CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Nikola founder lied to investors about tech, prosecutor says in fraud trial

Jody Godoy
Tue, September 13, 2022 



Trevor Milton, founder and former-CEO of Nikola Corp.,

 exits court in New York City

By Jody Godoy

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Nikola Corp founder Trevor Milton became a billionaire by lying to investors about the most important aspects of his low-emission vehicle company, a prosecutor told jurors as Milton's fraud trial began on Tuesday.

Prosecutors have said Milton sought to deceive investors about the electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker's technology starting in November 2019. He left the company in September 2020 after a report by short seller Hindenburg Research called the company a "fraud."

"He lied to dupe innocent investors into buying his company’s stock," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said in U.S. District Court in New York. "On the backs of those innocent investors taken in by his lies, he became a billionaire virtually overnight."

Milton, 40, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud.

Milton’s attorney Marc Mukasey on Tuesday called the case "prosecution by distortion" and said the entrepreneur sought to express a vision about the future of trucking, not mislead investors.

Milton was "stoked" on the company's plans and had a good faith basis for his statements, Mukasey said. The attorney also took aim at a 2018 video prosecutors later showed jurors of a truck appearing to drive on its own power when it was actually rolling down a hill.

"As far as I know, it's not a federal crime to use special effects in a car commercial," he said.

Prosecutors allege Milton "doubled down" on earlier lies when the company went public. Nikola has said it did not claim the truck was moving under its own power, only that it was "in motion."

Milton's attorneys also have indicated they will argue other top executives at Nikola, including its general counsel, approved of Milton's statements.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Monday oversaw the selection of a panel of 12 jurors and four alternates in federal court in Manhattan.

Milton was indicted last year. Prosecutors said he made false statements about Nikola's progress on developing its technology as the company joined the mounting number of tech and electric vehicle companies going public through special purpose acquisition vehicles or SPACs.

Milton's statements on social media and in podcasts targeted retail investors who piled into the stock market during COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns, they said. Milton also stands accused of defrauding the seller of a Utah ranch, who said in a civil lawsuit that he accepted Nikola stock options as part of the purchase price based on the former CEO's claims about the company.

Nikola has spent more than $20 million on Milton's legal defense so far, according to its public filings.

The company went public in June 2020 through a reverse merger with VectoIQ Acquisition Corp. Nikola's market value topped $33 billion that month, but has since fallen below $3 billion.

Nikola agreed in December to pay $125 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's claims that the company defrauded investors by misleading them about its products, technical advancements and commercial prospects.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

 

Trevor Milton founded buzzy EV

company Nikola and positioned 

himself as the next Elon Musk

—then his $34 billion house of 

cards came crashing down

Christiaan Hetzner

Tue, September 13, 2022 

For many, he’s the worst fraudster since Elizabeth Holmes fooled some of the world’s smartest people with her blood testing company Theranos.

Trevor Milton is due in court today, where he will stand trial for manipulating investors with promises he was the next Elon Musk and his company, Nikola Corp., the next Tesla.

He even duped a gullible General Motors, who signed a partnership just weeks before his elaborate ruse was uncovered.

It wasn’t until Hindenburg Research’s Nate Anderson unveiled nearly two years ago to the day that his fuel cell semi was a sham that the house of cards he so meticulously constructed came crashing down.

The rise of Nikola

First unveiled as a prototype to the public in December 2016, the Nikola One semi truck “dared to reimagine” the modern truck by running on pure hydrogen with only water vapor as a tailpipe emission.

While this technology exists today, it has never been successfully produced and sold at mass scale due to its prohibitive costs. Only Toyota, its partner BMW and Hyundai are still clinging to the technology as an alternative to battery-powered passenger cars.

So when the stock debuted in 2020 via a reverse merger with a blank-check investment vehicle known as a SPAC, investors snapped up shares to get in on the ground floor of the next Tesla. Sure enough, its market cap briefly surpassed that of industry veteran Ford, surging to $34 billion despite Nikola never having brought a single product yet to market.

More lies ensued in the process, as it rushed out announcements it could produce hydrogen cheaper than anyone else, had a game-changing battery technology up its sleeve and would build a new pickup truck called the Badger for the lucrative retail market.

General Motors agreed in September 2020 to a manufacturing partnership receiving 20% of its shares as part of a deal to build its Badger, lifting the value of its stock yet again.

At the time shares in Tesla had begun their unprecedented pandemic surge as many retail investors, in lockdown and working from home, had time and money to spare.

