CLOs

Lego has stopped a project to make bricks from recycled drinks bottles instead of oil-based plastic, reports the UK's Guardian (25 September, Bartholomew), saying it would have led to higher carbon emissions over the product’s lifetime. The move followed efforts by the world’s largest toymaker to research more sustainable materials, as part of a wave of companies reassessing their contribution to global emissions as the climate crisis hits. The Danish company in 2021 began researching a potential transition to recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which needs about 2kg of petroleum to make 1kg of plastic. ABS is used in about 80 percent of Lego blocks. “It’s like trying to make a bike out of wood rather than steel,” said Tim Brooks, Lego’s head of sustainability, referring to how the non-oil-based material was softer and demanded extra ingredients for durability, as well as greater energy for processing and drying. The “level of disruption to the manufacturing environment was such that we needed to change everything in our factories” to scale up recycled PET use, he said. “After all that, the carbon footprint would have been higher.” Instead, Lego aims to make each part of ABS more sustainable by incorporating more bio-based and recycled material.

From "Lego Abandons Effort to Make Bricks from Recycled Plastic Bottles"
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Hollywood writers, studios, and streamers have reached a tentative accord that would end a prolonged strike, reports the Wall Street Journal (25 September, Flint). The three-year agreement reportedly includes several hard-fought victories for the writers, including increased royalties, mandatory staffing for TV "writing rooms," and safeguards regarding the use of artificial intelligence. Neither side had addressed the exact terms of the accord as of press time. The Writers Guild of America is still finalizing the memorandum of agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a coalition representing film and TV studios, networks, and streamers. A negotiating committee will then vote on whether to recommend the contract and forward it for approval. The deal comes after five consecutive days of talks that involved Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal Studios Group Chair Donna Langley.

From "Hollywood Writers Reach Agreement With Studios, Streamers to End Strike"
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Rite Aid is negotiating with creditors over the terms of a bankruptcy plan that would include liquidating a substantial portion of its more than 2,100 drugstores, reports the Wall Street Journal (22 September, Gladstone, Scurria). Rite Aid has proposed to close roughly 400 to 500 stores in bankruptcy and either sell or let creditors take over its remaining operations, according to one source. A group of bondholders would prefer to liquidate a larger number of stores, other sources said. The two sides are in discussions over the number of stores to be closed, they added. The company faces more than US$3.3 billion in debt and over a thousand federal lawsuits alleging it oversupplied opioids. A number of its stores are stuck in uneconomical long-term leases that the company can’t get out of, making bankruptcy an effective tool to shed them. Most of the federal opioid lawsuits against Rite Aid have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation in the US state of Ohio. The company also faces similar cases pending in state courts that allege it contributed to the opioid epidemic, as well as a civil lawsuit by the US Justice Department that alleges the company dispensed controlled substances in violation of the False Claims Act and Controlled Substances Act. Rite Aid has asked a court to dismiss the Justice Department’s lawsuit and denied the allegations that it filled unlawful opioid prescriptions. The opioid litigation claims are expected to be treated as unsecured in a potential bankruptcy.

From "Rite Aid Plans to Shut Down Hundreds of Stores in Bankruptcy"
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An examination of various climate-related reports and filings for 20 of the world’s largest food and restaurant companies reveals that more than half have not made any progress on their emissions reduction goals or have reported rising emissions levels, reports the New York Times (22 September, Creswell). The bulk of emissions — in many cases more than 90 percent — come from the companies’ supply chains. And while companies have worked to eliminate some plastic in packaging and reduce water use to make their products more sustainable, many large food and beverage companies and restaurant chains are struggling to balance their robust growth in recent years with their climate goals.

