PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis to pay US$678m
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp agreed to pay US$678 million to resolve a whistle-blower case accusing the drugmaker of paying kickbacks to thousands of doctors who prescribed its medicines and wooing them with lavish dinners, ending almost a decade of litigation. The US in 2013 sued the Swiss drugmaker, joining in a case filed two years earlier by a former sales representative who accused the company of using its speakers’ programs to bribe doctors to write prescriptions for its products. Novartis paid “exorbitant speaker fees to doctors who gave no meaningful presentations, and provided expensive meals and alcohol to doctor attendees and their guests,” federal prosecutors in Manhattan said in a statement on Wednesday. As part of the accord, Novartis is to change how it markets its drugs to doctors as part of a “corporate integrity agreement,” the drugmaker said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
House extends PPP
The House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final last-minute congressional approval to extending the popular Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for small businesses until Aug. 8, hours after the deadline for applications lapsed with more than US$130 billion still available. The Senate on Tuesday passed the extension, shortly before the Small Business Administration (SBA) was to stop accepting new loan applications at 11:59pm. Both chambers used expedited procedures to send the bill to President Donald Trump for his signature. The program was enacted in March as part of the US$2.2 trillion COVID-19 relief package. The US$669 billion program approved more than 4.8 million loans, totaling US$520.6 billion by Tuesday night, the SBA said. The remaining US$134.5 billion would eventually have been returned to the Treasury if Congress did not extend the program.
EUROZONE
Jobless rate ticks up
The unemployment rate in the 19 countries that use the euro in May inched higher to 7.4 percent from 7.3 percent in April, as governments used support programs to cushion the effects of COVID-19 on workers. The figures released yesterday by statistics agency Eurostat show how governments have held down the rise in unemployment through programs that pay part of workers’ salaries in return for companies not laying them off. In Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, 6.7 million people last month were still on wage support programs. The program pays at least 60 percent of missing pay when workers are put on shorter hours or no hours.
TECHNOLOGY
Takeover faces scrutiny
Global regulators should closely scrutinize the takeover of fitness tracker Fitbit Inc by Alphabet Inc’s Google, because it would strengthen Google’s already dominant position in digital markets, privacy and consumer groups said yesterday. A coalition of 20 organizations sent a statement to antitrust authorities in seven jurisdictions, including the US and the EU, which is on July 20 to rule on the US$2.1 billion deal. “This will be a test case for how regulators address the immense power the tech giants exert over the digital economy and their ability to expand their ecosystems unchecked,” the groups said. The EU can extend its review by four months if it sees antitrust issues that need more scrutiny. The US Department of Justice is also investigating, while Australia’s merger authority last month flagged preliminary concerns over Google’s access to health data.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last