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LOS ANGELES:
Attorneys for Netflix and Fox traded arguments on Tuesday in a high-stakes case involving the alleged poaching of two Fox employees.
The case revolves around the key question of whether 20th Century Fox, or any studio, can hold its employees to fixed-term contracts. Two Fox employees, Marcos Waltenberg and Tara Flynn, left for jobs with the streaming giant in 2016. It is not uncommon for employees to leave before their contracts are up, but Fox chose to sue Netflix to combat what it saw as poaching. Netflix has countered that Fox’s contracts illegally bind employees to the company in a practice akin to slavery. (RTRS)
WASHINGTON:
Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said on Wednesday that the ride-sharing company still believes in the prospects for autonomous transport after one of its self-driving vehicles was involved in a fatal crash in Arizona last month.
A 49-year-old woman was killed after being hit by an Uber self-driving sports utility vehicle while walking across a street in Phoenix, leading the company to suspend testing of autonomous vehicles.
Khosrowshahi declined to say when the company might resume testing or what might have gone wrong. He said the company was cooperating with federal investigators and dealing with the incident “very seriously.” (RTRS)
LONDON:
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox and Netherlands-based Ziggo Sport said they had been targeted in a European Commission investigation into a possible cartel in sports broadcasting rights.
Broadcasters spend billions of euros to buy exclusive rights to shows top flight sport such as England’s Premier League and Spain’s La Liga soccer to attract viewers.
The Commission said late on Tuesday it had carried out unannounced inspections in several member states at companies that distribute “media rights and related rights pertaining to various sports events and/or their broadcasting”. (RTRS)
LONDON:
British retail king Tesco rebounded into annual net profit on strong sales and restructuring, the group said Wednesday, as its recovery continued in the wake of a costly accounting scandal.
The supermarket giant revealed in a statement that earnings after taxation rebounded sharply to £1.2 billion ($1.7 billion, 1.4 billion euros) in its 2017/2018 financial year to February.
That contrasted with a net loss of £40 million in 2016/2017, when it was hurt by costs arising from the accounting fiasco. Excluding exceptional items, operating or underlying profit jumped 28 percent to £1.6 billion, broadly in line with company forecasts and after a major restructuring overseen by chief executive Dave Lewis. (AFP)
LONDON:
Sky, one of Britain’s biggest advertisers, on Wednesday reappointed WPP’s MediaCom as its media planning and buying agency, a decision that will offer a moment of relief to WPP’s embattled chief executive Martin Sorrell.
The pay-TV broadcaster, which put its media buying account up for review in October, said MediaCom will work on its brand in the UK and Ireland, Spain, Germany and Austria. Sky Italia was not included in the review and will continue to be supported by MEC and Simple Agency, it said.
MediaCom said it was “thrilled” to renew its partnership, which will cover ad spending of about 425 million pounds ($604 million), according to industry paper Campaign. (RTRS)
ATHENS:
Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair on Wednesday said it would shut down its base on the popular Greek tourist island of Crete to protest airport charges.
The Dublin-based group said it would also reduce its domestic Greek flights from June 1, the start of the busy travel season.
“Regrettably, current airport charges at the majority of Greek airports encourage peak-only services in the summer on international routes, which require (fewer) aircraft in Greece,” Nikolaos Lardis, Ryanair sales manager for the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement.
No specific detail was given on the charges in question. (AFP)
PARIS:
About 30 percent of Air France flights scheduled on Wednesday are expected to be canceled as crews and ground staff start a seventh day of strike.
Workers unions are asking for a pay rise of six percent across the board. Their wages have been frozen since 2011.
According to unions, the strikes have already cost Air France 200 million euros ($247 million).
Some 40 percent of long-haul flights will be canceled and 25 percent of short-haul flights to and from Paris’s Orly airport and French regions will be affected. (AP)
MILAN:
Troubled Italian airline, Alitalia, said Tuesday that it has received three takeover offers, including one by a consortium led by British low-cost carrier EasyJet.
“Three offers have been submitted today,” Alitalia said in a statement, adding that the company’s administrators “will examine them over the coming days.” With the deadline for bids expiring on Tuesday, EasyJet was the only company to confirm officially that it is in the running.
“EasyJet has today submitted a revised expression of interest for a restructured Alitalia, together as part of a consortium, consistent with EasyJet’s existing strategy for Italy,” it said in a statement. (AFP)
MOSCOW, Russia:
Renault and other shareholders in Avtovaz have strengthened the capital base of Russia’s largest automaker by more than a billion euros as the firm tries to put financial problems behind it and take advantage of a recovery in the market.
The operation, which mostly involved converting debt into equity, totalled 107 billion rubles (1.3 billion euros, $1.6 billion), Rostec, a stateheld conglomerate which is an investor in Avtovaz alongside the RenaultNissan alliance, said Wednesday.
“It is the biggest transaction in the history of the Russian car industry ...” said Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov in a statement. “In fact, more than 100 billion rubles were invested in the development of the plant and the LADA brand.” (AFP)