This new class of shareholder believed traditional automakers to be doomed in the long term, saddled with stranded assets like combustion engine plants that would have to be written off, and preferred high-growth startups with lofty dreams.

Milton preyed on this type of investor. "The generation that is investing now cares more about the environmental impact of what you’re doing than they do if you’re six months or eight months from revenue," he told CNBC's Fast Money in June 2020. "They don’t care, they’re like, you know what, you’re changing the world, you’re going to reduce emissions more than anyone else, we’re invested into you.”

When GM signed the deal, CEO Mary Barra failed to properly explain what technology her company was actually securing. Hindenburg Research was convinced GM merely looked to bask in the collective shine of its charismatic founder, “a forward-thinking, fresh, visionary entrepreneur capable of rivaling Elon Musk’s allure.”

Milton's fall

Days later it dropped a bombshell report that the 1,000-horsepower Nikola One truck featured in its promotional video, in reality, had no drivetrain at all and was in fact merely filmed cleverly as it rolled down a hill, documenting a raft of further misstatements that took advantage of investors' willingness to believe.

“Nikola is an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies over the course of its founder and executive chairman Trevor Milton’s career,” Anderson’s professional short-selling firm reported, adding it had “never seen this level of deception at a public company, especially of this size.”

A point-by-point rebuttal promised by Milton never ensued. Instead, all he could offer were half-denials.

Shortly thereafter he stepped down as CEO. In July 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Milton. That December, Nikola Motors settled out of court with the SEC over fraud charges, agreeing to pay a $125 million fine.

Its stock is currently trading over 5% lower, but it still manages to hold a market cap of $2 billion as the company has finally brought a truck to market, the Nikola Tre. That is, however, largely thanks to the efforts of its partner CNH Industrial, whose Iveco Daily serves as the underlying product.

On Tuesday, Milton will have to answer for his years of deception.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Meta Seeks Out Secrets From Over 100 Companies to Win Antitrust Suit

Leah Nylen and Alex Barinka
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- To defend itself against the federal government, Meta Platforms Inc. says it needs its rivals to divulge some of their most closely held secrets.

Facebook’s parent company has so far subpoenaed 132 companies for documents, including Snap Inc., ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and the audio startup Clubhouse, and has warned that it may seek information from 100 more. The subpoenas have set off a cascade of legal challenges from Meta’s rivals, which accuse the company of using antitrust litigation as an excuse to dig through their confidential data.

The hunt for information was triggered by the US Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Meta in 2020, alleging that the company monopolized the social networking market in part through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta contests the allegation that it has a monopoly and argues that the market is constantly evolving, with newcomers like TikTok and Clubhouse as key examples.

A trial isn’t likely until 2024 at the earliest, but both sides are marshaling evidence for the case.

Kellie Lerner, an antitrust litigator at the law firm Robins Kaplan LLP who isn’t involved in the suit, said Meta’s requests seek “massive amounts of competitively sensitive information.”

“You have a company accused of anticompetitive conduct who is now seeking very competitively sensitive information in discovery,” said Lerner, who has litigated many antitrust disputes. “The sheer breadth of what they are trying to get through discovery is something that, in my view, is not typical.”

Meta has asked for documents relating to some of the most important and sensitive elements of how competitors do business, according to court filings, including how they acquire users, scale up products and make money from features. It also wants materials on rivals’ marketing and sales strategies, quality metrics, contact information for their biggest advertisers, and details on their efforts to attract users from competitors, among other secrets.

Meta’s request is “overbroad and abusive,” Snap said in court filings. A California federal judge is set to decide Tuesday how much Snap -- a key figure in the FTC suit and a company that Meta previously tried to acquire -- must turn over to aid the defense’s case.

Meta’s request seeks “materials on every product and nearly every aspect of Snap’s business, with a time range that spans almost Snap’s entire existence,” lawyers for that company said. “Snap should not be forced to hand Meta insiders a competitive playbook.”

In court filings, Meta said it needs the information from its rivals to dispute the FTC’s contentions that it is a monopoly and doesn’t face competition.

“Meta competes vigorously with many companies to help people share, connect, communicate or simply be entertained,” Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said. “As a natural step in preparing our defense to the FTC’s lawsuit, we have served subpoenas on companies with which we compete or which we believe have other information relating to the FTC’s claims.”

