US President Donald Trump’s administration posed a grave risk to international trade and Europe would have to stand up to him to prevent the collapse of global economic institutions, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said yesterday.
“Our American partner appears to want to take unilaterally protectionist decisions which could destabilise the whole world economy,” Sapin said in a speech to an audience of international economists gathered at the French finance ministry.
“Decisions by the new US administration are posing a grave risk to the world trade order,” he said. “Neither France nor Europe ... can watch helplessly as our economic institutions risk being dislocated,” he added.
Sony takes $1bn writedown on its movie business
Sony Corp will write down the value of its movie business by nearly 112.1 billion yen (€909 million) in the third quarter, blaming weaker film profits as online streaming services sap demand for movie DVDs.
In a statement, the Japanese TV-to-gaming group said it had cut its outlook for earnings from DVD, Blu-ray discs and other home entertainment in line with a market decline.
Sony, under chief executive Kazuo Hirai, has been slashing costs to end years of losses across its sprawling business, writing down over-optimistic valuations. It said that the pictures segment overall – including television – expected to see profits improve as a result of the changes.
It gave no specific details, but a spokeswoman said Sony was pressing ahead with a turnaround plan, strengthening markets outside the US, including India and China, bolstering income from intellectual property and cutting costs. Sony’s movie studio has recently lagged behind competitors in box office share and big hits, and underperformed its rivals in the global box office.
In 2016, Sony films accounted for eight per cent of US and Canadian ticket sales, ranking fifth among major Hollywood studios, according to the Box Office Mojo website.
Most of the movie writedown relates to goodwill recorded at the time of Sony’s acquisition of Columbia Pictures in 1989.
FCA hands Deutsche Bank record £163m fine for Russia trades
[attach id=559225 size="medium"]The headquarters of Germany’s Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt. Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters[/attach]
Britain’s financial regulator fined Deutsche Bank £163 million for serious failings in relation to anti-money laundering controls, it said yesterday.
The fine was the biggest ever imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority or its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority.
The regulator said that inadequate controls by Deutsche Bank meant that its Russian subsidiary was able to execute more than $6 billion of so-called “mirror trades”, where stocks were bought in roubles and sold at the same time in US dollars, in a manner “highly suggestive of financial crime”.
On Monday, New York’s banking regulator said Deutsche Bank had agreed to pay it $425 million for the “mirror trading” scheme, saying the lender had conducted its business in an unsafe and unsound manner.