LITIGATION
Taipei taxi drivers sue Uber
A group of taxi drivers in Taipei yesterday filed a complaint with prosecutors, accusing ride-sharing service provider Uber Technologies Inc of tax evasion. Taipei City Professional Drivers’ Union president Cheng Li-chia (鄭力嘉) said Uber is registered in Taiwan as an information service provider, but is running a transportation business. Although Uber has revenue of about NT$3 billion ($94.9 million) since its entry to Taiwan four years ago, the company and its drivers have not paid any taxes, Cheng said. He urged the government not to abandon legal drivers “just to please a foreign business group,” and warned that taxi drivers are prepared to take drastic action to defend their work and survival rights.
MANUFACTURING
Solar Applied gets fine
Solar Applied Materials Technology Corp (光洋科) was fined NT$50,000 yesterday for failing to file financial statements for the first half by the deadline. The Taipei Exchange said the company should have submitted its financial statements by Monday. The company said it hired Nan Tai CPAs & Co (南台聯合會計師事務所) to help review its financial statements, replacing LH Chen & Co, CPAs (資信聯合會計師事務所). High-ranking executives and financial officers have since resigned.
AGED CARE
CTCI to team up with MCS
CTCI Corp (中鼎工程), which builds refinery and power plant facilities, yesterday announced that its affiliate CTCI Resources Engineering Inc (萬鼎工程) signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop long-term elderly care projects with Japan’s Medical Care Services Co Inc (MCS). The affiliate’s efforts in exploring Taiwan’s long-term care since 2013 will be greatly helped by the partnership with MCS, which is an experienced player in the field, CTCI said. MCS currently operates more than 270 full-service long-term care facilities in Japan, and the company has exported its business model to other countries including China, Singapore and Malaysia, CTCI said.
ELECTRONICS
Galaxy Note 7 launched
Samsung Electronics Co yesterday launched its new smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7, and said it aims to sell 20 percent more than last year’s Note 5 in Taiwan. The South Korean company is confident of sales of its new product in the second half of the year, citing replacement demand for upgrading to the 4G network. The Galaxy Note 7 is water-resistant and dust tight and is equipped with a 12-megapixel camera with dual pixel autofocus.
BANKING
BEA profits weighed down
The Bank of East Asia Ltd (BEA, 東亞銀行), the Hong Kong lender facing pressure from Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, yesterday said first-half profit dropped 38 percent as China’s slowing economy dragged on lending and caused loan impairments to surge. Net income fell to HK$2.1 billion (US$271 million) for the first six months of the year, from HK$3.35 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. Impairment losses on loans climbed 60 percent to HK$1.24 billion, as profit at its China business slumped 56 percent, it said. “The banking sector in mainland China continues to be challenged in this environment by slowing loan growth, compressed net interest margins and increased default risk,” the company said in its statement.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
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