ITALY
Authorities chase Amazon
Tax authorities are chasing US online retail behemoth Amazon.com Inc for 130 million euros (US$140 million) in tax on its Italian operations, local media reported on Saturday. Following similar investigations into Google and Apple Inc, tax police reportedly handed Milan prosecutors a dossier on their investigations on 2009 to 2014 returns by the world’s largest online retailer. In a statement, Amazon denied the claim, adding that it had invested about 800 million euros over the past seven years in the nation, where it employs about 2,000 people, and had reduced profits there to ramp down its tax exposure.
AUTOMAKERS
US probes GM recall
The US government is investigating whether General Motors Co should add about 312,000 vehicles to a 2015 recall for headlights that can suddenly go dark. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday said that 128 owners have complained that low-beam lights can fail. The investigation covers the 2005 and 2009 Buick Lacrosse; the 2006 and 2007 Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Buick Rainier; the 2006-2008 Isuzu Ascender and Saab 9-7X; and the 2007 Pontiac Grand Prix. At the time of the recall GM said the headlamp module in the engine compartment could overheat and stop working properly.
INTERNET
Google CEO paid US$200m
Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai last year received a US$200 million compensation package for running the Internet company that makes nearly all the money for Alphabet Inc. Most of the pay consisted of Alphabet stock that the company valued at US$198.7 million in securities documents filed on Friday. Alphabet gave the award to Pichai in January last year, a few months after he succeeded Larry Page as Google’s chief executive officer. The 44-year-old Pichai last year also received a US$650,000 salary in addition to personal security services and air travel valued at US$372,000.
TECHNOLOGY
IBM pay plan challenged
IBM’s compensation plan for top executives drew record shareholder opposition after the board last year boosted chief executive officer Ginni Rometty’s pay package more than 60 percent. About 46 percent of the votes cast at Tuesday’s annual meeting in Tampa, Florida, went against the board’s pay plan for top bosses, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. That is IBM’s lowest result since votes were first mandated for public companies in 2011. While it is not binding, 30 percent opposition is generally considered the threshold for a losing vote and a result that should prompt directors to address shareholder concerns. The board “will review the results of this vote, as is its customary practice,” IBM said in an e-mailed statement.
UTILITIES
Swiss court rejects appeal
A Swiss court has rejected an appeal by Egyptian energy companies after a French court last year ordered them to pay US$2 billion in compensation to state-owned Israel Electric Corp (IEC), the Israeli utility said. An IEC statement on Friday said that Egyptian Natural Gas and Egyptian General Petroleum Corp were liable because they were unable to fulfil their commitment to provide it with natural gas for its power stations. Egypt sold gas to Israel under a 20-year agreement that collapsed in 2012 after months of repeated attacks by insurgents on a pipeline serving Israel in Egypt’s remote Sinai Peninsula.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of