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Article: Apple Gets New Damages Trial After $506M Patent Verdict

Article - Media, Publications

Apple Gets New Damages Trial After $506M Patent Verdict

Caitlin Simpson, 14 April 2021

A Texas federal judge ruled Wednesday that Apple is entitled to a new damages trial after a jury found in August that it infringed PanOptis’ standard-essential 4G wireless patents and must pay $506 million, saying there is “serious doubt” about the reliability of the verdict.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap declined to order a new trial on any other issues that Apple raised. As for the damages, he said that because the dispute centers on standard-essential patents, or SEPs, they must be licensed on terms that are fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory, or FRAND, but the parties decided to leave the FRAND issues to a bench trial after the jury trial. Continue reading “Article: Apple Gets New Damages Trial After $506M Patent Verdict”

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Article: ‘Pro-Crypto’ Peter Thiel Warns Bitcoin “Could Be A Chinese Financial Weapon Against The US”

Article - Media, Publications

‘Pro-Crypto’ Peter Thiel Warns Bitcoin “Could Be A Chinese Financial Weapon Against The US”

TYLER DURDEN, 08 April 2021

Cryptocurrencies are typically open-source, meaning that anyone with technical ability can contribute. On top of that, anyone disgruntled with a given cryptocurrency’s trajectory can “fork” it, creating a new coin (as we have seen in both bitcoin and ethereum). Cryptocurrencies are also famously designed to be extralegal – beyond the reach of the government – although of course the SEC and the IRS hope to quash that notion.

Meanwhile, artificial intelligence relies on the trend that came before it, big data, and big data is gathered by big entities. Historically, communist regimes like the Soviet Union and Maoist China sought to create highly centralized command economies, noted Thiel. A sufficiently powerful AI could realize the bureaucrat’s dream of accurately predicting peasant farmers’ potato yields months in advance from thousands of miles away.

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Article: SEC is investigating Japanese investment giant SoftBank for market manipulation

Article - Media, Publications

SEC is investigating Japanese investment giant SoftBank for market manipulation

DUNCAN RILEY, 25 March 2021

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Japanese telecommunications company and investment giant SoftBank Group Corp. for alleged market manipulation.

Founded in 1981, SoftBank holds a significant share — 21.2% as of 2020 of Japan’s mobile phone subscription market — but is best known in the W est for its prolific investment portfolio. The list of companies SoftBank has invested in is too long to list but notable names include Uber Technologies Inc., Didi Chuxing Co. Ltd., Grab Holdings Inc., Nvidia Corp., TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. and DoorDash Inc.

Along with operating the world’s largest technology-focused venture capital fund, Softbank has a particular interest in ride-hailing companies. Except for Lyft Inc., SoftBank owns significant minority stakes in just about every other company in the market. When Grab purchased Uber’s Southeast Asian arm in 2018, it was a deal between two SoftBank-funded companies. Continue reading “Article: SEC is investigating Japanese investment giant SoftBank for market manipulation”

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Hedge Funds are Getting Crushed by the Worst Short Squeeze in a Quarter Century

Article - Media
Matt Egan | 21.02.02
A mob of traders on Reddit’s WallStreetBets page have sent GameStop (GME), AMC (AMC) and other stocks skyrocketing in recent days. GameStop lost a quarter of its value Monday but it’s still up nearly 1,200% on the year. WallStreetBets successfully triggered an epic short squeeze, where investors that bet against GameStop have been forced to unwind their bets and buy the stock back. That in turn has driven GameStop even higher, creating even more losses for short-sellers.

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New York Bank Fined For Anti-Money-Laundering Law Failures

Article - Media, Fined

WSJ | 21.02.01

Apple Bank for Savings will pay the FDIC $12.5 million for allegedly failing to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act

Apple Bank for Savings agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle a regulator’s claims that it failed to comply with anti-money-laundering rules. The bank allegedly violated the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, between April 2014 and September 2018, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said. The order was issued in December and made public on Friday.

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Article: Apple and Tesla distort S&P 500 performance, says Jim Cramer

Article - Media, Publications

Apple and Tesla distort S&P 500 performance, says Jim Cramer

Ben Lovejoy, 21 August 2020

CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer says that strong performance by Apple and Tesla has led to a misleading impression of the performance of S&P 500 stocks.

Cramer said that the S&P has grown more than 50% since its coronavirus low in March, but this is mostly due to the performance of tech giants, with Apple and Tesla particularly influential …

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Subject: Peter Oppenheimer

Subject of Interest

Peter Oppenheimer has been on the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs since 2014. He previously retired from Apple, Inc. as Senior Vice President in 2014. He was also the Divisional Chief Financial Officer, Finance, MIS, Administration and Equipment Leasing Portfolio at Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), and a Consultant, Information Technology Practice at Coopers & Lybrand, LLP (1988-1992).  Oppenheimer graduated from California Polytechnic State University and the Leavey School of Business, University of Santa Clara. 

Biography

Goldman Sachs

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Article: Tesla short-sellers take record losses in battle with Elon Musk

Article - Media

Tesla short-sellers take record losses in battle with Elon Musk

Richard Henderson

Irish Times, 3 February 2020

Investors betting against Tesla suffered record losses of $5.8 billion (€5.2 billion) in January after the stock hit a new high, marking a win for chief executive Elon Musk in a long-running battle with short-sellers.

Mr Musk’s testy sparring online with notable short-sellers, including David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, has become one of the fiercest rivalries in capital markets.

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Testimony: Kauffman Foundation on ETFs Danger to Capital Formation

Testimony

ETFs and the Present Danger to Capital Formation

Prepared Testimony by Harold Bradley and Robert E. Litan

Before the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investments

ETFs have increasingly distorted the role of equities
markets in capital formation, while posing systemic risks from potential
settlement failures.

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