Meanwhile, the U.S. has opened a new front in its wide-ranging tech cold war with China, announcing to American companies on Friday that it’s placing “new restrictions on exports to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China’s most advanced maker of computer chips.” The move “could cut SMIC off from the American software and other technology it needs to make its products” – NYTimes and WSJ

A bit of light reading for you tax whizzes out there – NYTimes

Good news to start the week for Uber, which got the official “fit and proper” nod from London officials and received an 18-month license to operate in “its biggest European market” despite its “historical failings” – Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ

The Journal dove deep on the former eBay employees who made it their life’s mission to terrorize a blogger who criticized the site. The Times plumbs those depths even further with this profile of the stalking scandal and the players involved – NYTimes

Devon Energy and WPX Energy are in late stages of merger talks “in a move that could help the energy companies weather a prolonged industry slump.” The combined venture would have a current market cap of nearly $6 billion – WSJ

Streetwise suggests that for all of the Fed’s concerns over deflation, the stuff most Americans really want is already more expensive  – WSJ

A mixed-bag win for federal prosecutors on Friday in their case against two former Deutsche Bank traders. An Illinois jury found the former DBers guilty of wire fraud “but cleared them of conspiracy charges stemming from what prosecutors called an unlawful precious metals market spoofing scheme” – Law360

Amazon had long struggled to gain traction in Italy, a country that generally prefers the in-person shopping experience. Then a pandemic hit. And everything changed – NYTimes

Commerzbank has named Deutsche Bank’s private bank leader, Manfred Knof, as its new CEO. Knof will “succeed current CEO Martin Zielke, who resigned along with Commerzbank’s chairman in July after acknowledging he had failed to sufficiently turn around the bank” – WSJ

Google parent Alphabet has reportedly “settled a series of shareholder lawsuits over its handling of sexual harassment claims, agreeing to greater oversight by its board of directors in future cases of sexual misconduct and committing to spend $310 million over the next decade on corporate diversity programs.” The settlement also dropped a forced arbitration clause for employees – NYTimes and WSJ and Law360

For their part, Boeing shareholders have accused the company’s board of “failing to properly oversee management’s response to two fatal 737 MAX crashes and the plane’s safety problems” – WSJ

On the Covid-induced return of the Front Porch to American life – WSJ

Stay safe.