Month: November 2017

From Queen Elizabeth to U2 frontman Bono, the leak of more than 14 million documents from firms involved in offshore finance, known as the Paradise Papers, has engulfed some of the world’s most famous names. One country appears more than most in the papers: Britain. Campaigners say weak regulation means Britain is at the center of the secretive industry, and its decision to leave the European Union is making things worse, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

Uber lost the latest round in the battle over its operating model Friday, when a British panel ruled that the company’s drivers are workers, not independent contractors. The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld a lower panel’s decision, agreeing that the two drivers in this case were “workers” under British law and therefore should receive the minimum wage and paid holidays. Uber said it would appeal. Judge Jennifer Eady rejected Uber’s argument that the men were independent contractors, because the drivers had no opportunity to make their own agreements with passengers and the company required them to accept 80 percent of trip requests when they were on duty. The tribunal, Eady wrote in her decision, found “the drivers were integrated into the Uber business of providing transportation services.” The ride-hailing service said it has never required drivers in the U.K. to accept 80 percent of the trips offered to them and that drivers make well above the minimum wage. Employment lawyers expect the case to be heard by higher courts as early as next year. “Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed,” Tom Elvidge, Uber’s acting general manager for the U.K., said in a statement. “The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive, and so we intend to appeal.” Alternative to taxis San Francisco-based Uber has expanded rapidly around the world by offering an alternative to traditional taxis through …

President Donald Trump’s two-day stop in China saw the signing of $250 billion in deals between the world’s two biggest economies and the two countries aligning themselves closer in resolute opposition to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But analysts say little new ground was broken on trade or North Korea, an issue that will continue to top President Trump’s agenda as he travels to Vietnam and attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. And the true test of the feel-good foundation forged during the meetings, analysts said, is likely to come in the days, weeks and months ahead. Big deal? By design, the $250 billion sum of the deals was meant to provide a sharp contrast to the $300-500 billion deficit that exists between the United States and China, something Trump called “horrible” before departing for his 12-day trip to Asia. Chinese state media have kicked into overdrive hailing the visit as a huge success. Media reports have highlighted the tone of the meetings, repeatedly noting the total amount of the deals. An editorial in the official China Daily Friday said, “Although the differences that had been pestering bilateral ties have not instantly disappeared, the most important takeaway from their talks in Beijing has been the constructive approach to these issue the two leaders demonstrated.” Chinese President Xi Jinping has called the meeting “historic.” “We will definitely write a new chapter in the U.S.-Chinese relations. We will definitely make a new contribution to realize a beautiful future for U.S.-Chinese relations,” Xi said …

Donald Trump warned that the stock market was a “big, fat, ugly bubble” just weeks before he was elected. A year later, Wall Street remains on a milestone-shattering run that the president has been eager to tout and tweet about. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, the broadest measure of the stock market, has notched 61 record highs and climbed about 21.3 percent in the year since Trump was elected. That exceeds the S&P 500’s gain in the first-term election anniversaries of all but two presidents since World War II: George H.W. Bush (22.9 percent) and John F. Kennedy (27 percent), according to CFRA Research. It also outpaces the market’s performance in the same postelection period of several other modern-era White House occupants, including Ronald Reagan (-3.3 percent), Bill Clinton (10.3 percent), George W. Bush (-22.1 percent) and Barack Obama (4.1 percent). But it trails the S&P 500’s gain in the first year after the second-term elections of Clinton (31.7 percent) and Obama (23.4 percent). ​Initially a sell-off in Asia The billionaire’s surprise electoral victory initially set off a steep sell-off in Asian markets. But by the end of the day on Nov. 9, 2016, global markets had steadied and the S&P 500 index closed sharply higher. The market’s rally continued for several weeks, driving the major U.S. stock indexes to record highs. This year, stocks have gradually moved higher, clocking new milestones for the indexes along the way. Since Trump’s election, investors have been betting that the White House …