While Snap is among the most vocal opponents of Meta’s subpoenas, it’s not the only one. TikTok complained that Meta has sought its “most confidential and highly sensitive business information.” Pinterest Inc., Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn and others raised concerns about Meta’s “highly invasive” requests, which they said seek their “most competitively sensitive documents.”

Other companies that Meta has subpoenaed include Tinder parent company Match Group Inc., Twitter Inc., Reddit Inc. and Oracle Corp.

Meta’s document requests also aren’t limited to US social networking services. It has sought information from Line Corp. -- a company owned by SoftBank Corp. and Naver Corp. that’s the top messaging service in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand -- as well as Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Group Inc., which owns Viber, a messaging app popular in India, Ukraine and Russia.

Beyond the scope of the requests, Meta’s rivals say the company’s history of hoarding intelligence on competitors should be considered. In 2013, Meta -- then known as Facebook -- acquired a little-known Israeli startup called Onavo that gave the social giant information on ​​how often users open other apps on their phones. Facebook used Onavo’s data to find ways to quash or buy potential rivals, including WhatsApp, the FTC alleged in its complaint.

Apple Inc. banned Onavo in 2018, saying the data collection violated its App Store rules, and Facebook shut it down in 2019. That year, the social giant ​​launched a new research app called Study that would compensate users for data on what smartphone apps they download, what features they use and how much time they spend on them.

TikTok is worried that Meta’s lawyers may inadvertently disclose information that could be used by the company, given its history of copying the features and tactics of its competitors. Meta duplicated Snapchat’s Stories product and TikTok’s short-form videos on both Facebook and Instagram. And the company is currently looking at changing users’ content feeds in a way that would resemble the approach used by TikTok.

TikTok’s attorneys said they have tried for months to narrow Meta’s request and asked the court to limit the information that Meta’s in-house lawyers could view.

“They cannot unlearn any highly sensitive competitive information they receive from TikTok, and it is unclear how they can do their job as in-house antitrust lawyers without advising Meta on competitive matters,” TikTok’s lawyers said.

Lerner, the antitrust litigator, noted that Meta also sought expansive documents from the FTC itself, asking the court to force the agency to turn over its original analysis of the 2012 Instagram and 2014 WhatsApp deals. The judge rejected Meta’s request.

“It reflects their scorched-earth defense strategy here to fight in whatever manner is available to them,” she said.

In One Chart
The Meta meltdown: This chart shows Facebook’s fall from grace among the most valuable U.S. companies

Published: Sept. 13, 2022 

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms was the fifth-most-valuable company in the U.S. near the end of last year, but has since fallen behind Visa, Tesla and others


Meta Platforms Inc. has seen a sharp decline in its market value since the end of last year, taking the company from the fifth-most-valuable U.S. company as of December to now the 10th-most-valuable. ASSOCIATED PRES

Dogged by competitive and macroeconomic threats, Meta Platforms Inc. is sinking down the ranks of the largest U.S. companies.

After a 9.4% daily slide in its stock, Meta META, -9.37% ranked 10th by market value as of Tuesday’s close, falling below Visa Inc. V, -3.37% for the first time since the start of August. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, ranked fifth among U.S. companies as recently as December, according to Dow Jones Market Data, and joined the four other Big Tech companies — Apple Inc. AAPL, -5.87%, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -5.50%, Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -5.90% GOOG, -5.86% and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -7.06% — in the $1 trillion club briefly last year.


Meta’s shares have been punished this year, however, amid concerns about competitive dynamics and the impact of economic uncertainty on advertising revenue. That $1 trillion market cap has been cut by more than half, allowing several companies to jump in front of Meta — which announced its new corporate name last October — on the valuation chart.


Meta’s market value has taken a steep plunge in the past year. SENTIEO

Visa was valued at $413 billion as of Tuesday’s close, compared with $412 billion for Meta. Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM, -2.34% is next on the list with a market capitalization of $397 billion, per Dow Jones Market Data. Standing above Visa are still the four other Big Tech companies in Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon, as well as Tesla Inc. TSLA, -4.04%, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.A, -3.32%, UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, -3.25% and Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -2.60%.

Meta’s stock suffered its sharpest daily decline since February in Tuesday’s trading amid broad-market pressure brought on by the latest consumer-price-index reading, which resurfaced fears about the potential effects of inflation on the advertising landscape.

“Meta, like the other social-media companies, has been negatively affected by the moves that Apple did in the advertising business as well as the general anticipation of lower ad spending as we might be going into a recession,” said Nick Mazing, the director of research at Sentieo, who’s been tracking the changes in market values over recent weeks.

