Govt asks PSBs to protect dollar assets on Cairn concern: Report

 The banks' decision to avoid adding more dollars to their offshore account has roiled India's exchange rate in recent days

Indian authorities asked state-run banks to protect their dollar deposits on concern they could be frozen if Cairn Energy Plc moves to seize India’s offshore assets as part of a tax dispute, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Lenders aren’t committing to US dollar purchases in the forwards market since this guidance last week, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private deliberations. UK-based Cairn Energy can push authorities to impound Indian assets if India declines to honor an arbitration ruling in a $1.2 billion tax dispute, according to a letter the company sent to the Indian High Commission in the UK earlier this year.

The advice from Indian authorities came ahead of a summit on Tuesday between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his UK counterpart Boris Johnson.

Cairn had said in March it’s considering three options, including talks with the government, preparation for possible enforcement, and potential to monetize the award, either partially or in full, to a third party. “As yet, no decision has been taken,” a spokesman for the company said Tuesday.

The banks’ decision to avoid adding more dollars to their offshore account has roiled India’s exchange rate in recent days because state-run banks are the usual counterparties who swap rupees into dollars and their absence makes the forward trade more expensive. The one-month USD/INR premium rose to as much as 10% on Tuesday on an annualized basis, from 5.41% on Thursday.

The surge in India’s USD/INR premium has been worsened by an abundance of dollars from IPO-related inflows. The Reserve Bank of India didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment. A call to a finance ministry spokesman outside business hours wasn’t answered.

Explainer: Covid-19 vaccine patents dominate global trade talks

 WTO members will assess on Wednesday signs of progress in talks on a proposal by South Africa and India to waive patent rights on Covid-19 vaccines in order to boost supply to developing countries

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - World Trade Organization members will assess on Wednesday signs of progress in talks on a proposal by South Africa and India to waive patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines in order to boost supply to developing countries.

They want to ease the rules of the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement. WTO decisions are based on consensus, so all 164 members need to agree.

Ten meetings in seven months have failed to produce a breakthrough, with 60 proposal sponsors from emerging economies, backed by a chorus of campaign groups, Nobel laureates, and former world leaders pitted against richer developed countries, such as Switzerland, the United States, and in the European Union, where many pharmaceutical companies are based.

WHERE ARE THE TALKS NOW? After a 10th round of talks on April 30, the waiver proposal's backers said they would revise their text from October in time for the next TRIPS council meeting in the second half of May before a further discussion on June 8-9.

The new text could be more limited than the current proposal.

Norway's ambassador Dagfinn Sorli, the council chair who will brief Wednesday's WTO General Council, expressed "careful optimism".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus talked on Monday of "encouraging progress", but said the process needed to be completed as soon as possible. The WHO said in April that of 700 million vaccines globally administered, only 0.2% had been in low-income countries.

Boeing faces new hurdle in 737 MAX electrical grounding issue: Sources

 The extra analysis injects new uncertainty over the timing of when Boeing's best-selling jetliner would be cleared to fly by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

By Eric M. Johnson, David Shepardson, and Tracy Rucinski

SEATTLE/WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. air safety officials have asked Boeing Co to supply fresh analysis and documentation showing numerous 737 MAX subsystems would not be affected by electrical grounding issues first flagged in three areas of the jet in April, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The extra analysis injects new uncertainty over the timing of when Boeing's best-selling jetliner would be cleared to fly by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The electrical problems have suspended nearly a quarter of its 737 MAX fleet.

U.S. airlines have said they expected Boeing to release the service bulletins as soon as this week that would allow them to make fixes and soon return the planes to service, but this latest issue will likely push that timeline back.

"We continue to work closely with the FAA and our customers to address the ground path issue in affected 737s," a Boeing spokeswoman said.

Asked about the status of the planes, an FAA spokesman said "we are continuing to work with Boeing."

Airlines pulled dozens of 737 MAX jets from service early last month after Boeing warned of a production-related electrical grounding problem in a backup power control unit situated in the cockpit on some recently built airplanes.

BCCI set to incur losses of over Rs 2,000 cr due to IPL 2021 postponement

 The biggest loss for BCCI is the money it gets from Star Sports for the broadcast rights of the tournament

The BCCI stands to lose over Rs 2000 crore of the broadcast and sponsorship money earmarked for this year's Indian Premier League which was indefinitely postponed on Tuesday due to Covid-19 cases in its bio-bubble.

The BCCI was forced to postpone the IPL after multiple cases of Covid-19 among players and support staff emerged from Ahmedabad and New Delhi in the past couple of days.

