German and French leaders meet this week to map out a revised plan for the euro as the Group of Eight exposed disagreement on a rescue strategy, Greece lurched toward a possible exit and Spain
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Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship, a move expected to save him hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes stemming from the company’s impending initial public offering.
The Brazil-born 30-year-old became a U.S. citizen in 1998 but has lived in Singapore since 2009. Giving up his citizenship will allow him to avoid paying taxes on billions of dollars of capital gains when Facebook launches its IPO Friday. Singapore does not have a capital gains tax.
Saverin gave up his citizenship in the first quarter of this year, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service said.
“Eduardo recently found it to be more practical to become a resident of Singapore since he plans to live there for an indefinite period of time,” Saverin’s New York-based spokesman Tom Goodman said Tuesday in a statement.
Goodman said that because Saverin plans to invest in Brazilian and global companies that have strong interests in entering Asian markets, “it made the most sense for him to use Singapore as a home base absolutely free credit score.”
Saverin has a 4 percent stake in Facebook, which has headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Analysts say the company could be worth $100 billion.
Saverin, who moved to the U.S. from Brazil in 1992, founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 while the two were students at Harvard University. Saverin gained additional fame when his conflict with Zuckerberg and departure from the company was depicted in the 2010 movie “The Social Network.”
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The number of people applying for U.S. unemployment benefits ticked down last week after dropping sharply the previous week, evidence hiring could pick up this month.
Weekly applications dropped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 367,000 in the week ending May 5, the Labor Department said Thursday. The previous week’s figure was revised up slightly.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell 5,250 to 379,000.
Applications are a measure of the pace of layoffs. When they stay consistently below 375,000, it suggests job growth is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.
Applications are falling again after rising for most of April. The spike in applications coincided with weaker hiring in March and April. That raised fears that the job market is sputtering after a strong winter.
From December through February, employers had created an average 252,000 jobs a month. That was the best three months of job growth since the recession ended in June 2009, not counting months thrown off by the hiring of temporary census workers in 2010.
The unemployment rate has dropped a full percentage point since August _ to 8.1 percent in April.
The recent jobs picture has been clouded by an unseasonably warm winter. That allowed construction firms and other companies to hire earlier than usual, effectively stealing jobs from the spring. Economists are puzzling out how much of the slower hiring in March and April was weather-related payback and how much reflects economic weakness.
More than 500,000 Americans have left the work force since February. That’s one reason _ and not a good one _ that unemployment has continued to fall. People who are out of work but not looking for jobs aren’t counted among the unemployed.
The economy grew at a disappointing 2.2 percent from January through March, a rate consistent with less than 110,000 new jobs a month.
There’s still has a long way to go. The United States has regained only about 3.8 million, or 43 percent, of the 8.8 million jobs lost during and immediately after the recession.
The number of people receiving unemployment benefits also dropped. That is partly because extended benefit programs are winding down. More than 6.4 million people received benefits during the week that ended April 21, down nearly 175,000 from the previous week.
The government did release some good news this week: In March, employers advertised 3.74 million job openings, the most since July 2008. The increase in U.S. job openings suggests that weaker hiring gains in March and April could be temporary. It usually takes one to three months for employers to fill openings.
Voters in Greece and France challenged austerity as Europe
Apple Inc. risks losing the right to use the iPad trademark in China, a senior official suggested Tuesday, as a Chinese court was seeking to mediate a settlement between the technology giant and a local company challenging its use of the iPad name.
Yan Xiaohong, deputy director of the National Copyright Administration, told reporters in Beijing that the government regards Shenzhen Proview Technology as the rightful owner of the trademark for the popular tablet computers. His remarks could add to pressure on Apple to find a solution to the standoff.
Yan’s comments followed news that the Guangdong High Court in southern China is seeking to arrange a settlement in the case. In late February, the court began hearing Apple’s appeal of a lower court ruling that favored Proview in the trademark dispute.
