Tausi Insider

A pro-democracy media tycoon was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison over two fraud charges linked to lease violations in Hong Kong on Saturday, the latest of a series of cases against prominent activists that critics say are aimed at snuffing out dissidents in the city. Jimmy Lai, who was arrested during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement following widespread protests in 2019 and under the National Security Law imposed by Beijing, was also fined 2 million Hong Kong dollars ($257,000). His media company, Next Digital, published the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily. The publication was forced to close following the arrests of its top executives, editors and journalists last year. In October, Lai was found guilty of fraud for subletting part of the office space to a secretarial firm, which was also controlled by him, between 2016 and 2020. The second fraud count was for letting the same firm use the media outlet’s office space in an alleged br...

A Credit Suisse bank in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 9, 2022. DENIS BALIBOUSE/Reuters Credit Suisse is considering a 50 per cent cut to its 2022 bonus pool, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, as the Swiss bank presses on with efforts to revive its fortunes after a series of scandals and heavy losses. The bank, whose shares were trading up 2.03 per cent to 3.120 Swiss francs at 1101 GMT, declined to comment on the report. The European Stoxx 600 banks index was up 0.15 per cent. Credit Suisse CS-N, which in November flagged a fourth quarter pretax loss of up to 1.5 billion Swiss francs ($1.58-billion), cut its 2021 bonus pool by 32 per cent after a loss for that year. Chopping that in half again for 2022 would put the Swiss bank at the sharp end of expected industry-wide bonus cuts of between 30 per cent and 50 per cent in London and New York, according to recruiters canvassed by Reuters. They said the drop is a consequence of last year’s sharp slowdown in mergers and stock offering...