March, 2019

• 12 March

  These friendly skies will soon be filled with hot air

  

  When a massive helium-filled airship designed by Flying Whales, a French manufacturer, takes to the air for the first time in 2021, it won’t be against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. Instead, it’ll probably fly over Jingmen, a dusty farm and industrial town in central China where Flying Whales and state-owned China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co., Ltd. (CAIGA) ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Huawei shows real US-China imbalance

  

  On March 7, Huawei Technologies Co. held a press conference to announce it’s suing the US government, arguing that a law passed last year barring the Chinese company’s equipment from certain networks is unconstitutional. A week earlier, its CFO Meng Wanzhou sued Canadian authorities alleging wrongful detention. Meanwhile, the Shenzhen-based telecom equipment maker has sought to recruit foreign journalists for ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Norway’s oil disposal drama descends into farce

  

  I’ll confess, despite the best efforts of Netflix, my exposure to Norwegian comedy is very limited. That said, the finale to the one show I’ve vaguely followed – “What to Do With All Our Oil Stocks?” – has a pleasing subtlety to it; a knowing wink; the faintest tug of a leg-pull. Roughly 16 months ago, Norway’s central bank advised ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Danske watchdog may bypass courts as laundering fines soar

  

  Bloomberg Denmark plans to let its financial watchdog impose fines without going via the courts, in order to speed up the process of punishing banks involved in money laundering. The decision, which still needs to be debated in the country’s parliament, is the latest step being pushed by Business Minister Rasmus Jarlov as he responds to a $230 billion dirty ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Swedish government wants bank tax that ‘really hits’ right targets

  Bloomberg Sweden’s government wants to revisit the idea of imposing a tax on the financial industry. Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson says her goal is to have a levy that singles out banks with far more precision than previous proposals. “It should include only the financial sector,” she said in an interview in Stockholm. “We want one that has a more ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Goldman’s Apple card offers big win for Georgia firm

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has picked a little-known technology firm to help handle payments for its planned credit-card partnership with Apple Inc. The bank struck a deal last year to license payments-processing software from CoreCard Software, owned by Intelligent Systems Corp., to help with its foray into the consumer-card business, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Loan loophole saved new Kazakh central bank head from debt claim

  

  Bloomberg The new chief of Kazakhstan’s central bank dodged a debt claim in 2014 thanks to a legal system that’s failed to protect lenders from rampant defaults and repeated crises. In 2014, Yerbolat Dossayev and three business partners were given a reprieve on repaying 1.9 billion tenge, then worth $13 million, that they’d personally guaranteed to the central Asian country’s ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  BOJ watchers see chance of additional stimulus

  

  Bloomberg An increasing number of economists see additional stimulus as the Bank of Japan’s next policy step, while they are unanimous in forecasting no change at this week’s board meeting. Some 37 percent of 46 economists surveyed by Bloomberg this month forecast the next policy change will be additional easing, a jump from 18 percent in January. All of them ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Lion Air mulls pivot to Airbus after Boeing orders halted

  

  Bloomberg Indonesia’s Lion Air, one of the biggest customers of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max plane, is considering switching to Airbus SE amid plans to suspend existing orders it has with the US plane maker, according to a person familiar with the matter. The carrier is suspending delivery of four 737 Max jets it had on order for this year from ...

  Read More »
• 12 March

  Mahathir weighs shutdown or sale of Malaysia Airlines

  

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he’s studying options for flag carrier Malaysia Airlines Bhd., including whether to invest more funds, sell it off or even shut the company down. “It is a very serious matter to shut down the national airline,” he told reporters at parliament. “We will nevertheless be studying and investigating as to whether we should shut ...

  Read More »