BANKING
US requests Deutsche data
The US government has requested that Deutsche Bank provide information on transactions potentially linked to Michael Flynn, US President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The request is part of an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election that brought Trump to office, the paper said. Flynn has pleaded guilty in a deal under which he agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. Earlier this week, two sources said that Germany’s biggest bank had been subpoenaed for records.
EUROPEAN UNION
Leaders seek banking union
EU leaders on Friday set the completion of a banking union and expansion of the role of the eurozone bailout fund as priorities for eurozone integration. “In the next six months, the work of our finance ministers should concentrate on areas where the convergence of views is the biggest,” summit chairman Donald Tusk told reporters after a summit of the 27 countries that are to remain in the EU after Britain leaves in 2019. Tusk said discussions would continue on other ideas, such as a eurozone budget, finance minister, parliament or sovereign insolvency mechanism, but they needed more time to “mature.”
ITALY
Amazon to pay settlement
Amazon.com Inc has agreed to pay the Italian taxman 100 million euros (US$117.5 million) to settle a dispute over suspected tax fraud, the Italian Agency of Revenue said on Friday. Italian authorities have been investigating Amazon for tax evasion in the period between 2011 and 2015, but the deal means that the case is now closed, it said in a statement. Italy has previously forced other US Internet giants to pay up for taxes owed, including Apple Inc, which in December 2015 agreed to pay 300 million euros to end a tax fraud investigation. In May last year, Google agreed to pay 306 million euros.
RUSSIA
Key rate drops to 7.75%
Russia’s central bank on Friday reduced its key interest rate to 7.75 percent, the sixth reduction this year as inflation hits a record low. The bank said in a statement it had trimmed its main interest rate by 0.5 percentage points, a quarter of a percentage point more than most analysts had predicted. The bank said inflation holds at 2.5 percent and will gradually draw near 4 percent by late next year. The bank also said it would continue its “gradual” monetary policy as medium-term inflation risks persist.
MASS MEDIA
AT&T chief leaves Boeing
AT&T Inc’s chief executive Randall Stephenson stepped down from the boards of Boeing Co and Emerson Electric Co to shield both companies from any fallout as he battles the US government to win approval for the takeover of Time Warner Inc, according to a person familiar with the matter. Stephenson, 57, thought it wise to sever ties with the companies, both federal contractors, so they would not face any repercussions, the person said. Both companies announced his departure in separate filings on Friday, saying he told them he needed to focus on the pending litigation over the Time Warner transaction.
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
China has threatened severe economic retaliation against Japan if Tokyo further restricts sales and servicing of chipmaking equipment to Chinese firms, complicating US-led efforts to cut the world’s second-largest economy off from advanced technology. Senior Chinese officials have repeatedly outlined that position in recent meetings with their Japanese counterparts, people familiar with the matter said. Toyota Motor Corp privately told officials in Tokyo that one specific fear in Japan is that Beijing could react to new semiconductor controls by cutting the country’s access to critical minerals essential for automotive production, the people said, declining to be named discussing private affairs. Toyota is among
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