The Biden administration moved on Monday to reimpose financial sanctions on an Israeli mining executive who had turned to a team of lobbyists to have the measures eased during President Donald J. Trump’s final days in office, the New York Times reported.
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Resources Per Country
- Anguilla
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Netherlands Antilles
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- United States
- United States Virgin Islands
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is considering selling part of its stake in the utility Puget Energy Inc., Bloomberg News reported. The investment group is working with an adviser to reduce its 31.6% stake by about 10 percentage points. The sale is expected to fetch $700 million, valuing Puget Energy at up to $7 billion, including debt. CPPIB was part of a group that took Puget private in 2009, alongside Macquarie Group Ltd., British Columbia Investment Management Corp. and Alberta Investment Management Corp., according to a statement on its website.
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President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has never been short of criticisms about his predecessor’s legacy. But he has reserved a special contempt for the sweeping overhaul that opened Mexico’s tightly held energy industry to the private sector, the New York Times reported. He has called the changes a form of legalized “pillaging,” the product of corruption and a resounding failure. He has suggested that some foreign energy investors are “looting” the nation and that Mexican lawyers who work for them are guilty of treason.
Blockchain payments firm Ripple has not experienced any fallout in its Asia Pacific business after being sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company’s chief executive officer said on Friday, Reuters reported. In late December, the SEC charged Ripple, which is associated with cryptocurrency XRP, with conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering. After that, the top U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase shut down trading in XRP, which is the world’s seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market value.
Norwegian Air expects its dispute with Boeing over the cancellation of orders for 97 aircraft to be decided in U.S. legal proceedings and not as part of an Irish restructuring process, a lawyer for the airline said on Friday, Reuters reported. Norwegian was given protection from bankruptcy in both Norway and Ireland, where most of its assets are registered, late last year and is aiming to emerge from the process in April with fewer aircraft and less debt. On Friday, the airline indicated to the Irish court that it was seeking to repudiate three aircraft sales contracts with Boeing.
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The U.S. and U.K. are weighing additional penalties against Russia over the use of chemical weapons, with options ranging from sanctions against oligarchs to the extreme step of targeting the nation’s sovereign debt, Bloomberg News reported. British officials plan to push for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to continue to pressure Russia to provide answers over its use of banned substances, and will raise potential measures with key European allies, including France and Germany, in the coming weeks.
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Offshore drilling rig contractor Seadrill said on Thursday it had taken an additional $2.9 billion non-cash impairment on its assets due to a bleak outlook for the sector, which has reduced demand for its drilling rigs, Reuters reported. Seadrill, which in February filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States for the second time in four years, said it expected offshore drilling demand to remain depressed well into 2021, with some degree of market recovery seen by mid-2022.
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The United States on Thursday agreed to a four-month suspension of retaliatory tariffs imposed on British goods such as Scotch whisky over a long-running aircraft subsidy row, with both sides pledging to use the time to resolve the dispute, Reuters reported. The U.S. administration under former President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Scotch whisky and other European Union food, wine and spirits, which the industry says have put its future at risk.
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A U.S. judge on Wednesday quashed a bid to widen the scope of a civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that accused miner Rio Tinto of fraud at its Mozambican coal business, a court filing showed, Reuters reported. The SEC filed a complaint against Rio in 2017 with allegations that it had fraudulently concealed the decline in value of the business. Rio had acquired Riversdale mining for $3.7 billion in 2011, on the premise it would be able to barge 30 million tonnes of coal per year down the Zambezi river, and rail a further 12-15 million tonnes of coal per year to port.
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Mexico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of the country’s telecoms regulator over a label that aims to curb the dominance of Carlos Slim’s telecommunications company America Movil, Reuters reported. The ruling deals a blow to one of the country’s largest companies in its ongoing fight to peel back restrictions. Mexico’s Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) acted within the constitution when it determined that the America Movil Economic Interest Group, made up of Telcel and other subsidiaries, is a “preponderant agent”, the court said in a statement.
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