BANKING
Credit Suisse faces lawsuit
Credit Suisse Group AG was ordered to face a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general accusing the bank of fraud in sales of mortgage-backed securities before the recession. A New York State Supreme Court judge rejected the bank’s request to dismiss the lawsuit, which demands as much as US$10 billion in damages. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s suit was valid and he demonstrated the bank might have engaged in misconduct, Judge Marcy Friedman said in Thursday’s decision. The ruling could strengthen Schneiderman’s hand in punishing other banks in the future over liability for the financial crisis. “We will appeal this particular decision and continue to defend ourselves in this case,” Credit Suisse spokesman Drew Benson said in an e-mail yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Prosecutors raid LG office
South Korean prosecutors raided the Seoul headquarters of LG Electronics yesterday, following allegations that the firm’s executives vandalized the washing machines of their rival Samsung Electronics at a trade fair in Germany, company officials said. Samsung had filed a lawsuit accusing the LG executives of defamation, property damage and obstruction of business, and said LG home appliance division president Jo Seong-jin was among those who damaged machines displayed at September’s event in Berlin. Investigators seized documents and computer hard disks during the raid on LG headquarters, Yonhap news agency said, adding that the company’s home appliance factory in the southern city of Changwon was also searched. Samsung has also accused LG of making slanderous claims that its washing machines were defective.
BANKING
Japan Post announces IPO
Japan Post Holdings Co yesterday confirmed a long-awaited plan to list its shares in Tokyo, with the government-owned firm set for what could be one of the world’s biggest share sales. The parent company, along with its insurance and banking units, is to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in the middle of the next fiscal year, which begins in April, but executives declined to comment on the size of the initial sale. Plans for the IPO come amid hopes that starting to privatize what is effectively the world’s biggest bank could boost investor sentiment and spur efforts to cut red tape in Japan’s highly regulated economy. Company executives said much as 50 percent of the holding company and its financial units could ultimately be sold off, with media reporting that its combined market capitalization could reach ¥8 trillion (US$67 billion). Japanese media earlier said the size of the sale could ultimately rival that of mobile phone giant NTT Docomo’s ¥7 trillion IPO in 1998, the country’s biggest share sale to date.
TRADE
India raises palm oil duties
India, the world’s biggest buyer of palm oil, has raised import duties on crude and refined varieties in a move to protect farmers from declining oilseed prices. The tax on crude palm oil was raised to 7.5 percent from 2.5 percent, while the duty on refined grades was increased to 15 percent from 10 percent, the Central Board of Excise and Customs said on its Web site in a notice dated Dec. 24. The increase may counter the benefits shippers were expecting to gain from the scrapping of export taxes by Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for about 86 percent of world supply.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to