Bottomline

WASHINGTON:

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up Apple Inc’s bid to escape a lawsuit accusing it of breaking federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for iPhone software applications and causing consumers to pay more than they should.

The justices said they would hear Apple’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that revived the proposed class-action lawsuit by iPhone buyers over commissions that the Cupertino, California-based technology company receives through its App Store.

The case could expand the threat of antitrust damages against companies in the rapidly growing field of electronic commerce, which generates hundreds of billions of dollars annually in US retail sales.

President Donald Trump’s administration backed Apple and urged the justices to take the case.

Businesses that potentially could be threatened by such consumer litigation are electronic marketplaces like the App Store, ticket site StubHub, Amazon’s Marketplace and eBay where individual sellers set prices. (RTRS)

DETROIT:

General Motors is getting rid of three Cadillac sedans and replacing them with two new ones over the next 3ó years.

The company says it’s sinking $175 million into a Lansing, Michigan, factory to make replacements for the ATS compact, CTS midsize and XTS full-size cars.

The ATS won’t be replaced but Cadillac hopes to cover its market with the new vehicles.

The ATS was designed to compete with the BMW 3 Series but never really caught on. The XTS was based on a Chevrolet Impala but also never sold well. (AP)

NEW YORK:

Rent-A-Center is being sold to a private equity firm for more than $800 million.

The chain, which leases household goods on a rent-to-own basis, got a second offer from Vintage Capital Management for $15 per share, a 25 percent premium to the company’s closing price on Friday, and a dollar more per-share than Vintage bid the previous week. The Plano, Texas company said Monday that it’s accepted the second bid.

Rent-A-Center Inc has been reviewing its plans over the past year, including a potential sale. (AP)

LONDON:

Sainsbury’s bid to buy Asda could endanger competition at the national and local level and risks tacit coordination between the two, according to submissions from rivals and suppliers to the regulator investigating the deal.

Last month, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a preliminary “invitation to comment” on Sainsbury’s 7.3 billion pounds ($9.7 billion) agreed cash and shares deal to buy Walmart’s Asda that would see the combined group overtake Tesco as Britain’s biggest supermarket group.

The deal is being closely watched by rivals and competition lawyers to see if the regulator will take into account the role of discounters Aldi and Lidl and online competition when assessing the sector. (RTRS)

PARIS:

US conglomerate

General Electric will have to pay millions of euros in penalties in France if it fails to uphold its pledge to create 1,000 new jobs by year end, a government official said Sunday.

GE made the promise as part of its 2014 purchase of Alstom’s power and electrical grid businesses, including its prized gas turbine operations, for 12.4 billion euros ($14.4 billion at current rates).

Shortly after closing the deal the following year, GE announced plans to cut 6,500 power jobs in Europe because of falling oil and gas prices, and a further 12,000 job cuts in the sector were announced last December.

The company’s CEO John Flannery told finance ministry officials in Paris last week that he could not honour the French hiring pledge, which has led to just 323 new jobs so far. (AFP)

NICOSIA:

The government on Friday agreed in principle to sell off the stateowned Cyprus Cooperative Bank to the island’s third largest lender Hellenic Bank.

“A proposal by Hellenic Bank has been accepted in principle on condition that a binding capital plan is submitted” on Monday, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades told reporters.

Hellenic would assume the customer deposits of the bank totalling 9.7 billion euros ($11 billion), said Georgiades.

“Our aim is for the country’s banking institutions not to be built on clay foundations but free of the mistakes of the past,” said Georgiades.

Cyprus has battled back from the near collapse of its financial system in 2013 which saw second bank Laiki wound down and the Bank of Cyprus recapitalised.

Measures included the controversial seizure of depositors’ uninsured savings above 100,000 euros. (AFP)

THE HAGUE:

A Dutch MP called Saturday for a parliamentary enquiry into how oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has been paying billions in share dividends through the British Channel islands without tax.

GroenLinks MP Jesse Klaver, who leads the environmental party, said on Twitter he had asked the head of the lower house of parliament to look at relations between the Anglo-Dutch company and the government to see if any law had been broken and if politicians had been involved.

“It seems as if the tax authorities have been complicit in tax evasion so as to make the fusion (of the two companies in 2005) possible,” Klaver told the Trouw daily newspaper. (AFP)

NEW DELHI:

Fugitive billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi was last seen in Britain in March, Indian federal investigators said Monday.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing a multi-billion dollar scam allegedly involving Modi, who is worth $1.73 billion according to Forbes, placing him 85th on India’s rich list. “Request letters were written to six countries, namely USA, France, Singapore, Brussels, UAE and UK. Only UK replied to request letter stating Nirav Modi was last seen on March 31 there,” CBI spokesman Abhishek Dayal told AFP.

Media reports in India and Britain in the last few days have said that the jeweller had sought asylum in Britain for what he called “political persecution”. (AFP)