proposed in the talks include... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether bond fund manager Pimco inflated the returns of its Total Return Exchange-Traded Fund (BOND.P ) run by founder Bill Gross, who has come under renewed fire from investors... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A unit of Wells Fargo will admit to wrongdoing and pay a $5 million penalty to settle charges that it failed to have adequate controls in place to prevent an employee from illegal insider trading, U.S. regulators said on Monday. The Secu... More »
(Reuters) – A controversial plan that would have required job-switching securities brokers to disclose signing bonuses to their clients is making a comeback, but the new version may be weaker and bear little resemblance to the original, some lawyers say. The F... More »
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday called for Congress to take steps to help prosecutors build criminal cases against senior Wall Street executives, saying companies often insulated their leaders from responsibility ... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Cargill Inc’s [CARG.UL] lawsuit against Syngenta AG (SYNN.VX ) over rejections of genetically modified U.S. corn by China may be just the start of legal challenges against global seed makers over trade with one of the world’s biggest market... More »
(Reuters) – A federal lawsuit filed on Monday accuses Walt Disney Co, Sony Pictures and other leaders in special effects and animation of conspiring to suppress wages in the industry through “no-raid” agreements. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is preparing new rules to boost oversight of mutual funds and hedge funds as part of an effort to gain insight into whether the asset management industry poses risks to the financial system, the Wal... More »
(Reuters) – A Houston-based investment advisory firm steered clients to certain mutual funds without disclosing that it was receiving payments from the broker who offered those funds, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a civil fraud complai... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of Republican lawmakers on Tuesday accused U.S. regulators of “disparate treatment” of nonbank financial firms that are currently being considered for tougher oversight. The lawmakers, led by Representative Scott Garrett of New J... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese anti-trust regulator said on Monday it has given Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O ) 20 days to reply to queries on the compatability of its Windows operating system and Office software suite amid a probe into the world’s largest software co... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A year after Goldman Sachs (GS.N ) bungled a software upgrade and lost tens of millions of dollars from unintended trades, the 12 U.S. stock options exchanges have crafted new rules for dealing with erroneous transactions, according to dra... More »
(Reuters) – Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd and Eli Lilly & Co lost a bid to overturn a combined $9 billion punitive damage award by a U.S. jury for hiding cancer risks associated with their Actos diabetes drug, according to a court ruling. “Plaintiffs have point... More »
(Reuters) – A former broker for a unit of LPL Financial LLC accused of diverting clients’ funds for his personal expenses has been ordered by a federal judge to pay more than $1.9 million in civil sanctions. In announcing the ruling against Blake Richards, of ... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O ) internet browser and media player are being targeted in a Chinese antitrust probe, raising the prospect of China revisiting the software bundling issue at the heart of past antitrust complaints against the firm in... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Dennis Lockhart warned of the risk of an early interest rate hike and said he maintained the view that mid-year 2015 was likely the best time to begin tightening monetary policy. “I think there is som... More »
BEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) – China has fined Japanese auto parts makers a record 1.235 billion yuan ($201 million) for manipulating prices as the government steps up its enforcement of an anti-trust law that has targeted major corporations and revived protectioni... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top members of the House of Representatives Financial Services panel are threatening to subpoena the U.S. Export-Bank over the bank’s refusal to make three employees available for questioning as Congress considers whether to renew the ba... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz has been found guilty of manipulating prices for after-sales services in China, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing regulators. The report made no mention of possible penalties, but China’s... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Large global banks are facing increased pressure from U.S. regulators to clamp down on casino money-laundering as the government pushes the industry to police not only its own transactions but customers’ as well. Bankers, casino execut... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – All but the biggest U.S. banks could see relief from some financial reforms after the November elections even if control of the U.S. Congress remains divided between Democrats and Republicans. Post-election committee leadership chang... More »
(Reuters) – Pershing Square Capital Management LP, the hedge fund firm run by William Ackman, has sued the U.S. government, claiming that its stripping of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s profit illegally short changes investors in the mortgage companies’ common... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley and sales assistants in its wealth management branch system who claimed they were owed overtime pay agreed to a $4.2 million settlement. Three client service associates began their federal class action lawsuit in June 2011 o... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China on Wednesday expressed concern over a recent series of antitrust investigations, saying China was using strong-arm tactics and appeared to be unfairly targeting foreign firms. An array of indu... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The new U.S. financial consumer agency will improve managers’ training and in-house communications, its director said on Tuesday after an internal report found employees were concerned about inexperienced supervisors and confused about p... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Regulatory pressure to undo the traditional way brokers sell research alongside share dealing is alarming traders in Europe, who fear a further drop in business and more cost-cutting in an already tough environment. At stake is the lucrative... More »