Bicycle highways, urban farms and local energy hubs — just some of the ways that yesterday’s smokestack cities are turning into tomorrow’s green spaces. The Urban Transitions Alliance (UTA), a network that brings together cities in Germany, the United States and China, launched this week to help members learn regeneration tricks from each other. “What to do with your brownfield sites, how to transition with citizens in mind, create new jobs — these cities have a lot of challenges in common,” said Roman Mendle, Smart Cities program manager at ICLEI, an international association of local governments. As up to 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated in urban areas, cities have to play a leading role in addressing climate change. Experts from more than 20 countries met in Essen, Germany, this week to launch the UTA and thrash out how post-industrial cities can reinvent themselves in plans that will be submitted to the U.N. climate talks in Bonn this week. Essen, once a coal and steel city known as Germany’s “Graue Maus” (grey mouse) for its polluted air and waterways, has gained a reputation as a trailblazer for sustainability, becoming the European Commission’s European Green Capital 2017. “There is a lot of know-how in Essen on how to transition from the age of carbon to a post-carbon world,” said Simone Raskob, Essen’s deputy mayor and head of its environment department. “No city can do this by itself. There are a lot of challenges,” Raskob, who leads the European …

Former New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg is donating $50 million to help nations around the world shift from coal to combat pollution and climate change, expanding his funding outside the United States. The project would start in Europe and expand into other countries later on, his charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies, said in a statement Thursday on the margins of U.N. climate negotiations among 200 nations in Bonn, Germany. The European Climate Foundation, a non-governmental group, will be the leading partner in Europe, it said. “Bloomberg’s announcement marks his first investment in efforts outside the U.S. to decrease reliance on coal and shift to renewable, cleaner energy sources,” Bloomberg’s charity said in a statement. In the United States, Bloomberg has given $110 million to a Beyond Coal campaign to close mines since 2011. “A growing number of European countries have made plans to go 100 percent coal-free, which sets a great example for the rest of the world — but coal still kills around 20,000 people in the European Union each year,” Bloomberg said in a statement. Since 2011 nearly half of the U.S. coal-fired power plants, or nearly 260 plants, have closed. The closures have continued this year despite President Donald Trump’s plan to pull out of the global Paris agreement for fighting climate change and instead promote jobs in the domestic fossil fuel industry. …

Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent Holdings Ltd. on Thursday flagged video games and ad sales as areas where it thinks it could help Snapchat owner Snap after acquiring a 12 percent stake in the U.S. firm. Snap disclosed in a U.S. regulatory filing on Wednesday that Tencent recently bought 145.8 million of its shares on the open market, fueling investor speculation about how the two companies might work together. The U.S. social media company has struggled since its March initial public offering to meet analyst expectations for user growth, and it is locked in fierce competition for users and ad dollars with Facebook Inc. In describing its stake, Tencent, the world’s largest gaming company by revenue, implied a close relationship with Snap that could go beyond passive investing and involve assisting the U.S. company with strategy. Investors treated Tencent’s new stake as an investment rather than a step toward an acquisition, while analysts viewed the move as potentially more beneficial for the Chinese company than for Snap. Shares in Snap fell 4.3 percent on Thursday to $12.35, adding to a 14.6 percent loss in the previous session. Snap went public at $17 a share. Morgan Stanley analysts late on Wednesday cut their rating on the stock to “underweight” because of competition from Facebook’s Instagram, which has introduced features that mimic Snapchat’s disappearing messages. A separate Morgan Stanley division was lead underwriter for Snap’s IPO. Tencent’s shares do not have voting power and the company will not have a …

What’s Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest takeaway as he wraps up a year of travel to dozens of U.S. states? The importance of local communities. To this end, Facebook’s CEO is announcing a program to boost small businesses and give people technical skills on and off Facebook. The move shows how intertwined Facebook has become not just in our social lives, but in entrepreneurs’ economic survival and growth. Facebook says 70 million small businesses use its service. Only 6 million of them advertise.   Called Community Boost, the program will visit 30 U.S. cities next year and work with local groups to train people in skills such as coding, building websites – and naturally, using Facebook for their business.   Zuckerberg says the effort is not just about Facebook’s business but its core mission.   …

