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.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
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