From "For Many Big Food Companies, Emissions Head in the Wrong Direction"
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A US judge has ordered the US Department of the Interior to expand next week’s scheduled sale of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases by millions of acres, reports the Associated Press (22 September, McGill), rejecting a scaled-back plan announced last month by the US government as part of an effort to protect an endangered whale species. The government on Friday filed notice that it was appealing the order issued Thursday night in Lake Charles, Louisiana, by US District Judge James David Cain Jr. As originally proposed in March, the sale would have made 73 acres of offshore tracts available for drilling leases. That area was reduced to 67 acres in August when Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced final plans for the sale. Cain’s injunction restores the original coverage area. BOEM’s revision also included new speed limits and requirements for personnel on industry vessels in some of the areas to be leased — also blocked by Cain’s order. BOEM had adopted the reduced area and new rules for next week’s sale as part of an agreement the administration reached last month with environmentalists in efforts to settle a whale-protection lawsuit filed in federal court in Maryland. Chevron, Shell Offshore, the American Petroleum Institute, and the state of Louisiana sued to reverse the cut in acreage and block the inclusion of the whale-protecting measures in the lease sale provisions. They claimed the administration’s actions violated provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provided broad incentives for clean energy, along with creating new drilling opportunities in the Gulf. They also said the changes after the initial lease sale was proposed in March violate federal law because they were adopted arbitrarily, without sufficient explanation of why they are needed.

From "Judge Blocks Government Plan to Scale Back Gulf Oil Lease Sale to Protect Whale Species"
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The Dutch parliament has approved a proposal to increase a tax on banks, reports the Financial Times (22 September, Walker, Bounds), hitting shares in its largest lenders. The lower house of the Dutch parliament on Thursday voted in favor of tax rises to help fund a proposed increase in the minimum wage and childcare support in 2024. One of the measures was a 70 percent increase in the country’s bank levy, which would bring in an extra €350 million a year. A separate new tax on share buybacks by all listed companies was expected to bring in an additional €1.2 billion.

From "Shares in Dutch Banks Hit After Lawmakers Vote for Higher Tax"
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US financial regulators, under the umbrella of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), were scheduled to hold a closed-door meeting Friday to discuss how to make it easier to label financial firms other than banks as systemically important, reports Bloomberg (22 September, Johnson, Brush, Weinstein). The prospect of a reduced timeline — and greater discretion to make determinations — means that more companies could eventually wind up with the tag. BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard, and other big financial service firms have sent in comment letters, objecting to aspects of a proposal released in April. A systemically important financial institution designation places a firm under direct US Federal Reserve oversight and comes with compliance requirements. That level of scrutiny has been applied mainly to large Wall Street banks since it was introduced more than a decade ago, but investment companies, hedge funds, and nonbank mortgage firms are worried they will be next. In addition to eight US banks that have been deemed systemically important on a global basis, FSOC also previously designated three large insurers — Prudential Financial, American International Group, and MetLife — as systemically important. All three eventually were allowed to shed the label.

From "Financial Titans Ready Fight over ‘Too-big-to-fail’ Threat"
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Intel was fined €376 million on Friday in an EU antitrust case stemming from anti-competitive practice nearly two decades ago, reports Reuters (22 September, Chee, Meijer). An initial record fine of €1.06 billion in 2009 was thrown out last year by the Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe's second highest. The court, however, agreed with the European Commission that Intel illegally excluded rivals from the market, which prompted the EU antitrust watchdog to re-open the case. The 2009 ruling accused Intel of blocking rival Advanced Micro Devices. On Friday, the EU watchdog said it had re-imposed a fine for practices between November 2002 and December 2006 when Intel paid HP, Acer, and Lenovo to halt or delay rival products. The Commission has appealed the other parts of the General Court's ruling last year related to conditional rebates offered by Intel at the EU Court of Justice, Europe's top court. Intel is currently awaiting the Commission's approval for nearly €10 billion in German state subsidies to build a chipmaking facility in Germany.

From "Intel Hit with €376 Million EU Antitrust Fine in Decades-old Case"
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The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Friday said it sued United Parcel Service (UPS) for disability discrimination, reports Reuters (22 September, Deka, Baertlein), alleging the delivery firm refused to hire deaf or hearing-impaired individuals as drivers. The agency said the Department of Transportation (DOT) has authorized the practice of employing those individuals to drive vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds through a program that exempts them from a hearing test and instead uses alternative criteria to ensure an equivalent level of driver safety. EEOC sued the parcel delivery firm under the Americans with Disabilities Act after failing to reach a pre-litigation settlement.

From "US Employment Commission Sues UPS, Alleging Discrimination Against Deaf Driver Candidates"
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The United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Friday staged more strikes at General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis but spared Ford Motor from additional walkouts based on progress it has made in contract talks, reports the Wall Street Journal (22 September, Eckert, Colias). UAW President Shawn Fain told members during a livestream address Friday morning that workers would walk out at 38 parts-distribution centers across 20 states. He said the union for now isn’t calling further walkouts at Ford factories because the company has sweetened its offer in recent days. The parts-distribution facilities ship service parts to dealerships and employ about 5,600 workers, bringing the total number of UAW members on strike to more than 18,000. Crimping the flow of components from the centers is likely to disrupt GM and Stellantis dealers’ service operations, potentially leading to longer wait times for customers.

