China’s Geely in talks to take stake in Aston Martin

CNN has agreed to pay $76 million in backpay to settle a 16-year long dispute over the termination of a contract with camera operators Team Video Services (TVS). The settlement bring an end to a dispute that began when CNN canceled the contract with TVS without consulting the two unions representing the employees. The settlement is the ’largest monetary remedy’ in the history of the NLRB.

Boeing ousted chief executive officer, Dennis Muilenburg, will receive no severance pay in the wake of the 737 MAX crisis, but is leaving the company with $62 million in compensation and pension benefits. Muilenburg was fired in December as Boeing failed to contain the fallout from fatal crashes that halted output of the company’s 737 MAX jetliner.

David Drummond, the legal chief of Alphabet, is leaving at the end of the month, following accusations of inappropriate relationships with employees. Alphabet did not give a reason for Drummond’s departure. The company said Drummond is not getting an exit package as part of his departure. His compensation package for 2018 was worth $47 million.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was seeking to fine Boeing Co $5.4m, alleging it failed to prevent the installation of defective parts on 737 MAX airplanes, which have been grounded since two crashes linked to other systems on the planes. The FAA said that poor oversight of suppliers led Boeing to install tracks that could become brittle because of mistakes during manufacturing.

Mattress startup Casper has filed to go public. This comes in spite of its financials painting a bleak picture of operations. The 5-year-old, New York-based unicorn, revealed in a Friday securities filing that it lost more than $67 million through the first nine months of last year, even though it made $312 million of revenue. Casper’s most recent private valuation was at $1.1 billion.

Music streams on platforms like Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube hit a record high of 1.15 trillion in 2019, which surpassed one trillion streams for the first time ever in the US. Video grew even faster as a music platform, with video streams of songs jumping 40.7 percent to 401.2 billion. Audio streams accounted for 745.7 billion of last year’s total, up 23.8 percent from 2018.

A key Boeing 737 Max supplier has said it plans to cut about 2,800 jobs as the planes remain grounded far longer than expected. Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit Aerosystems, said it made the decision due to uncertainty around the Max’s return to service. The 737 Max accounts for half of Spirit’s revenue.

Takeaway.com is set to buy UK-based rival Just Eat in a £5.9 billion deal. Just Eat shareholders approved the all-share deal from its Dutch competitor on Friday. Just Eat is the market leader in Britain’s rapidly expanding food delivery market while Takeaway has expanded quickly in its home markets of Germany and the Netherlands.

Newly released internal Boeing messages show employees disparaging flight simulators for the now-grounded 737 Max and trying to hide problems with the simulators from regulators. ’I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,’ one employee says in a 2018 message. ’This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys,’ another employee wrote.

Facebook is introducing new user controls and features to manage political advertisements but will continue to let political campaigns make false claims in advertisements despite pressure on the tech giant to clamp down on misinformation. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company wants to avoid censoring politicians so users can make their own judgments about the content.

Liberty Steel has said it plans to cut 350 UK jobs in response to ’challenging market conditions’. 4 plants are affected by this cut.

President Trump on Thursday said that he may wait until after the 2020 presidential election to complete negotiations on a so-called phase two trade agreement with China because he could have more leverage after his reelection bid in November, and hence get a better deal. The president and Chinese representatives plan to sign a long-sought initial piece of a trade agreement on Jan. 15.

A Lebanese prosecutor imposed a travel ban on former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn on Thursday after he was questioned over an Interpol warrant issued by Japan seeking his arrest on financial misconduct charges. The interrogation came a day after Ghosn strongly denied all allegations in a press conference in Beirut, during which he suggested his arrest by Tokyo prosecutors was politically motivated.

The World Bank has released its biannual Global Economic Prospects report. Their economists except global growth of 2.5% in 2020 but warning of a potential debt crisis because of increasing global borrowing. In the report, the World bank highlighted four waves of debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The previous three all ended in a financial crisis in many developing countries.

China and the US are set to sign ’Phase 1’ of their trade deal in Washington next week. China’s Vice Premier Liu He will be arriving in the country to sign the deal. The deal is expected to cut tariffs and boost Chinese purchases of U.S. farm, energy and manufactured goods and also address disputes over intellectual property.

Managing director of John Lewis, Paula Nickolds, will be stepping down following a 2 per cent like-for-like sales slump in the seven weeks to 5 January. Nickolds is resigning just three months after the managing director of Waitrose, Rob Collins, also stepped down following a major restructuring.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said total sales were 0.1% lower in 2019 than the previous year after adjusting for inflation. This is the first annual sales decline since 1995. These figures do not include on-line sales which account for about 20% of the total and are thought to be growing. Britons are also spending an increasing share of their incomes on experiences rather than goods.