A French appeals court cut a 2019 fine by more than half on Monday but still left Swiss bank UBS with a $2 billion penalty “for helping rich clients evade taxes” through what prosecutors called a “long-running scheme” that featured “cloak-and-dagger tactics” - NYTimes and WSJ
Meanwhile, JPMorgan is closing in on a deal with the SEC and CFTC to pay $200 million to resolve allegations that it “failed to properly monitor employees’ messages, the first settlement to emerge from a regulatory sweep into how banks oversee traders’ chats” - WSJ
Details on Penguin Random House’s fight to keep its planned $2.18 billion purchase of Simon & Schuster on the rails despite a DOJ lawsuit last month seeking to stop the acquisition as anticompetitive - NYTimes and WSJ
Markets are already getting jumpy in preparation for the results of this week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting, at which the central bank is expected to announce a quicker pace than first anticipated for paring its bond-buying (and even hiking interest rates) in an effort to combat persistent inflation - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
The Department of Labor is probing whistle-blower allegations regarding workplace misconduct at Apple, including potential violation of anti-retaliation laws - NYTimes
Along the rash of strikes and union activity here in the States, Europe is seeing its own revitalized labor movement, as price increases across the continent are pushing workers to push for higher wages. And don’t think the ECB itself is exempt from the trend - NYTimes
Vox Media is reportedly nearing a deal to buy Group Nine Media—publisher of PopSugar and Thrillist—“in a deal that would merge two big digital media companies as the industry continues to consolidate” - NYTimes and WSJ
May want to file this under “good to know”: when a company fires its auditor, keep a careful eye on when during the year the split occurs. Because a new study looking at 13 years of dismissals suggests companies changing things up in the second half of their financial year (or during the auditor fieldwork period) means a 40% higher chance of future restatement “compared with companies that haven’t switched auditors” - WSJ
Facebook investors have banded together to file eight proposals for consideration at the company’s upcoming annual meeting that would force the newly dubbed Meta to increase “board oversight of efforts to reduce harmful content” and to review the “social media company’s audit and risk committee” - WSJ
In need of a holiday present that works as well for your cheesehead Uncle Larry as it does for your hipster cousin Greg? Consider the humble $6 Bass Pro Shop trucker lid. Because everything old is new again - WSJ
Stay safe, and get boosted,
MDR