“The dispute between Apple and Shenzhen Proview concerning the iPad trademark is going through the judicial process,” Yan said in a news conference carried on the Internet.
But he added that “according to our government’s laws, Shenzhen Proview is still the lawful representative and user of the trademark.”
China has sought to showcase its determination to protect trademarks and other intellectual property, but with hundreds of thousands employed in the assembly of Apple’s iPhones and iPads is unlikely to want to disrupt the company’s production and marketing in China.
Ma Dongxiao, a lawyer for Proview said the company had expected all along to settle with Apple, with the key sticking point being the amount of money involved.
“It is likely that we will settle out of court. The Guangdong High Court is helping to arrange it and the court also expects to do so,” Ma said in a phone interview.
Court officials contacted by phone said they were not authorized to comment on the issue to foreign media.
“Given the wide implications of this case we need to wait to see the final ruling of the court, which will decide the ownership rights for the trademark,” Yan said. “We will proceed with the case in a prudent manner.”
He said commercial authorities that had received complaints about Apple’s use of the iPad trademark were collecting evidence.
“Once the ruling emerges we will handle the case according to the evidence we have,” he said.
Chinese courts often try to mediate agreements out of court. But it is unclear whether Apple is open to that option.
Proview, a financially troubled maker of computer displays and LED lights, says it registered the iPad trademark more than a decade ago. Apple says Proview sold it worldwide rights to the iPad trademark in 2009, though the registration was never transferred for China.
Proview’s other worldwide trademarks for the iPad name were owned by another subsidiary of the Proview Group, Taiwan-based Proview Electronics. But the mainland China trademark was registered by Shenzhen Proview.
An Apple spokeswoman, Carolyn Wu, said the company had no new comment on the possibility of a settlement with Proview.
In a statement, Apple reiterated its earlier insistence that it would never “knowingly abuse someone else’s trademarks.”
The statement adds that Proview “still owe a lot of people a lot of money, they are now unfairly trying to get more from Apple for a trademark we already paid for.”
___
Researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report.
He gets colonic irrigations, Botox injections and vitamin drips, and insists on black toilet paper in his home.
A revealing new biography offers intimate _ some might say too intimate _ details about Simon Cowell, along with a portrait of the entertainment mogul’s savvy business side.
“Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell” is written by British journalist and biographer Tom Bower, whose previous subjects include former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, jailed media mogul Conrad Black and ex-Harrods owner Mohammad al-Fayed.
His latest portrait of power centers on the tanned and brush-cut Cowell, 52, who has gained fame in both Britain and North America as producer and an acerbic judge on TV talent shows including “The X Factor” and “America’s Got Talent.”
Bower says he became fascinated by the story of a middle-aged music producer who struck gold by turning the old-fashioned talent contest into a slick 21st-century phenomenon _ and in the process earned a fortune estimated at 200 million pounds ($320 million) by the Sunday Times Rich List.
The book paints a picture of a man who struggled for years in the music business, spurred on to success out of a desire to prove his detractors wrong.
“He had 20 years _ more than 20 years _ of humiliation,” Bower said. “At school he was a total failure and as a music producer he was a total failure.
“But what he did have was charm and an ability to understand the music business because of all this failure.”
“Sweet Revenge,” published in the U.S. by Ballantine Books on Tuesday, is billed as the first book about Cowell written with the mogul’s participation _ though not his authorization. Bower spent many hours with Cowell aboard his private jet, at his Los Angeles home and on his yacht in the south of France and the Caribbean.
But he says Cowell told some friends and associates not to talk to him. Writing the book became “a cat and mouse game” between him and his subject.
“He clearly wanted his story told properly, but there are parts he didn’t want told and it was up to me to find out about them,” Bower said.
Cowell has stressed that the book was not written with his approval, tweeting: “This book is not written by me. It is unauthorized. The writer is Tom Bower.”
Cowell can’t have enjoyed the revelations in The Sun tabloid, which has been serializing the more salacious bits of Bower’s book.