West Virginia officials announced an agreement on Thursday with China Energy Investment Corp. Ltd. for the company to invest $83.7 billion in shale gas development and chemical manufacturing in West Virginia over 20 years. State Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher and China Energy President Ling Wen signed the memorandum in Beijing as part of the U.S.-China trade mission and an overall $250 billion of planned Chinese investments in the U.S. It during President Trump’s visit to Beijing.   West Virginia commerce officials said project planning is already underway and will focus on power generation, chemical manufacturing and underground storage of natural gas liquids and derivatives. The state was chosen for its position as an energy producer and its large underground shale gas reserves.   “West Virginia has actively sought direct foreign investment to strengthen and diversify our economy,” Thrasher said. Toyota, Hino Motors, Gestamp, Sogefi and other corporations with international parent companies have created jobs and generated income in the state, and they expect China Energy to bring mutual benefits, he said.   West Virginia University since 2002 has been jointly researching coal liquefaction with mining company Shenhua Group, which merged with energy company Guodian Group to form China Energy.   The university said it will work closely with state officials to help coordinate the investment,with funding focused on developing the proposed Appalachia storage and trading hub.   In August, the university released a study by researchers from the geological surveys in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio of geologic formations that …

The “Paradise Papers,” millions of confidential documents on offshore investments that were leaked this week, have shed light on the financial affairs of world leaders such as Queen Elizabeth II and the president of Colombia. They also cite several prominent politicians in the world’s fourth largest country, Indonesia, including children of its famously corrupt late dictator Suharto, who skimmed over $30 billion in his lifetime. The documents cite Suharto’s daughter Mamiek and son Tommy, a playboy businessman and convicted murderer; Sandiaga Uno, an entrepreneur and the current deputy of Jakarta; and Prabowo Subianto, a businessman, former army general, and current opposition coalition leader who narrowly lost the 2014 presidential election. “We found 215 Indonesian names in total,” said Wahyu Dhyatmika, who was the only Indonesian member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) team that shared the documents. He said the remaining names — 200 individuals and 15 companies — would become public as the complete documents are shared in coming weeks. The Indonesian names that have been released so far are only a small, albeit prominent, sample. The documents are drawn from the offshore law firm Appleby in Bermuda, corporate services providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and business registries in 19 tax havens worldwide. They list over 120,000 names of people engaged in offshore investments. Prominent names According to the documents, Prabowo was director of a company called Nusantara Energy Resources that opened in Bermuda in 2001 and closed in 2004. Tommy Suharto was director of a company registered in Bermuda …

The quiz games and ring tosses at factories around Vietnam are more than just amusement; charity workers are using them in their efforts against human trafficking, with the support of foreign governments and corporations. Factory workers play these games as part of training workshops to raise awareness about trafficking, held by the nonprofit Pacific Links Foundation. The organization partners with multinational companies that buy products from manufacturers in Vietnam, such as Walmart and the makers of Abercrombie & Fitch, Express and Victoria’s Secret. In the workshops, Vietnamese learn about the tactics of traffickers who target them in industrial parks. It’s a heavy topic, though the instructors bring some levity with the entertainment, which can include prizes for participants who answer quiz questions. “Through our work with survivors, we’ve seen a growing trend of victims being recruited from industrial zones,” Pacific Links co-founder Diep Vuong said in explaining the foundation’s focus on young people and factory workers, who are susceptible to those who offer dubious work abroad. She said human trafficking is “stealing the future away from our youth and workers.” Social responsibility Victims can be misled by the promise of tantalizing jobs in foreign countries, only to arrive and find that wages are lower than were advertised, passports are confiscated, or they are in insurmountable debt because of travel and agent fees, anti-trafficking activists say. For companies, participation in campaigns like this has become one way to meet their corporate social responsibility goals. “Vietnam is a very important sourcing market,” …

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that Janet Yellen has not said yet whether she plans to remain on the Federal Reserve board when her term as chair ends in February, but the administration is moving ahead with filling other vacancies. There are three vacancies on the seven-member Fed board and there could be a fourth if Yellen decides to leave. Her term as a board member does not end until 2024. In an interview on Bloomberg TV, Mnuchin said he had breakfast with Yellen on Wednesday from which he came away with the impression that she had not made a decision about her future at the Fed. Last week, President Donald Trump announced he would nominate Fed board member Jerome Powell as the next Fed chairman, bypassing Yellen. If Yellen did stay on the board, she would be only the second former chair to do so. Marriner Eccles, whose name is on the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, remained on the board for three years after he was not nominated for another term as chair by Harry Truman in 1948. Mnuchin said the goal was to fill the vacancies quickly, but the administration did not necessarily see a need to pick someone with a PhD in economics for the vice chair position even though Powell will be the first person to lead the Fed without a degree in economics in nearly four decades. “I think our priority is that we are going to fill these positions quickly. Our focus was …