United States

U.S. authorities charged two Chinese nationals in a cryptocurrency scam that laundered at least $73 million from defrauded victims, the Justice Department said on Friday, Reuters reported. U.S. officials arrested Yicheng Zhang in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to an indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in California's central district later that day. Daren Li, a dual citizen of China and St. Kitts and Nevis, was arrested at the Atlanta airport in April. The U.S.

The company that operates retailers Ted Baker, Lucky Brand and Brooks Brothers plans to close a number of stores in Canada and the U.S. after months of declining sales pushed the operations into insolvency proceedings, the Globe and Mail reported. Ted Baker Canada announced the launch of liquidation sales on Friday, covering nine out of 25 Ted Baker stores in Canada and all of the brand’s locations in the U.S. The sales also affect all Brooks Brothers and Lucky Brand stores in Canada. The company has shut down its e-commerce operations for the time being.

China strongly opposed the United States' tariff hikes, its commerce ministry said on Tuesday, vowing it will take resolute measures to defend its rights and interests, Reuters reported. "U.S. raising Section 301 tariffs violates President Biden's commitment to 'not seek to suppress and contain China's development' and 'not to seek to decouple and break links with China'," said a statement by the ministry, adding the move will "seriously affect the atmosphere of bilateral cooperation." U.S.

Grupo Aeromexico SAB is seeking a return to equity markets, filing for a US initial public offering two years after delisting from the Mexican stock exchange, Bloomberg News reported. The company intends to list American Depositary shares or ADS on the NYSE under the symbol AERO and there will be no public offering of the shares in Mexico, Aeromexico said in the prospectus. The company didn’t disclose the size or price range of the offering. Barclays, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Evercore ISI and Apollo Global Securities will be underwriters for the deal.

777 Partners, the U.S. investment firm trying to buy English Premier League football club Everton, has hired restructuring experts to overcome “various operational challenges,” according to an email sent to the group’s employees Thursday, Bloomberg News reported. Miami-based 777’s proposed takeover of Everton has been held up as the Premier League is yet to grant clearance, while 777 has asked for deadlines to be extended to complete the deal. Last week the company was accused of fraud by lenders in a New York court filing.

Attorneys for Sung Kook “Bill” Hwang are expected to argue that prosecutors are pushing a novel and nonsensical market manipulation theory when the criminal trial of the former Archegos Capital Management boss kicks off in New York this month, Reuters reported. Archegos, a $36 billion family office which invested Hwang's personal wealth, collapsed spectacularly in March 2021 after its highly leveraged bets on a small number of stocks via complex derivatives quickly soured.

The American investment firm 777 Partners, whose bid to buy the English Premier League soccer team Everton has been on hold for months amid doubts about the company’s finances, was accused by one of its lenders on Friday of running a yearslong fraud scheme worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the New York Times reported. The accusation came in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in New York by Leadenhall Capital Partners, a London-based asset management company.

The U.S. is drafting sanctions that threaten to cut some Chinese banks off from the global financial system, arming Washington’s top envoy with diplomatic leverage that officials hope will stop Beijing’s commercial support of Russia’s military production, the Wall Street Journal reported. But as Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Beijing on Tuesday, the question is whether even the threat of the U.S.

With Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC’s filing of chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in federal court on Friday, it stops Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) executive director Andrew Yeom and IPI from completing their proposed settlement, the Saipan Tribune reported. CCC board chair Edward C. DeLeon Guerrero has been acting on behalf of Yeom in the settlement discussion with IPI throughout last week because Yeom’s temporary contract as executive director expired last April 13.