From "UAW Strikes at More GM and Stellantis Sites, but Spares Ford"
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New York Judge Arthur Engoron peppered Donald Trump’s lawyers with questions on Friday — sometimes admonishing them — as they tried to persuade the court to throw out a civil lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general accusing the former US president and his company of deceiving banks, insurers, and others by exaggerating his wealth, reports the Associated Press (22 September, Sisak, Calvan). The hearing ended without any rulings, and arguments will resume Wednesday. Regardless, Friday’s court proceedings served as prelude to a trial that could begin as soon as October 2. A lawyer for New York Attorney General Letitia James also tried to persuade Engoron to hand down a summary judgment on the lawsuit’s most significant claim — that Trump committed fraud by inflating property values and exaggerating his net worth by as much as US$3.6 billion on annual financial statements used by him and his company to secure financing. The week prior, Trump’s attorneys filed a lawsuit accusing Engoron of abusing his authority. A state appellate court is weighing whether the suit against Engoron will proceed. If so, it could push back a trial date. Trump’s lawyers had previously sought a delay, but Engoron turned them down, and the judge Friday rebuffed some of their arguments — including one that asserted that the attorney general has no legal standing to bring the former president to court.

From "Judge Peppers Lawyers in Prelude to Trial of New York’s Business Fraud Lawsuit Against Trump"
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Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms, which together produce a third of the poultry sold in the United States, are under federal investigation into whether they relied on migrant children to clean slaughterhouses, reports the New York Times (24 September, Dreier). The probes by the US Department of Labor are a rare instance of two major consumer brands facing federal scrutiny over child labor. Many meat-processing companies outsource cleaning to sanitation firms, which technically employ the workers. After another Labor Department investigation recently found more than 100 children cleaning plants around the country, one firm, Packers Sanitation Services Inc., paid a US$1.5 million fine. But the national corporations that benefited from the children’s work, including Tyson, did not come under investigation. The Labor Department has also opened investigations into the companies that have been running the cleaning shifts for Perdue and Tyson in Virginia: Fayette Industrial, which works with Perdue, and QSI, which works with Tyson and is part of the Vincit Group.

From "Tyson and Perdue Are Facing Child Labor Investigations"
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Netflix was ordered by a federal judge to face a defamation lawsuit by former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein over her portrayal in a 2019 crime drama about the Central Park Five case, reports Reuters (21 September, Stempel). US District Judge Kevin Castel on Tuesday said Fairstein plausibly alleged that Netflix, director Ava DuVernay, and writer-producer Attica Locke acted with actual malice as to five scenes in "When They See Us." The series dramatized the story of five Black and Hispanic teenagers who spent five to 13 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted in the April 1989 rape of a white jogger in Central Park in New York City. Castel found evidence that in depicting Fairstein as a villain emblematic of broader problems in criminal justice, the defendants "reverse-engineered plot points to attribute actions, responsibilities, and viewpoints to Fairstein that were not hers and are unsupported in defendants' substantial body of research materials." The Manhattan judge said jurors should decide whether there was "clear and convincing evidence that defendants were recklessly indifferent to the truth." Fairstein had been running the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office when the jogger was attacked. Backlash from the series caused Fairstein to lose her publisher, resign under pressure from several boards, and be attacked on social media. The defendants said Fairstein offered no evidence that their portrayal of her was protected by the First Amendment. They also said that the lawsuit threatened filmmakers' ability to dramatize controversial, real-life events when told from "different and often marginalized perspectives."

From "Netflix Can Be Sued by Ex-Central Park Five Prosecutor for Defamation"
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UK interest rates were unexpectedly left unchanged Thursday after the Bank of England said price rises were slowing faster than expected, reports BBC News (21 September, Thomas, Islam). Interest rates were held at 5.25 percent, already their highest for 15 years. It comes after figures on Wednesday revealed an unexpected slowdown in inflation in August.