In-depth: Apple decimated Meta’s ad-tech empire. Now, it’s homing in on Facebook’s advertisers, too.

“Additional factors include competition from TikTok and investor skepticism regarding the company’s metaverse efforts,” Mazing said.

Executives at Meta have cautioned about the impact that inflationary pressures and other economic issues could have on the business, with Sheryl Sandberg, then the company’s chief operating officer, telling investors on Meta’s last earnings call that “recessions put pressure on marketers to make sure their ad budgets are spent in the smartest way possible,” though she thought that Meta tools could help them maximize their investments.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on that July call that “we seem to have entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business.”.

Visa shares have held up better amid the inflationary backdrop, falling just 8% on the year as Meta shares have lost 54%.

While Meta executives have sounded a cautious tone on the current landscape, Visa’s management team has come off more upbeat due to the nature of the payments giant’s business. Back in April, Visa Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu said that inflation had “net-net” been positive for Visa, and as recently as Monday, he said that consumer spending remained resilient.

Visa “is somewhat isolated from the big macro story, the persistent inflation, as they get paid on nominal volumes,” Mazing told MarketWatch, noting that the company has also been benefiting from the big rebound in international travel and the spending that comes with it.

Meta briefly flirted with placement outside the top 10 U.S. most valuable U.S. companies at the start of August, but its dip below Visa this time around keeps it inside the top 10 as fellow technology company Nvidia Corp. NVDA, -9.47% has also seen its value fall sharply in recent weeks.

Nvidia ranked as high as seventh by market cap earlier this year, but it now stands in 15th place with a $327 billion valuation, per Dow Jones Market Data, amid inventory issues that have hit revenue totals and a U.S. crackdown on sales of high-performance artificial-intelligence technology to China.

KICK BACK
Vedanta picks Modi's home state for $20 billion India semiconductor foray -sources

Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil
Mon, 12 September 2022 


By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Vedanta Ltd has selected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat for its semiconductor project, two sources told Reuters, the first major step in its $20 billion joint venture with Taiwan's Foxconn.

Vedanta obtained financial and non-financial subsidies including on capital expenditure and cheap electricity from Gujarat to build the semiconductor plants, the first source with knowledge of the matter said.

The project will include display and semiconductor facilities near the largest city of Ahmedabad in the western state, the source added, declining to be named ahead of an official announcement.

While lobbying for incentives, Vedanta had sought 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of land free of cost on a 99-year lease, and water and power at concessionary and fixed prices for 20 years, Reuters reported in April.

A spokesperson for Vedanta did not respond to a request for comment while Foxconn did not immediately respond.

A senior official in Gujarat's science and technology department, and another in Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel's office, declined to comment.

An announcement is expected this week with a formal signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two sides, which is likely to be attended by Patel and Vedanta officials, the source added.

Other regions including India's richest state of Maharashtra in west and Telangana and Karnataka in the south had also been in the running to host Vedanta-Foxconn's mega project.

But in the last leg of negotiations in recent weeks, Gujarat pipped Maharashtra to the post.

India's semiconductor market is estimated to reach $63 billion by 2026 from $15 billion in 2020, the government says.

Most of the world's chip output is limited to a few countries like Taiwan and late entrant India is now actively luring companies to "usher in a new era in electronics manufacturing" as it seeks for ways to have seamless access to chips.

Vedanta, an oil-to-metals conglomerate, decided in February to diversify into chip manufacturing and formed the joint venture with Foxconn.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattill in New Delhi, additional reporting by Sumit Khanna in Gujarat; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Does it pay to talk salary? Experts weigh in as California joins a growing wave of states with laws to combat 'culture of secrecy' in the US workforce


Serah Louis
Tue, September 13, 2022



A growing number of states and cities have begun establishing laws to encourage pay transparency — although there are still many corporations around the country that keep salary talk hush-hush.

“There's definitely a culture of secrecy in the United States,” says Andrea Johnson, director of state policy, workplace justice and cross-cutting initiatives at the National Women’s Law Center, based in Washington, DC.

“That comes from a lot of different directions. But it's definitely coming from employers that have long felt that it's to their advantage to keep pay and how they set pay secret.”

This workplace culture appears to be slowly shifting as more states introduce laws around salary transparency.

California recently made headlines for approving a landmark bill mandating more transparency from employers when it comes to disclosing wage gaps and posting salary ranges on job listings.