"We would be losing anything between Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 crore for the midway postponement of this season. I would say something in the range of Rs 2200 crore will be closer to accurate estimation," a senior BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

The 52-day 60-match tournament would have concluded in Ahmedabad on May 30. However, only 24 days of cricket was possible with 29 completed games before the virus halted proceedings.

The biggest loss for BCCI is the money it gets from Star Sports for the broadcast rights of the tournament.

Star has a five-year contract worth Rs 16,347 crore which is Rs 3269.4 crore per year. If there are 60 games in a season, the per-match valuation comes to approximately Rs 54.5 crore.

If Star pays per match, then the amount for 29 matches would be Rs 1580 crore approximately out of what would have been Rs 3270 crore for a full tournament. This means a loss of Rs 1690 crore for the Board.

Similarly, mobile manufacturers VIVO, as tournament's title sponsors, pay Rs 440 crore per season and BCCI is likely to get less than half of that amount because of the postponement.

Epic Games cites Apple's total control over iPhones at first day of trial

 Epic broke Apple's rules in August when it introduced its own in-app payment system in Fortnite to circumvent Apple's commissions. In response, Apple kicked Epic off its App Store

By Stephen Nellis

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The chief executive of "Fortnite" creator Epic Games testified on Monday that he knew he was breaking Apple Inc's App Store rules by putting Epic's own in-app payment system into the game last year but wanted to highlight Apple's sway over the world's iPhone users, which now total 1 billion.

"I wanted the world to see that Apple exercises total control over all software on iOS, and it can use that control to deny users' access to apps," Tim Sweeney said from behind layers of plexiglass in a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, on the first day of an antitrust trial against Apple.

The trial, expected to run three weeks, brings to a head a lawsuit Epic brought last year in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that centers on two Apple practices that have become cornerstones of its business: Apple's requirement that virtually all third-party software for the world's 1 billion iPhones be distributed through its App Store, and the requirement that developers use Apple's in-app purchase system, which charges commissions of up to 30%.

Epic broke Apple's rules in August when it introduced its own in-app payment system in "Fortnite" to circumvent Apple's commissions. In response, Apple kicked Epic off its App Store.

Epic sued Apple, alleging the iPhone maker is abusing its power over app developers with App Store review rules and payment requirements that hurt competition in the software market. Epic also launched an aggressive public relations campaign to call attention to its allegations just as Apple's practices have come under scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in the United States and elsewhere.

Credit Suisse made $17.5 mn in Archegos fees in year before $5.4 bn losses

 The lenders have collectively lost more than $10 billion in the fallout

Arches, which was run by former hedge fund manager Bill Hwang, borrowed tens of billions of dollars from at least nine global banks to speculate on volatile stocks. The lenders have collectively lost more than $10 billion in the fallout.

According to a report by the Financial Times, despite extending billions of dollars of credit to Archegos, Credit Suisse made just $17.5 million from the relationship last year. The low level of fees and high-risk exposure have caused concern among the board and senior executives, who are investigating the arrangement, according to two people with knowledge of the process.

The bank’s management is particularly alarmed after being told that Hwang was not a private banking client of the group, suggesting there was little incentive to pursue his prime brokerage business, the people told FT. According to the news article, Credit Suisse also demanded a margin of only 10 percent for the equity swaps it traded with Archegos and allowed the family office 10-times leverage on some transactions, according to people familiar with the trades and first reported by Risk.net.

Apple hires ex-Google AI scientist who resigned after colleagues' firings

 Bengio is expected to lead a new AI research unit at Apple under John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, two people familiar with the matter said

By Paresh Dave and Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Monday it has hired former distinguished Google scientist Samy Bengio, who left the search giant amid turmoil in its artificial intelligence research department.

Bengio is expected to lead a new AI research unit at Apple under John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, two people familiar with the matter said. Giannandrea joined Apple in 2018 after spending about eight years at Google.

Apple declined to comment on Bengio's role. Bengio did not respond to a request for comment.

Bengio who left Google last week after about 14 years said last month he was pursuing "other exciting opportunities".

His decision followed Google's firings in recent months of fellow scientists Margaret Mitchell after alleging she transferred electronic files out of the company and Timnit Gebru after she threatened to quit rather than retract a paper.

Mitchell and Gebru had co-led a team researching ethics issues in AI, and had voiced concern about Google's workplace diversity and approach to reviewing research. Bengio had expressed support for the pair.

As one of the early leaders of the Google Brain research team, Bengio advanced the "deep learning" algorithms that underpin today's AI systems for analyzing images, speech and other data.