From "UK Interest Rate Freeze Ends Run of 14 Straight Increases"
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A subsidiary of Barrick Gold lost as much as US$31 million annually at one of its Tanzanian gold mines as a result of organized criminal activities that sometimes involved the local police, reports the Toronto Globe and Mail (21 September, York). An internal report says that the North Mara gold mine in Tanzania was “fully infiltrated” by at least one criminal syndicate that stole millions of dollars in fuel, equipment, and high-grade gold-bearing rock, with the collusion of police. It also warned that there was widespread corruption, fraud, and misappropriation in the mine’s contracts and land compensation payments. The report was cited in a case now under way in the High Court of Justice in London, where Tanzanian villagers are claiming that Barrick co-operated with local police who caused deaths and injuries in the local community.

From "Criminal Syndicate at Barrick Subsidiary’s Mine Was Pocketing up to US$31 Million"
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Rio Tinto Group has halted some work on an iron ore mine in Western Australia after an Indigenous rock shelter was damaged, reports Bloomberg (22 September, Gross). The incident comes three years after the company faced executive exits and public anger over the destruction of the Juukan Gorge caves. Operations were paused last month at the Nammuldi site 150 meters from the cave, after a large rock and scrub tree fell from an overhang above its entrance, Rio said in a statement. The latest incident in the Pilbara region comes after enormous backlash over the company’s actions at the Juukan Gorge ancient Aboriginal site in 2020, which culminated in the departure of both its chief executive officer and chair. In recent years, Rio has also come under pressure to tackle wider issues of company culture, after accusations of sexual harassment, racism, and bullying.

From "Rio Tinto Halts Mine Work as Second Indigenous Site Damaged"
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Microsoft’s £54 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard looks set to be cleared after the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said a revised deal addresses its concerns, reports the UK's Guardian (22 September, Sweney). The CMA moved to block the biggest tech deal in history in April, citing concerns that Microsoft would dominate the nascent cloud gaming market. A revised proposal was submitted that included selling cloud gaming rights outside Europe to the French rival Ubisoft. On Friday, the CMA said that the sale of the rights “substantially addresses previous concerns and opens the door to the deal being cleared."

From "UK Set to Clear Microsoft’s Deal to Buy Activision Blizzard"
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A federal judge in Texas on Thursday rejected a bid by 25 US states to block a Biden administration rule allowing employee retirement plans to consider environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in investment decisions, reports Reuters (21 September, Wiessner, Whitcomb). US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo declined to block the rule, which took effect January 30, granting a petition by President Joe Biden's administration to dismiss the states' lawsuit claiming the rule will jeopardize millions of Americans' retirement savings. Kacsmaryk rejected the states' claim that the rule violates the federal law governing retirement plans. The rule still requires that financial considerations come first, and does not create "an overarching regulatory bias in favor of ESG strategies," the judge wrote.

From "US Judge Will Not Block Biden Rule on Socially Conscious Investing"
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Two Black ex-employees are accusing TikTok owner ByteDance of retaliating against them after they complained about racial discrimination in the workplace, reports the Washington Post (21 September, Nix). The two filed a complaint against ByteDance on Thursday with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging in their complaint that their direct managers routinely sabotaged their work performance while simultaneously disparaging them with negative stereotypes. But when they formally complained to the company, they allege, the discrimination they experienced only got worse. The complaint, which is seeking class-action status, alleges it was ByteDance’s “standard operating procedure” to “brazenly” retaliate against workers who complain about discrimination.

From "Ex-workers Allege TikTok’s Owner Retaliated After Racism Complaints"
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US energy giant Chevron and workers at two of its large natural-gas operations have agreed on a deal recommended by Australia’s workplace arbiter to end strikes affecting plants that account for roughly seven percent of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, reports the Wall Street Journal (21 September, Hoyle). The labor dispute at the Gorgon and Wheatstone liquefied-natural-gas facilities in Australia rattled global gas markets in recent weeks, at times jolting prices sharply higher, as representatives of Chevron and local unions struggled to find common ground. On Thursday, a recommendation from Australia’s Fair Work Commission was put to both Chevron and its workers. The oil company said later that day it had accepted the recommendation and, on Friday morning in Australia, Offshore Alliance union representatives said workers had also endorsed it. Brad Gandy, a spokesman for the union coalition, said the recommended deal includes substantial improvements in terms and conditions, including higher pay and improved rosters and job security.

From "Chevron, Workers Back Brokered Deal to End LNG Strikes"
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