Some experts say these laws are especially advantageous when it comes to attracting new hires or reducing pay inequity — but there may be caveats for both employers and employees to watch out for as well.

More states are requiring salary ranges on job listings

California’s new law would require employers with at least 15 workers to include the hourly rate or salary range on job listings. The bill is heading to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until Sep. 30 to either veto or sign it into effect.

Over a dozen states and localities have some sort of law requiring salary disclosure. And since 2018, eight states have passed laws requiring employers to post salary ranges on job listings, says Johnson.

Some laws, such as in Colorado, prevent employers from inquiring about their employee’s past salary experience as well. Twenty states have protections in place to allow employees to discuss their wages with a colleague without facing retaliation from an employer.
How can these laws change the employment landscape

Experts like Johnson have advocated for these laws to help reduce racial and gender wage gaps — which often get swept under the rug when there’s less transparency in the workplace.

Women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man makes, according to 2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Department of Labor data indicates most racial minority groups also earn significantly less on average compared to white workers.

California’s new law also says companies based in the state with more than 100 employees will also need to show their median gender and racial pay gaps, which is a notable first for a U.S. state.

“I think we're in a moment of cultural change in the last few years, where employers are realizing that it's actually to their advantage to be more transparent about pay,” says Johnson, adding that the country is still contending with a tight labor market.

July data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that there were 11.2 million job openings on the last day of the month — compared to 11 million openings in June. Johnson believes employers who post their salary ranges may have better luck attracting new talent.

Johnson believes employers can actually benefit from being more transparent — by building trust with their employees.

“Transparency is power,” she says.

However, there’s also been some pushback from businesses. New York City’s pay transparency law was delayed from May to November. And some companies have reportedly been excluding remote work applicants from Colorado, which requires that even companies that aren’t based in the state follow its pay transparency law for an employee who does reside in Colorado.
Are there any drawbacks to these laws?

These pay transparency laws can vary across the country, which means employees and employers need to do their research first.

“The devil is in the details,” notes Beth Ann Lennon, a labor and employment lawyer at Sherman & Howard, based in Denver, Colorado.

Some states require salary postings on job postings, while others only provide this information upon request or during the application process. Some may require companies hiring outside of the state to adhere to the same rules.

And Lennon says while the intent behind these laws may be to encourage more open dialogue around pay and to address pay inequity, she adds, “Whether that intent is being accomplished, I think, is more of the open question.”

She offers the example of an employee negotiating for a higher salary in a state like Colorado that bars employers from using past wage experience to determine the employee’s current salary.

“There are laws telling you don't talk to your employees in the way that you historically have — as it relates to what are your pay expectations, what have you made in your last jobs? That kind of back and forth sometimes really helps an employee advocate for themselves,” Lennon explains.

“And so one of those tools that an employee may have previously had is gone.”
What do employees need to know?

If you’re trying to figure out how your pay compares to your coworkers, you may have considered sharing your salary information with them, or asking them about their own.

But talking about salary with a coworker remains a controversial topic — some employers still discourage the practice.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees have the right to talk about wages with another employee, while some states also include their own laws and protections around discussing pay.

“But that doesn't always stop an employer from retaliating and somebody potentially being demoted or losing their job, which can be really harmful and not immediately remedied,” notes Johnson.

For those who would prefer to keep that information to themselves, Lennon says you also have the right to not engage in conversations about salary with another employee as well.

For those on the job hunt, Johnson recommends looking into your state laws.

If you’re able to request salary information from a potential employer, she says it’s important to do so as quickly as possible to help you decide how to negotiate.

Stellantis to buy back shares worth about $920 million from GM

Tue, September 13, 2022

The logo of Stellantis is seen on a company's building in

 Velizy-Villacoublay near Paris

(Reuters) - American-Italian-French automaker Stellantis NV said on Tuesday it will buy back shares worth about 923 million euros ($919.31 million) from General Motors Co.

Stellantis said it would buy back about 69.1 million common shares, or about 2.2% of the company's share capital.

General Motors currently holds this stake in Stellantis in warrants, which it will convert into equity shares for Stellantis to purchase on Thursday, according to the statement.

GM was issued these warrants by Peugeot SA in 2017 as part of the U.S.-based automaker's sale of Opel-Vauxhall business. In 2021, Peugeot completed its own merger with Fiat Chrysler to become Stellantis.

In addition to the price for shares, Stellantis will also pay GM in 1.2 million common shares of car parts maker Faurecia SE and about 130 million euros in cash for rights to dividends paid by Peugeot and Stellantis.