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s antitrust regulator said on Wednesday it would punish Audi and Chrysler for monopoly practices, potentially paving the way for the automakers to be fined up to 10 percent of their domestic annual sales revenue in the world’... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese anti-trust regulator conducted new raids on Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O ) and partner in China Accenture PLC (ACN.N ), the agency said on its website on Wednesday, after saying last week Microsoft is under investigation for anti-trust ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Standard Chartered Plc (STAN.L ) has warned it faces another fine from New York’s financial regulator for problems related to detecting transactions vulnerable to money laundering, piling more pressure on the Asia-focused bank and its bosses... More »
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission watchdog conducted an extensive, months-long investigation to find out who had leaked information that appeared in two Reuters stories published last autumn, but it was unable to identif... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S regulators may relax rules that require the fastest possible execution of securities trades, potentially helping upstart trading venue IEX Group’s plans to become a full-fledged stock exchange. IEX, described in author Michael Lewis’ b... More »
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – An arbitration court in the Netherlands on Monday ruled in favour of shareholders in defunct Russian oil giant Yukos, ordering Moscow to pay roughly $50 billion in damages. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued rulings in... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. government lawyers asked federal regulators on Friday to overturn a judge’s ruling dismissing their case against two former State Street Corp executives accused of misleading investors in a fund exposed to subprime mortgages. In ora... More »
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its probe into the social networking company over events surrounding its controversial initial public offering. In its quarterly report filed on Thursday, Facebook said the regul... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union antitrust regulators will decide by Aug. 29 whether to clear world No. 2 software maker Oracle Corp’s (ORCL.N ) $5.3 billion bid for Micros Systems (MCRS.O ), the European Commission said on Friday. The deal, Oracle’s bigges... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday hammered U.S. companies that avoid federal taxes by shifting their tax domiciles overseas in deals known as “inversions” and called on Congress to pass a bill to curb the practice. During remarks ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday hammered U.S. companies that avoid federal taxes by shifting their tax domiciles overseas in deals known as “inversions” and called on Congress to pass a bill to end the practice. During remarks t... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The federal judge who oversaw the trial of five associates of imprisoned swindler Bernard Madoff on Thursday refused to overturn their convictions for helping their former boss run one of the world’s biggest Ponzi schemes. U.S. District Ju... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge ordered Argentina and investors who did not participate in the country’s past debt restructurings to meet “continuously” with a court-appointed mediator until a settlement is reached, warning of the threat of a new default. U.... More »
ZURICH (Reuters) – Julius Baer said it believes it will find a “fair and equitable” solution to a U.S. criminal probe into the Swiss bank’s role in helping wealthy Americans evade their taxes. The Zurich-based private bank said it had little substantial inform... More »
(Reuters) – Trading firms and employees raised concerns about high-speed traders at Barclays Plc’s “dark pool” months before the United States accused the bank of favoring its high-frequency trading clients, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people fami... More »
MEXICO CITY/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Preliminary findings of a probe by Citigroup’s Mexican unit, Banamex, into how it lost more than $500 million in a corporate loan fraud differ markedly from the results of a separate investigation by the Mexican banking regulat... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. companies, consumer advocates and citizens submitted more than 1 million comments to the Federal Communications Commission, drawing contentious divisions on the issue of net neutrality as the first deadline to comment approached Fri... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court dealt a blow to the victims of financier Allen Stanford’s Ponzi scheme on Friday, ruling that they were not eligible under federal law to file claims seeking compensation for their losses. The decision by the U.S. Co... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The European Central Bank has laid out plans to publish an unprecedented trove of data on individual banks – from measures of leverage to non-performing loans – when it completes a landmark health check in October. The ECB, soon to become Eu... More »
(Reuters) – A California appellate court has reinstated a nearly $5 million ruling against Morgan Stanley in a case initially filed by two brokers who said the company broke promises it made when recruiting them. The three-judge panel of California 4th Distric... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Broadcast and cable TV are not dead yet. In a decision that could crimp consumers’ hopes to cut the cord from their cable operators, the U.S Supreme Court said Aereo Inc, a video streaming service backed by media mogul Barry Diller, viol... More »