Among the details: Cowell gets regular colonic irrigations because “it’s so cleansing _ and it makes my eyes shine brighter.” He is put on a drip of vitamins and nutrients for a half hour each week.
He’s not gay, despite long-standing rumors. The book reveals bedroom secrets including a brief affair with former “X Factor” judge Danii Minogue. But Bower says that Cowell isn’t interested in serious relationships.
“He is only interested in women who are uninhibited and uncomplicated,” Bower said. “He is not interested in relationships. He’s a schoolboy my credit score.”
He is, however, generous. Bower says Cowell gave his ex-fiance Mezhgan Hussainy, a makeup artist on “American Idol,” a $5 million Beverly Hills house as a parting gift. Most of his exes have refrained from spilling the beans in the media.
While Britain’s tabloids have focused on Cowell’s sex life, Bower is more interested in the story of money and power, of “business rivalry and the skullduggery.”
At the heart of the book is Cowell’s feud with fellow svengali and former Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller. The pair fell out over the 2001 British musical talent-show, “Pop Idol,” progenitor of “American Idol.” Fuller was listed as creator of the show despite what Cowell said was a verbal agreement to split the credit.
A legal battle between the two men was settled out of court, with Fuller getting the creator credit for “Idol” _ though Bower says he found “overwhelming” evidence that Cowell played a vital role.
Bower said Cowell was “naive and humiliated by Fuller’s dexterity.”
“He didn’t understand the importance of owning a format,” Bower said. “He learnt his lesson.”
He said Cowell became “incensed” by the “created by Simon Fuller” credit on “Pop Idol” and “American Idol,” and vowed to create his own rival show.
The result was singing competition “X Factor,” which had its debut in Britain in 2004 and in the U.S. last fall. Cowell also created “Britain’s Got Talent” and executive produces its U.S. spinoff, “America’s got Talent.”
Cowell’s response to the book, published in Britain on Friday, is so far unknown.
Publicist Max Clifford _ who says Cowell pays him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to keep stories out of the press _ said he had advised Cowell not to speak to Bower, because it would undo years of carefully protected privacy.
“He knows it was a mistake,” Clifford said.
“For Simon, who has protected his privacy and never, ever spoken about his relationships with anybody, to suddenly be quoted about this, that and the other is to me very damaging.
“Having created an image that’s been hugely successful, to see him damage it like that is sad and disappointing,” Clifford said.
Bower, though, thinks the book’s portrait of Cowell is fairly positive.
While Bower has been openly hostile to some of his previous subjects _ he called Gordon Brown a ruthless bully and Conrad Black a crook _ he has a soft spot for Cowell.
“He’s not a crook,” Bower said. “So far he hasn’t sued me. And it was good fun.
“He doesn’t sit on his laurels. That’s what’s endearing about him. Although he is vain, he is a perfectionist and a professional _ and he understands the business better than most.”
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Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless
Iraq’s oil ministry said Thursday that the U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is not allowed to bid in the May energy auction because of its oil deals with the northern self-ruled Kurdish region in Iraq.
The Texas-based Exxon signed six deals with the Kurds last October to search for oil in six areas, bypassing the Baghdad government, which maintains that it must ratify all deals. Some of the deals cover areas located in a land claimed by both Kurds and Arabs.
Deputy head of the Oil Ministry’s Licensing and Petroleum Contracts Department, Sabah al-Saidi, told The Associated Press that the reason for the move was Exxon’s refusal to abandon its controversial deals with Kurds.
“Exxon has been removed from the list of qualified companies because it refused to abandon the deals with the Kurdish region as requested by the Ministry of Oil,” al-Saidi said.
The Kurds and Arab-led government in Baghdad have been at loggerheads over who has the final say in resources development. They have unilaterally signed scores of oil deals, mostly with mid-sized companies which Baghdad considers illegal and has blacklisted the companies involved.
Baghdad recently said that Exxon sent two letters, assuring that it would freeze the deals until the central government and the Kurds resolve their differences. But the Kurds have maintained the deals are still valid and that Exxon is committed to them.
