RIDE-HAILING
Uber fires Levandowski
Uber Technologies Inc on Tuesday said it had fired Anthony Levandowski, a star engineer brought in to lead the company’s self-driving automobile efforts who was accused of stealing trade secrets when he left a job at Google. “Over the last few months Uber has provided significant evidence to the court to demonstrate that our self-driving technology has been built independently,” Uber associate general counsel for employment and litigation Angela Padilla wrote in an e-mail to employees. “Over that same period, Uber has urged Anthony to fully cooperate in helping the court get to the facts and ultimately helping to prove our case. We take our obligations under the court order very seriously and so we have chosen to terminate his employment at Uber.” What Levandowski did when he quit Google to start his own company, which was acquired by Uber for nearly US$700 million last year, is the key question in a lawsuit that pits one of the world’s most powerful companies against Uber. Google was a pioneer in autonomous car technology and has spent nearly a decade on its effort, which is now run through Waymo, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. Uber chief executive officer Travis Kalanick has said the future of his ride-hailing company, privately valued at nearly US$70 billion, hinges on work being done to create cars that can drive themselves.
BANKING
Deutsche hires tax expert
Deutsche Bank AG has hired an expert in tax structuring as a managing director at its investment bank. The bank on Tuesday said that it had hired Jeffrey Mensch, who was most recently at MacAndrews & Forbes as a senior vice president of finance. He is the seventh managing director Deutsche Bank has hired in its Americas corporate finance group, as well as the second for its Americas mergers team. The firm, which has been rebuilding itself after years of legal troubles and declining business, is shoring up its banking business in the US. Mensch, who had also worked at the investment banks Evercore Partners, UBS Group AG and Deutsche Bank, has focused on the tax aspects of corporate finance. The specialty has become more prominent in recent years as companies have tried to use dealmaking to lower their taxes.
COMMUNICATIONS
American Tower mulls bid
American Tower Corp is exploring a bid for Cellnex Telecom SA to expand in Europe as the Spanish tower operator’s main shareholder considers selling assets as part of a merger, people familiar with the matter said. Any offer from American Tower would hinge on the successful combination of the Spanish company’s largest shareholder, Abertis Infraestructuras SA, with Atlantia SpA, the people said. Atlantia would determine whether to sell the Abertis assets once the deal is concluded, the people said. American Tower, which has a market value of about US$56 billion, has yet to make a formal offer for the Spanish firm, another person said. No final agreements have been reached with any of the parties and the discussions might not result in a deal, the people said.
TRADE
US ‘open’ to resuming talks
The US is “open” to resuming talks with the EU on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a senior US official said on Tuesday. “It makes sense to continue TTIP negotiations and to work towards a solution that increases overall trade while reducing our trade deficit,” US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said on CNBC.
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
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
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