1.DAIMLER:-German luxury carmaker Daimler expects significantly lower sales at its Mercedes unit in the third quarter compared to the previous one due to a global shortage in semiconductors, its chief executive told Automobilwoche weekly.
“With the plant closings at semiconductor suppliers in Malaysia and elsewhere, the challenge has now become even greater, so that our sales in the third quarter will probably be noticeably below the second quarter,” Ola Kaellenius on Thursday was quoted as saying.
Daimler expects Mercedes Q3 sales significantly below Q2 – report
2.VODAFONE :All-you-can-watch video products offered by Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom in Germany violated regional rules on roaming and net neutrality, the European Union’s highest court ruled on Thursday.
The landmark ruling deals a blow to popular mobile products such as Deutsche Telekom’s StreamOn deal, which offers unlimited data for watching video while customers are in Germany but slows transmission speeds when they go abroad.
“It follows that limitations on bandwidth, tethering or on use when roaming … are also incompatible with EU law.”
EU rules require mobile operators to allow customers to “roam like at home” and to pay the same tariffs regardless of where they are located. Net neutrality bars the throttling of data speeds depending on location.
Operators counter that such rules, if applied across the EU, would encourage people from outside Germany to sign up as customers there to take advantage of unlimited video products, forcing up costs and straining networks.
3.APPLE--Apple Inc further loosened App Store rules on Wednesday, allowing some content companies like Netflix Inc to provide links to their websites so customers can sign up for paid accounts.
The concession was part of a settlement with Japan’s anti-trust regulator, which said the change was enough for it to close a five-year investigation into Apple that focused on video and music apps but did not consider games.
The ban on providing separate links was lifted for so-called reader apps which provide content such as e-books, video and music that don’t offer a free tier of service, instead requiring payment at sign-up.
The change is set to take effect early next year and will be applied globally, said Apple, which will retain ultimate say over which apps qualify as reader apps.
Some companies said the concession was not enough.
4.JP MORGAN:U.S. bank JP Morgan has agreed to a 25 million euros ($29.6 million) fine in a settlement of a tax fraud case, French financial prosecutors’ office said on Thursday.
The financial prosecutors’ office said in a statement a Paris court had approved on Thursday the settlement sealed with JP Morgan.
The settlement follows a probe opened in 2012.
.5.TESLA – Tesla Inc temporarily halted some operations at its Shanghai factory last month as the global shortage of semiconductors hit the electric car maker, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Shortages with the availability of electronic control units caused output delays mainly for Tesla’s Model Y sports utility vehicle crossover, according to the report.
Production at the Chinese factory is now back to normal, Bloomberg said.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters query on the report.
Last month, world’s largest automaker Toyota Motor Corp said it would slash global production for September by 40% from its previous plan following car makers worldwide in cutting production due to the months-long chip shortage