Thursday’s announcement came as the Oil Ministry published the final list of 47 oil companies that are qualified to bid in the May 30-31 bidding round for 12 exploration blocs nationwide.
Nearly 70 percent of the blocs on offer hold natural gas blocs and the rest a combination of oil and gas. They are expected to add about 29 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to the current 126.7 trillion cubic feet in reserves, and about 10 billion barrels of oil to the current 143.1 billion barrels of oil.
Since 2008, Iraq has awarded 15 oil and gas deals to international energy companies, the first major investments in the country’s energy industry in more than three decades.
Under a previous deal with Baghdad, Exxon and Shell are developing one of Iraq’s biggest oil fields, the 8.6 billion-barrel West Qurna Stage 1 field in southern Basra province.
Baghdad aims to raise the daily output to 12 million barrels by 2017 _ a level that would put it nearly on par with Saudi Arabia’s current production capacity.
Many analysts say that target is unrealistic, because of the degraded state of the industry’s infrastructure after wars and an international embargo that lasted more than a decade.
UPDATED throughout at 7 p.m.
ST. CHARLES • The former president of US Fidelis, once one of the nation’s largest sellers of auto service contracts, admitted in court here Thursday that he bilked consumers and looted his own company of millions of dollars.
Darain Atkinson pleaded guilty to state charges of insurance fraud, stealing and unlawful merchandising practices. It was part of a deal negotiated without the knowledge of his co-defendant and brother, Cory Atkinson, the latter’s lawyers said.
After that agreement in St. Charles County Circuit Court was announced, federal prosecutors in St. Louis unsealed an indictment accusing both men of defrauding consumers, failing to pay taxes and using more than $71 million from the company to fund a lavish lifestyle of luxury boats, cars and mansions here and overseas.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of eight years for Darain Atkinson on the state charges. Sentencing was set for July 16, but won’t happen until after the federal case is resolved, his attorney, Scott Rosenblum, said in court.
Later, Rosenblum said the prison term and any penalty in the federal case likely would run concurrently, resulting in no more than eight years total.
It marked one more step in a dramatic fall for the Atkinsons. Just three years ago, the brothers were self-made millionaires with palatial homes, fleets of exotic cars and more than 1,100 employees working at the Wentzville headquarters of the auto service contract company they founded.
Bill Margulis, one of the lawyers representing Cory Atkinson, the former company vice president, reacted to the plea agreement by saying, “Whatever allegations in there pertain to Cory, Cory denies.” Margulis declined to comment on the tax charges, saying another lawyer was handling those.
Asked about Darain Atkinson’s motivation to plead guilty, Margulis responded, “I can only speculate that he made a decision … that eight years was a lot better than whatever the alternative might be.”
Lawyers on both sides said that Darain Atkinson did not agree to testify against his brother or provide information against him.
Cory Atkinson’s state case is pending, with a trial set for September.
Darain Atkinson has prior convictions — in 1986 for theft, burglary and forgery, and in 1987 for making counterfeit federal reserve notes. Cory Atkinson has a 1987 felony conviction for trespassing.
As part of Thursday’s plea, 11 state charges against Darain Atkinson were dropped.
“He’s done everything he can not only to accept his responsibility, he’s surrendered everything he’s owned to make things good,” said Rosenblum.
Appearing in court in a black suit, blue shirt and striped tie, Darain Atkinson provided polite and brief answers Thursday to questions from Circuit Judge Jon Cunningham and attorneys. He remained free on bail and walked away from the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
The federal indictment makes many of the same allegations outlined in Darain Atkinson’s plea, using similar language.
It also accuses both brothers of failing to declare or pay taxes on more than $40 million received from the company for the tax years 2006 and 2007. On his 2007 tax return, Darain Atkinson reported $73,378 in taxable income when he’d received $8.1 million from Fidelis, the indictment says. That return was the only one for those years on which either brother reported a positive taxable income, it says.
