E-COMMERCE
Amazon drops appeal
Amazon.com Inc has dropped its appeal of a US regulator’s order and will pay refunds up to US$70 million for app purchases by children on its tablet computers, officials said on Tuesday. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it filed a joint request with Amazon to withdraw a court challenge to an order from last year, which was similar to actions taken against Apple Inc and Google for failing to get parental authorization for purchases made by minors in their respective app stores. The end of the litigation clears the way for refunds of about US$70 million for in-app charges made between November 2011 and May last year. “This case demonstrates what should be a bedrock principle for all companies — you must get customers’ consent before you charge them,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection acting director Thomas Pahl said.
BANKING
Credit Suisse plan panned
Glass Lewis & Co is advising Credit Suisse Group AG shareholders to reject the bank’s proposal to pay 26 million Swiss francs (US$26 million) in short-term bonuses to its executive board. The amount appears “wholly inappropriate given the loss suffered by shareholders in the last two fiscal years,” the proxy adviser said in its recommendations for the bank’s annual meeting on April 28. The group also said the proposed compensation for the bank’s board of directors is “excessive.” Swiss law requires companies listed in the country to give their shareholders a binding annual vote on pay packages for executives and directors. Lavish corporate pay packages have become controversial with Swiss taxpayers, especially since 2008 when they bailed out UBS Group AG, the country’s biggest bank.
FASHION
Fifth Avenue Polo closing
Ralph Lauren Corp on Tuesday said that it is shuttering its high-profile Polo store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, less than three years after opening it. The closure, which will happen later this month, is part of the New York fashion company’s plan to save US$140 million annually. The company said it will close other stores, cut jobs and shut some corporate offices, but did not provide details. The company is trying to turn its business around in the face of falling revenue. Like other traditional brands, Ralph Lauren has been hurt by sluggish performance at major department stores as shoppers increasingly skip the mall and shop online. Chief executive officer Stefan Larsson, who was hired less than two years ago to revive the brand, is leaving next month. Chief financial officer Jane Nielsen is to lead the company until a successor is found.
REAL ESTATE
Vancouver market cools
Home sales in the Vancouver region’s once-boiling housing market soared last month from February and prices edged higher, but activity was sharply lower than a year ago, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said on Tuesday. Last month’s sales rose 47.6 percent from a month earlier, but were down 30.8 percent from the record-setting pace a year ago and 7.9 percent above the 10-year average for the month, the board said. Vancouver’s housing market, the most expensive in Canada, has slowed since the provincial government of British Columbia imposed a 15 percent foreign buyers tax in August last year amid concern that speculation by global investors, mostly from China, was fueling a bubble.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
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