In January 2017, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma was proudly promising to create 1 million jobs in America—a heady promise but one not unthinkable given Alibaba’s massive scale. Fast forward 20 months and a growing Sino-American economic cold war later, and Ma is publicly walking back that figure – NYTimes
Google admitted on Thursday in the wake of a Wall Street Journal report that it “continues to allow other companies to scan and share data from Gmail accounts,” even though Google itself stopped such practices for the purpose of ad targeting in 2017 – WSJ
Dealbook’s Common Sense column looks at how Les Moonves’ abrupt departure from CBS amidst sexual harassment and assault allegations may not cost him his $120 million severance payment – NYTimes
Uber is looking to expand its food-delivery service into Europe through the acquisition of London-based Deliveroo, which was last valued at $2 billion. Talks are in the earliest stages – Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Danish authorities have decided that they’re not done looking into Danske Bank’s AML failures, including its role in allowing Russia-linked entities to launder more than $200 billion through a single branch – WSJ
Some background on online ticketing company Eventbrite, which launched its NYSE IPO yesterday – NYTimes
The UK’s competition watchdog is throwing the brakes on PayPal’s $2.2 billion purchase of Sweden’s iZettle payments platform even as the two companies announced the deal closing late yesterday – Law360
Checking with Streetwise, which itself is keeping an eye on the growing hidden risks in the corporate-bond market. Among the primary issues is the explosion of BBB grade bonds—the “almost junk” tranche that’s occupies the “lowest investment-grade rating” status. In other words, if things turn sour, the downgrades to junk could be massive by historical standards – WSJ
Marketplace on the [inevitable] intersection of big data and stock picking, with consumer privacy as an afterthought – Marketplace
A New York appeals court has reversed a lower court order directing a group of insurers to pay $286 million to JPMorgan Securities for settlement costs that Bear Stearns paid to resolve SEC charges, finding that SCOTUS’s 2017 Kokesh ruling precludes disgorgement as a penalty – Law360
Chicago-based Geneva Trading USC will pay $1.5 million to the CFTC to resolve allegations that several of its traders engaged in spoofing to manipulate the Chicago mercantile exchange between 2013 and 2016 – Law360
Wells Fargo has announced plans to cut its overall workforce by 5 to 10% in the next three years in an effort to address “industry trends and changes in customer behavior” – WSJ and Bloomberg
Fascinating Businessweek piece here on the recent effort by the US Marine Corps to develop soldiers who can, to put it in Martian parlance, “[MacGyver] the shit out of” their surroundings in order to ensure that innovation has a place on the front lines – Bloomberg
Have a great weekend.
