Bloomberg Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., rejected allegations that he paid bribes to a friend of South Korea’s former president to secure support for a key merger. Testifying for the first time in his graft trial, the 49-year-old said a 2014 meeting with then-President Park Geun-hye lasted less than five minutes while a pow-wow the next year ...

Bloomberg Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s largest wireless carrier, is considering selling about a 3 percent stake in its tower unit through an institutional share sale, people with knowledge of the matter said. The New Delhi-based company could pare its holding in Bharti Infratel Ltd. as soon as this month, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because ...

Bloomberg Daiichi Sankyo Inc.’s settlement of thousands of lawsuits blaming the company’s blood-pressure drugs for causing intestinal damage brings to $339 million the amount the drugmaker has paid for its handling of the medicines. Daiichi officials agreed on Monday to pay $300 million to resolve patient suits over its Benicar, Benicar HCT, Azor and Tribenzor blood-pressure treatments. The accord comes ...

Bloomberg Thyssenkrupp AG is considering a radical breakup plan as a possible alternative to the proposed combination of its European steel operations with India’s Tata Steel Europe Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter. Under the alternative scenario, Thyssenkrupp would retain its European steel operations and hive off most or all of the other activities, said the people, who ...

Bloomberg China’s foreign-exchange regulator is examining how some of the country’s biggest dealmakers used their domestic assets as collateral to get loans overseas, people familiar with the matter said. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange recently began reviewing loan guarantees for Anbang Insurance Group Co., Dalian Wanda Group Co., Fosun International Ltd., HNA Group Co. and the Chinese owner of ...

Bloomberg Between Russian meddling in last year’s election, Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey and the president’s public drubbing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the House Judiciary Committee has a lot it could be looking into. But its Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, has a different priority: investigating Hillary Clinton. Goodlatte has called for new scrutiny ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s Congress debates on Wednesday whether President Michel Temer will stand trial on corruption charges, a decision that could determine his political survival and country’s immediate economic outlook. The plenary of the lower house of Congress started the debate shortly after 9 a.m. local time. Two-thirds of the chamber, or 342 lawmakers, must be present for the actual voting ...

Bloomberg Kenyan opposition candidate Raila Odinga drew more support from voters in three opinion polls as he prepares to take on President Uhuru Kenyatta in next week’s election, raising the likelihood of a runoff vote. Polls released on Tuesday showed Odinga is favored by as much as 49 percent of the electorate, compared with as little as 42% percent two ...

Bloomberg US Vice President Mike Pence told the volatile western Balkans region that its future lies in the West, saying NATO’s door is open for new members. Pence is wrapping up a tour of eastern Europe by visiting Montenegro, a nation of 600,000 that only joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in June. At a regional summit on Wednesday, he’s ...

Bloomberg A raft of emails leaked to South African media about how the Gupta family have won billions of rands of contracts from state-owned companies and influenced government decisions through their closeness to President Jacob Zuma isn’t authentic, family member Atul Gupta said. “There’s no authenticity of Gupta Leaks at all,” Gupta told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an interview. ...