BAYREUTH Germany (Reuters) – It takes a British American Tobacco (BATS.L ) factory machine three minutes to load 4 million cigarettes onto a truck in northern Bavaria – but it can take a lot longer to figure out whether those cigarettes end up where they shoul... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has extended the deadline for its review of a proposal to ban a type of settlement in disputes between brokerages and investors that would make it easier for stock brokers to clear their records. The SEC ... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – BNP Paribas’ Chief Operating Officer is to step down at the end of June and retire completely on Sept 30, the French bank announced on Thursday as it wrestles with U.S. authorities over a potential $10 billion fine. New York’s banking regulat... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A senior adviser to BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA ) is likely to leave as part of a settlement involving sanctions violations by the French bank, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday. Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York’s Depart... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Mitsubishi Motors Corp is recalling about 920,000 vehicles globally for a glitch in the light switch that could prevent headlights and blinkers from working, the car maker said on Thursday. No accidents or injuries have been reported as a res... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators filed civil lawsuits on Friday against a “dark pool” trading venue and a major brokerage firm as part of a crackdown on market structure rule violations. In the first case, the Securities and Exchange Commissio... More »
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. authorities negotiating with BNP Paribas over alleged sanctions violations at one point suggested that France’s biggest bank pay a penalty as high as $16 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. While the sour... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Questions about how to apply securities law to activist investors could complicate any potential insider trading case against billionaire Carl Icahn, pro-golfer Phil Mickelson and Las Vegas gambler William Walters, legal experts said. U.S.... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s unwillingness to stop Amazon.com from using hardball tactics in fights with book publishers has angered book lovers but antitrust experts say regulators are unlikely to intervene in what appear to be business disput... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – BlackRock pushed back on Thursday against a U.S. report that raised concerns about asset managers and securities lending, arguing in a paper sent to regulators that its activities do not pose outsized risks. At issue are transactions in ... More »
(Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co lost its bid to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the city of Los Angeles, which accuses the bank of predatory lending practices that targeted minority borrowers and led to the loss of property tax revenue. U.S. District Judge Otis Wright... More »
(Reuters) – For two months last summer, Stanford Law School professor Joseph Grundfest locked himself away in his home office in California’s Portola Valley. Grundfest’s house overlooks the Santa Cruz Mountains, but his attention was fixed on the piles of pape... More »
(Reuters) – Lloyds Banking Group is joining a class-action lawsuit against government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland, seeking 420 million pounds ($709 million) over the bank’s handling of its 12-billion-pound rights issue, the Herald Scotland newspaper reported.... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Michael Steinberg, a portfolio manager at Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund, was sentenced on Friday to 3-1/2 years in prison for insider trading. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhatta... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official on Thursday railed against the U.S. regulatory risk council for trying to grab the SEC’s power in a “dangerous” quest to impose tougher rules on large asset managers. SEC Republican ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. regulators on Thursday advanced a “net neutrality” proposal that would ban Internet providers from blocking or slowing down access to websites but may let them charge content companies for faster and more reliable delivery of their ... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court appeared skeptical on Tuesday about reinstating a $1.3 billion jury verdict won by Oracle Corp against SAP, in a case where the European software company admitted massive copyright infringement. At a court hearing... More »
DETROIT (Reuters) – U.S. safety regulators have opened an investigation into an estimated 37,656 Nissan Quest minivans after receiving complaints about stalling due to inaccurate fuel gauges. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a... More »
ST LOUIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. Treasury Department division charged with policing money laundering may have run afoul of federal regulations that require military veterans to be given preference for jobs in the government if they are qualified, according... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal appeals court in New York rejected appeals by UBS AG shareholders seeking to hold the Swiss bank liable for their losses for having concealed its exposure to risky mortgage-backed securities and helping clients evade U.S. taxes. ... More »
ZURICH (Reuters) – UBS will revamp its corporate structure to ensure it can be broken up more easily in a crisis, cutting the amount of money it must set aside for potential losses and allowing it to pay shareholders a special dividend. The Swiss bank will swa... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is probing whether a number of hedge funds may have acted improperly when they made bets on nutrition and weight loss company Herbalife Ltd last year, a source said. The regulator is reviewin... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After weeks of public outcry, Netflix Inc brought its concerns about Internet neutrality directly to U.S. regulators this week in meetings with Federal Communications Commission staff, according to sources familiar with the matter. The v... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed rules on Thursday that would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18, but would not restrict flavored products, online sales or advertising, which public health advocates say attract... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. regulators are expected to vote on May 15 on a new set of so-called “net neutrality” rules aimed at making certain that broadband providers do not slow down or block consumers’ access to legal Internet content. The rules from the Fe... More »
