Tausi Insider

Microsoft MSFT-Q is likely to face an EU antitrust investigation as regulators intensify their scrutiny into its practices in a case triggered by Salesforce.com’s workspace messaging app Slack, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Last year, Slack complained to the European Commission, saying that Microsoft has unfairly integrated its workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product. Microsoft introduced Teams in 2017, seeking a slice of the fast-growing and lucrative workplace collaboration market. Slack urged the EU competition enforcer to order the U.S. software giant to separate Teams from the Office Suit and sell it separately at fair commercial prices. The Commission last month sent out another batch of questionnaires in a follow-up to those sent out in October last year, a sign that the EU competition enforcer is preparing the ground for opening a formal investigation, the people said. “The Commission is looking at (Microsoft’s) interoperability and bund...

Adidas AG on Thursday said it has launched an investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Kanye West, after the German sporting goods maker last month ended its partnership with the rapper and fashion designer. Adidas said it initiated the probe after receiving an anonymous letter making several allegations against the musician, who now goes by Ye. The investigation follows a report by Rolling Stone magazine that detailed alleged incidents of inappropriate behaviour by Ye toward staff and prospective employees. Rolling Stone cited interviews with more than two dozen former Yeezy and Adidas staff. According to the magazine, former members of the team sent an anonymous letter to Adidas in which they said senior leaders at the company were aware of Ye’s behaviour, but had turned a “blind eye” and “turned their moral compass off.” “It is currently not clear whether the accusations made in an anonymous letter are true,” an Adidas spokesperson said in a statement to Reuter...

Facebook owner Meta META-Q reached out to EU antitrust regulators some time back in an attempt to settle investigations into its use of customer data and the tying of its classified advertisements service to its social network, people with direct knowledge said. There were very preliminary discussions which so far have not made any progress, the people said. The European Commission and Meta declined to comment. “I am not surprised that there is no traction. You can better assess the exposure risk if you see something in writing like a statement of objections,” said Tobias Caspary, a partner at London-based Fried Frank. The EU competition enforcer launched an investigation into Facebook in June last year, focusing on whether the social network unfairly use advertisers’ data to compete with them in the online classified ads sector. A second investigation centres on whether Facebook ties its classified ads service Marketplace to its social network to give it an advantage in reaching cus...

An investigation conducted by Scotiabank found that some of its employees had inappropriately processed clients’ requests to switch their mutual fund holdings. Deborah Baic/Tausi Insider Bank of Nova Scotia’s BNS-T securities arm will pay $1-million in fines over allegations that dozens of employees engaged in improper sales practices, revealing the bank terminated more than 30 employees for “egregious misconduct.” The settlement deal with Canada’s mutual fund industry regulator, published on Wednesday, also requires Scotia Securities Inc. to return $10.8-million to clients. In Scotia’s agreement with the Mutual Fund Dealers Association, the investment dealer admits to not having adequate policies and procedures to prevent several incidents between 2017 and 2022 when employees padded their sales targets. Scotiabank’s investigation found that some employees inappropriately processed clients’ requests to switch their mutual fund holdings. Instead of processing the trades as switches, w...

Nunavut’s energy corporation says cybersecurity experts are investigating after it was targeted in a cyberattack over the weekend. The Qulliq Energy Corporation says its network was breached, but it’s too early to determine whether the attackers accessed customer information. It says anyone affected will be notified as the investigation continues. Power plants in the territory continue to operate as usual, but computer systems and the corporation’s customer care and administrative officers are currently unavailable. The Nunavut government’s IT system was the target of a cyberattack in 2019. The Northwest Territories Power Corporation was hit by a ransomware attack in 2020. https://www.tausiinsider.com/nunavut-energy-corporation-targeted-in-cybersecurity-attack/?feed_id=323374&_unique_id=63e11c8b04046

Britain’s competition regulator said on Wednesday it had started the first phase of an investigation into U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Inc’s AVGO-Q $61 billion acquisition of cloud-computing firm VMware Inc. VMW-N The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in November it was investigating whether the deal between the two U.S.-listed companies could substantially hurt competition in Britain, adding that it had until March 22 to decide. The Broadcom-VMware deal was one of the biggest announcements globally in 2022, marking the chipmaker’s attempt to diversify into the enterprise software segment. Tech deals have drawn intense scrutiny from regulators around the world on concerns over too much market clout in the hands of a few firms and the possibility of bigger companies acquiring startups only to shut them down. Broadcom and VMware did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-k-competition-watchdog-probes-61-billion-broadcom-vmwar...

U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Justice Department, in Washington, on Jan. 26. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images The Federal Bureau of Investigation hacked a prolific ransomware gang called Hive to disrupt its operations and rescue its victims, senior U.S. officials said on Thursday. In a joint announcement by U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Deputy U.S. Attorney-General Lisa Monaco, the officials said government hackers broke into Hive’s network and put the gang under surveillance, surreptitiously stealing the digital keys the group used to unlock victim organizations’ data. “Using lawful means, we hacked the hackers,” Monaco told reporters. “We turned the tables on Hive.” News of the takedown first leaked on Thursday morning when Hive’s website was replaced with a flashing message that said: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized this site as part of co-ordinated law enforcement action taken ag...

U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Justice Department, in Washington, on Jan. 26. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images The Federal Bureau of Investigation hacked a prolific ransomware gang called Hive to disrupt its operations and rescue its victims, senior U.S. officials said on Thursday. In a joint announcement by U.S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Deputy U.S. Attorney-General Lisa Monaco, the officials said government hackers broke into Hive’s network and put the gang under surveillance, surreptitiously stealing the digital keys the group used to unlock victim organizations’ data. “Using lawful means, we hacked the hackers,” Monaco told reporters. “We turned the tables on Hive.” News of the takedown first leaked on Thursday morning when Hive’s website was replaced with a flashing message that said: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized this site as part of co-ordinated law enforcement action taken ag...