The federal charges also say the brothers’ lavish spending drained an escrow account that was supposed to pay taxes.
Fidelis was a broker for service contracts that promised financial protection for drivers after their vehicles’ original warranties expired. It also sold product warranties, coverage conditioned upon the purchase and use of certain auto additives.
In his plea, Darain Atkins admitted that the profit was often more than $1,200 on a contract typically priced at more than $2,000.
The company used deceptive and misleading direct mail and telemarketing campaigns designed to fool consumers into thinking they were talking to dealers or auto manufacturers, and portrayed service contracts as more comprehensive than they actually were, the plea says.
Unhappy customers canceled, sometimes at a rate as high as 60 percent.
When they did, Darain Atkinson told Fidelis staffers to arbitrarily withhold 10 to 40 percent of their money — and Cory Atkinson knew the full amounts of refunds were not being returned, the plea says.
The Atkinsons funneled millions of dollars into multi-million dollar homes in St. Charles County and elsewhere in Missouri as well as Lake Tahoe and the Cayman Islands.
Although it is not mentioned in the plea, the company paid almost $27 million to buy land and build Darain Atkinson’s Lake Saint Louis home, which featured a observation tower, bowling alley, beauty salon, a two-story walk-in closet, safe rooms, and secret doors and passageways.
Cory Atkinson’s Wentzville manse was valued at $10 million.
The founders’ spending and the customer cancellations put a strain on the company’s cash flow, and Fidelis was forced to rely on cash from new sales, the plea says. The company collapsed in 2009.
Last month, in a proposed settlement filed in bankruptcy court in St. Louis, the company agreed to pay $1.45 million to 556 former employees.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who represented the state in Thursday’s case, said after the hearing that since the Atkinson indictment in June, his office has received fewer complaints about other vehicle service contract providers.
“I think the indictment of US Fidelis sent a shock wave through this industry,” he said.
A sexy, award-winning smartphone is going on sale Sunday at half the price of the iPhone, and it’s launching on a blazing fast 4G network.
What’s the catch? Two things: The phone, called the Lumia 900, is made by Nokia — and it’s running Microsoft’s Windows Phone software.
They may be household names, but Microsoft (, Fortune 500) and Nokia () are unproven in the U.S. smartphone space. Nokia hasn’t ever sold a major smartphone in the United States, and it has been almost invisible in the North American market for the past five years.
Meanwhile, Microsoft had a big, expensive, but tepidly received launch of Windows Phone 7 in late 2010. The software giant has actually lost market share since then.
Putting Microsoft and Nokia’s efforts together to create a third major challenger to the iPhone-Android smartphone duopoly is kind of like putting Linux on a Sony () Vaio to take a run at HP (, Fortune 500) and Dell (, Fortune 500). In the United States, Apple (, Fortune 500) and Google (, Fortune 500) control a combined 80% share of the smartphone market, according to comScore. Microsoft has less than 4%.
But if ever there were a time to make a run, it’d probably be now.
The Lumia 900 is a visually dazzling smartphone that’s generating a lot of chatter after it took home the Best of Show award at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Windows Phone has already gone through its first major update to clear away the early bugs and has 77,000 apps in its app store. And Nokia’s phone is compatible with AT&T’s new ultra-fast 4G LTE network, making it the first LTE-capable Windows Phone device.
To top it all off, AT&T (, Fortune 500) is selling the Lumia 900 for just $100.
The iPhone is a nightmare for carriers
"We have a great amount of consumer buzz, so we feel good about our ability to take off in a really big way," said Chris Weber, president of Nokia’s North American business. "But we’ve got to have a great device that is super compelling to do that. We think we have that."
As Microsoft’s Aaron Woodman, the company’s Windows Phone director, put it: "There is an enormous amount of momentum, and now is the time to strike."
The Lumia 900 is not the first Nokia Windows Phone device to launch in the United States no fax payday advance. That was the Lumia 710, an entry-level device that went on sale on T-Mobile’s network in January.
