■ Telecoms
Sprint, AT&T to pay penalties
Sprint Corp and AT&T Corp will pay nearly US$1.5 million in civil penalties to settle government claims that the companies violated federal credit laws for customers seeking telephone service, the Federal Trade Commission announced Friday. Under the agreement, Sprint will pay US$1.1 million and AT&T will pay US$365,000. The commission said the two companies either denied service to prospective customers or placed conditions on their service because of their credit reports. In many cases, the companies were then required to notify the consumers of their rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to obtain a free copy of their credit report or of their right to dispute with the credit bureau information in their reports. The FTC says those notifications either were not sent to consumers or were sent but were incomplete. In the case of Sprint, about 550,000 consumers were affected.
■ Telecoms
Nortel hires help
Canadian telecommuni-cations company Nortel Networks said Friday it has hired giant consulting firm Accenture to help fix its troubled financial operation. Accenture, a global firm that operates in 48 countries including Canada, will review elements of Nortel's worldwide finance organization and will help identify improvements to business processes and systems. Nortel has already fired former chief executive Frank Dunn and several senior executives within the finance hierarchy after problems were uncovered with financial statements spanning several years. In addition to an internal review being conducted by Nortel's board, the company is also the subject of investigations by the RCMP, the US Attorney's office in Dallas and stock market regulators in Canada and the US.
■ Airlines
UAE to order Boeings
Etihad Airways of the United Arab Emirates said Friday it would order five Boeing Co 777-300ERs, marking the first time the airline has bought Boeing planes. The deal for five of Chicago-based Boeing's long-haul, widebody jets could be worth as much as US$1.2 billion at list prices, although airlines usually negotiate steep discounts. Etihad began operations in November last year and has said that it hopes to expand rapidly with routes throughout the world. Earlier this year, the airline placed an order worth more than US$7 billion with Boeing's European rival, Airbus. Ahmed bin Saif al-Nehyan said Etihad had thought about buying Boeing's new mid-sized 7E7 jet, but didn't want to wait until 2008, when the airplane is scheduled to go into service.
■ Automakers
Goodyear to slash jobs
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co said on Friday it will eliminate 340 jobs in its engineered products and chemical businesses to reduce costs. The largest US tiremaker will cut 240 jobs in engineered products by the end of the third quarter next year and 100 in its chemical business by the end of this year. The jobs will be eliminated at several unnamed facilities in North America and Europe. The Akron-based company will record a charge of between US$23.5 million and US$27.5 million in engineered products and a charge of between US$5.5 million and US$6 million in its chemical business. Goodyear reported its first quarterly profit last month since the third quarter of 2002, propelled by strong sales of its new, all-weather Assurance tire.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is