■BIOTECHNOLOGY
US states sue Amgen Inc
Amgen Inc, the world’s largest biotechnology company, is being sued by 15 US states after a probe into an alleged nationwide kickback scheme that aimed to boost sales, New York’s attorney-general said on Friday. Attorney-general Andrew Cuomo said Amgen and two units of AmerisourceBergen Corp offered kickbacks to physicians and others to increase sales of the anemia medicine Aranesp. The complaint charges that the companies gave free samples of Aranesp to medical providers such as physicians, then encouraged them to bill insurance companies and the government’s Medicaid program for reimbursement.
■FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Stiglitz weighs in on yuan
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said “there will have to be some adjustments in the exchange rate” between China’s yuan and the dollar. “It is very difficult to maintain fixed exchange rates in a very volatile economy for a very long period of time, which is why the world has abandoned the fixed exchange rate system,” he said in a speech in Shanghai yesterday. He said the US economy was still “nowhere near” the end of its recession and the labor market was in “very bad shape.”
■BANKING
Executives to meet with Fed
Executives of the US’ 28 largest banks will meet with Federal Reserve supervisors tomorrow to discuss the Fed’s plan to police bank pay policies, officials said on Friday. Under a plan recently put forward by the Fed, the central bank would review — and could veto — pay policies that could cause too much risk-taking by bank executives, traders or loan officers.
■INTERNET
Spam king ordered to pay
Spam king Sanford Wallace has been ordered to pay US$711 million in damages for bombarding Facebook members with unwanted messages, the social networking site said on Friday. The award was made at the San Jose District Court on Thursday, according to the announcement. Facebook said Wallace’s e-mails tricked many recipients into giving him their login information, or redirecting them to sites that paid him for each visit. It said Wallace committed 14 million violations of US anti-spam laws. In addition to the damages, Wallace was banned from accessing Facebook and slapped with a criminal contempt of court charge, which means he now faces possible jail time.
■PETROLEUM
Chevron lifted Q3 production
Chevron said on Friday it pumped its way through a weak third quarter, producing more oil as prices recovered from a severe plunge earlier in the year. The second-largest US oil and gas producer boosted revenues by increasing oil production by 11 percent. Its average sale price for crude and natural gas liquids over the past three months was US$62 per barrel, which is better than the previous quarter, but below the US$103 it fetched during the same period last year.
■AVIATION
EVA Air narrows loss
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Taiwan’s second-largest air carrier, reported a nine-month loss that narrowed to NT$3.9 billion (US$120 million), or NT$1.67 a share, from a loss of NT$10.5 billion, or NT$4.65 a share, a year earlier, according to a stock exchange filing on Friday. EVA posted a NT$2.22 billion third-quarter loss compared with NT$4.51 billion a year earlier, while third-quarter sales fell 22 percent from a year earlier to NT$18.7 billion.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
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