But Nokia’s new Lumia 900 device is the first Windows Phone that stacks up well against the big boys — the iPhones and the Samsung Galaxies of the smartphone world. Nokia’s expensive ad campaign for the phone goes for the jugular, attacking the iPhone’s Antennagate issue, as well as rival smartphones’ fragile cases and poor screen performance in sunlight.
The jabs play to Nokia’s strengths. Cased in a polycarbonate shell, the Lumia 900 lacks any paint — it is blue, black, or white all the way through, making the device appear scratch- and crack-resistant. It feels solid, though at 5.6 ounces it’s a bit on the heavy side. The device’s large, eye-popping screen performs quite well outdoors.
But is that enough to persuade former Android and iPhone customers to switch?
Microsoft thinks they’re ready.
"There is a sense of fatigue with Android, which really makes you do a lot of work — that’s true for Apple as well," Woodman said. "Since we arrived late to the game, that allowed us to solve a lot of problems that people were having with their smartphones."
Microsoft thinks sales will really take off after Windows 8 launches later this year. The company’s reimagined Windows for PCs will look and feel a whole lot like Windows Phone.
Windows 8: It’s a game changer
"A successful Windows 8 and a congruent platform across phone, tablet, PC, TV and cloud is the vision they are going for," said Al Hilwa, analyst at IDC. "That is going to take a few years to execute on."
That means Microsoft will have to be patient — but it’s always been willing to play the long game. It plowed billions into its Xbox division, which was unprofitable for years, and continues to lose billions each year on Bing and its online services.
"The critical question is, ‘Will they be able to ride out short-term failures and moderate successes with the aim of creating a long term viable third ecosystem?’" said Jagdish Rebello, director at IHS iSuppli. "I believe that the answer is yes."
For the past two years, Muddy Waters has been the ultimate whistle blower of questionable accounting practices by Chinese companies trading on U.S. and Canadian stock exchanges. Now, the research firm says investors need to beware of Chinese companies trading in Hong Kong.
"There was a propensity for fraudulent Chinese companies to list their shares in the West, but I think that trend has slowed down quite a bit ever since short sellers like Muddy Waters have come onto the scene," Muddy Waters founder Carson Block told CNNMoney during an interview at the Council of Institutional Investors spring conference in Washington, D.C.
"Now we’re starting to hear rumblings out of Hong Kong," Block said. "Could Hong Kong be the next bastion of fraudulent revelations? It’s difficult to say. But investors need to be wary."
He noted that in the last month, Deloitte — one of the Big Four accounting firms — quit as auditor of two Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies.
Boshiwa International, a maker of children’s clothing, and milk formula producer Daqing Dairy Holdings both announced Deloitte’s resignations and said they are looking for replacement firms. Both companies’ shares have been suspended from trading in Hong Kong since mid March, when the accounting firm stepped down.
Deloitte China confirmed it resigned from both firms, but declined further comment.
Sino-Forest sues Muddy Waters for defamation
Meanwhile, Moody’s Investor Services withdrew its rating on Daqing Dairy last week, and issued a negative outlook amid concerns about the company’s financial reporting after Deloitte’s resignation paydayloans.
Block told CNNMoney that his firm will issue a report and a "sell rating" on a Chinese company within a few weeks, but declined to disclose any further details.
Block also said that Muddy Waters has been probing companies "outside the China realm" and will likely take a short position on a non-Chinese company sometime this year. A short position is essentially a bet that a stock will decline.
Muddy Waters made a name for itself last year, after the company accused Chinese timber company Sino-Forest of fraud. The scathing report triggered a massive sell-off in shares of Toronto-listed Sino-Forest before they were eventually suspended, and forced hedge fund high roller John Paulson to book deep losses.
Reports out of Muddy Waters have brought down several other companies including Rino International () and China MediaExpress ().
Muddy Waters’ most recent fraud allegations against Chinese digital market firm Focus Media () initially sparked a sharp sell of in the company’s stock. But shares of Focus Media have recovered since the November report.
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