ACCOUNTING
KPMG to settles US case
KPMG has agreed to pay US$8.2 million to settle US regulators’ charges of compromising its independence by providing non-audit services to companies whose books it audited. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the settlement on Friday with New York-based KPMG, one of the so-called “Big Four” accounting firms with Deloitte, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The SEC said KPMG violated auditor independence rules by providing prohibited non-audit services like bookkeeping to the companies involved. In addition, the SEC said some KPMG employees owned stock in companies that were KPMG audit clients. The company is paying about US$6.5 million in restitution and interest, and a US$1.77 million penalty. KPMG also agreed to hire an independent consultant to monitor its compliance with rules.
INFLATION
Venezuela limits profits
Venezuela on Friday decreed a new price control law that sets limits on company profits and establishes prison terms for those charged with hoarding or overcharging, part of socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s efforts to tame inflation. Under the Fair Price Law, Venezuela sets a maximum profit margin of 30 percent and requires firms to obtain “fair price certificates” to access US dollars through the country’s currency control mechanism. The law carries prison sentences of up to 14 years for crimes including hoarding, “destabilizing the economy” and food trafficking, which refers to people buying subsidized goods and reselling them mainly in neighboring Colombia.
MANUFACTURING
P&G profits top forecasts
Procter & Gamble Co (P&G), the world’s largest consumer-goods maker, posted second-quarter profit that topped analysts’ estimates as sales of products, such as Pampers diapers, rose in emerging markets. Net income fell 16 percent to US$3.43 billion, from US$4.06 billion a year earlier, Cincinnati-based P&G said on Friday in a statement. Excluding some items, profit was US$1.21 a share, exceeding the US$1.20 average of 20 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Chief executive officer AG Lafley has said developing markets with climbing household incomes will be “significant” drivers of growth. Sales in such countries rose 8 percent in the quarter, excluding the effects of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign-currency exchange-rate fluctuations.
ENERGY
Power usage fees change
Germany is set to become the first nation in Europe to charge owners of renewable energy plants for their own use of electricity, part of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s effort to contain rising power bills. Merkel’s Cabinet backed proposals to charge operators of new clean-energy plants 70 percent of the so-called EEG-Umlage, a fee paid by power consumers that they are currently exempt from, according to a government document. That would translate into 0.044 euros (US$0.06) per kilowatt-hour. The solar industry says such a payment would curb investments in the technology in the nation that has the most installations of photovoltaics in the world.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group