Your daily dose of financial news The Brief – 3.4.16

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It’s Jobs Report Friday. The Journal suggests that it may again be millennials’ time to shine (especially after scoring 421,000 jobs in January) – WSJ

And while we’re talking US jobs, a recent Federal Reserve working paper posits that the “declining level of trust among Americans” may have contributed to the 10-15% decline in labor market fluidity (a measure that “encompasses workers switching jobs and moving states as well as employers creating or cutting positions”) since the early 1980s – Bloomberg

Herbalife, the target of Bill Ackman’s pyramid scheme accusations for some time now, has admitted that a “database error” caused it to overstate its worldwide membership by nearly 5% in 2015 (with a 13.5% drop in Q4 figures alone) – NYTimes and WSJ

China’s facing an economic identity crisis it hasn’t encountered in nearly 20 years, and fixing it is expected to be a key component of China’s next 5-year plan put together by the National People’s Congress, which starts this weekend.  One of the aims is to address China’s “zombie factory” problem (accomplished, in part, by cutting $1.8 million steel and coal worker positions by 2021) while easing the social pain of the cuts through “severance, retraining and relocation” – WSJ

A Belgian investment fund’s class action effort against BNY Mellon over allegations that it “failed in its role as trustee of some $1.12 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities” is moving forward after SDNY Judge Gregory Woods denied defendant’s motion to dismiss – Law360

Breakingviews says that Ambac, a US bond insurer that “spent three years in bankruptcy as a result of the financial crisis” is under threat of a proxy fight from hedge fund Canyon Capital, who wants Ambac to hurry up and settle proceedings over claims concerning unstable mortgage debt bundles already. One problem? Canyon’s got its thumbs in both pies, with a 4.5% interest in Ambac and  “significant economic interest” in the claims under dispute – NYTimes

Disney’s shareholder meeting is, as you might expect, a bit different from  a run-of-the-mill corporate gathering.  The Times takes an interactive look at the meeting of the Mouse – NYTimes

Samsonite has acquired high-end luggage competitor Tumi for a reported $1.8 billion – NYTimes and Bloomberg

The Department of Justice is asking the FBI to weigh in on whether there’s sufficient evidence to investigate if Exxon Mobil “violated federal law by denying climate change for years, to shareholders and the public, despite having evidence to the contrary” – Law360

Okay, so maybe I spoke too soon earlier this week about a Minority Report future-is-now moment being limited to billboards. China, for one, is looking to establish something of a pre-crime unit, setting a prominent state contractor to the task of developing a big data version of pre-cogs, which would capitalize on the near unfettered access to internet users’ data and Big Brother-esque surveillance in its borders to “predict terrorist acts before they occur” – Bloomberg

Break out the Ray Parker Jr., because it may be a new crew, but they’re baaaack – Sony

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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