(Reuters) – The Federal Reserve indicated to Citigroup Inc that the bank would get more time to fix certain “stress test” planning problems before rejecting its capital plan last month, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people close to the company. The ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday wades into Argentina’s multi-billion dollar legal fight with bond investors who turned down two debt restructuring offers after the country’s 2002 default. The relatively narrow case that the nine justice... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. government watchdog on Wednesday warned that big banks have dramatically boosted their borrowing from a federal housing finance program, a move that could pose risks to the government-sponsored system if a big borrower defaulted. ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A lawsuit claiming Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc tried to undercut a business partner’s relationship with pet products retailer PetSmart Inc can proceed, a New York state judge ruled on Monday. Age Group Ltd in July 2009 entered into... More »
HONG KONG (Reuters) – China has issued stricter guidelines governing trust companies, two sources with direct knowledge of the rules told Reuters on Monday, in a bid to counter systemic risks posed by the biggest players in the country’s shadow-banking sector.... More »
NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) – The FBI is probing Herbalife Ltd, the nutrition and weight loss company that hedge fund manager William Ackman has called a pyramid scheme, sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday. The news, first reported by the Fina... More »
SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s board faces a lawsuit over the way it handled an error with its Internet Explorer browser that ended up costing the company a record-breaking $731 million fine by European antitrust regulators. The lawsuit, brought by share... More »
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators are considering testing a proposed reform that could drive business to major stock exchanges and away from alternative trading venues such as “dark pools” that critics say may be hurting investors by r... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – SAC Capital Advisors’ $1.2 billion criminal settlement for insider trading received final court approval on Thursday, as a U.S. judge accepted a guilty plea from the hedge fund firm run by billionaire Steven A. Cohen. At a hearing in Manha... More »
(Reuters) – The co-founder and former chief executive of Maker Studios, Danny Zappin, filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing a shareholder vote on a takeover offer from Walt Disney Co, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Zappin and three other former Ma... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. financial regulators on Thursday told banks to upgrade their systems as soon as possible if they are vulnerable to the recently uncovered “Heartbleed” bug, which exposes data to hackers. The Federal Financial Institutions Examinatio... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Banks will not have to hold as much capital as feared to cover trading losses, global regulators said on Thursday in their latest easing of rules to avoid crimping economic recovery. The Basel Committee of banking supervisors from nearly 30 ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 White House contender, will unveil legislation on Wednesday to broaden the use of financial vehicles known as “income share agreements” that students can use to fund their higher education ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A group of small brokerages and large commodities companies convinced lawmakers to tweak a rule that they say would have made derivatives trading more expensive for them and sent more business to Wall Street banks that already dominate the... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The eight biggest U.S. banks must boost capital levels by a total of about $68 billion under new rules, U.S. regulators said on Tuesday, prompting industry complaints that less-stringent global standards will give overseas competitors an... More »
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Comcast Corp sought to rebut critics of its planned $45.2 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc, arguing that newcomers like Google Inc and Apple Inc would ensure competition in both Internet and video markets. In a 175-page... More »
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s watchdog, on Tuesday launched a review of its rules to determine whether they are effective and their costs and benefits are in line with the securities industry’s expectations, according to regulatory... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators should not be so quick to scale back the power of the states to police certain smaller public stock deals, a top U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official warned on Tuesday. The remarks by SEC Commission... More »
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Ricardo Salinas, the billionaire owner of Mexico’s TV Azteca, said on Monday that the new telecommunications regulator, created by a phone and TV industry overhaul, does not have sufficient power to effectively police companies it deems... More »
BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – A number of U.S. states are jointly investigating a data breach involving a subsidiary of Experian Plc that exposed the social security numbers of some 200 million people to potential criminal activity. A Vietnamese man last month c... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The question of whether a fragile Picasso painting that covers a wall in New York City’s Four Seasons Restaurant will crumble if taken down to allow repairs went before a state court judge on Wednesday. The dispute between the restaurant’s... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra on Tuesday called her company’s slow response to faulty ignition switches linked to at least 13 deaths “unacceptable,” but could not give U.S. lawmakers many answers as to what went wrong. After taking an... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Standing on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday morning in the path of an early spring breeze, Renee Trautwein tearfully braced herself to relive the worst morning of her life. In a few hours, Mary Barra, the chief executive officer ... More »