Wells Fargo Commits to Racial-Equity Audit Ahead of Hearings

Hannah Levitt
Tue, September 13, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. will commission a third-party racial-equity audit after years of advising shareholders to vote against one, as Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf prepares to appear at a pair of congressional hearings.

The audit will examine Wells Fargo’s business in diverse communities and support of diversity in its workforce, according to a statement Tuesday. Wells Fargo hired law firm Covington & Burling LLP to do the assessment and plans to publish results by the end of next year.

Wells Fargo has come under fire from lawmakers this year after a Bloomberg News investigation found the lender approved fewer than half of mortgage refinancings sought by Black homeowners during the pandemic, a lower rate than for White applicants. The scrutiny was further heightened by a New York Times report that the wealth-management division had conducted sham interviews with Black and female candidates for positions that were no longer available, prompting the firm to review and adjust hiring practices.

“Commissioning this work is a critical next step in reinforcing our commitment to racial equity and closing the wealth gap in this country,” Scharf said in the statement. “We consistently strive to measure our progress and hold ourselves accountable.”

Wells Fargo joins rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. in agreeing to such an audit. The San Francisco-based firm urged shareholders to vote against a shareholder-proposed racial-equity audit earlier this year and last year, arguing that it was already committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. On both occasions, shareholders rejected the proposals.

There are some differences, at least in phrasing, between the audit proposed at this year’s annual shareholder gathering and what Wells Fargo said it’s undertaking. The earlier proposal asked the board to study the lender’s “adverse impacts” on communities of color. In its statement Tuesday, the bank said the review will focus on efforts to “serve diverse communities and promote a diverse workforce.”

Scharf and peers including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon are set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee next week.

Checkout.com Will Eliminate About 5% of Employees in Latest Cut

Ivan Levingston
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- Checkout.com is eliminating 5% of its staff, the latest in a series of job cuts that’s swept technology companies this year as investors pull back on funding.

The company confirmed that it was reducing its workforce by about 100 people in a statement in response to Bloomberg questions on Tuesday.

“This decision did not come lightly, but will allow us to focus on the strategic priorities against our mission,” a company spokesperson said in the statement.

A wave of layoffs is hitting technology startups that rely on funding from increasingly cautious investors. Publicly announced job cuts jumped to 37,000 in the second quarter from under 3,000 a year ago, according to Layoffs.fyi, which collects data on jobs in the tech industry. Buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna Bank AB said in May it would trim about 10% of its workforce and in July announced a “down round” that cut its valuation to $6.7 billion from $45.6 billion.

Read More: Startups That Grew Fast Learn Shrinking Can Be Just as Tough

Checkout.com separately fired several employees earlier this year due to harassment complaints that arose from an off-site trip to Cyprus, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

Checkout.com was last valued at $40 billion in January after raising $1 billion from investors including Tiger Global Management and the Qatar Investment Authority. At the start of the year, the company said it employed more than 1,700 people in 19 countries.

It processes payments for companies such as Pizza Hut Inc. and Farfetch Ltd., according to its website. In recent years it also made a significant push into working with cryptocurrency companies such as Coinbase Global Inc. and Binance.

Read More: Checkout.com Fires Staff Over Harassment Claims From Cyprus Trip

Fintech and cryptocurrency transactions accounted for more than half of the company’s payments volume, its chief financial officer told the Wall Street Journal in January. Many crypto trading platforms have seen transactions drop amid a broader downturn in valuations for the digital currencies.

Singapore Exchange Makes Push for Full Disclosure of CEO Pay

Ishika Mookerjee
Mon, September 12, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- Singapore Exchange Ltd. is planning changes to its corporate disclosure rules, including asking companies to reveal exactly how much their chief executive officers are paid.

own as SGX RegCo, will consult the market on requiring disclosures for the remuneration of CEOs and directors, according to a statement. It will also propose imposing a nine-year cap on the tenure of independent directors. It didn’t provide a timeline for either consultation.

There’s been a global push for more transparency on executive pay, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month introducing a rule requiring disclosure of additional details such as performance incentives. Singapore is also seeking to change low board renewal at local companies, where it’s common to see independent directors in their positions for about a decade or longer.

“I’m quite disappointed with how companies have approached the whole long-serving IDs matter,” Tan Boon Gin, CEO of SGX RegCo, said at a briefing. Meanwhile, “remuneration disclosures remain poor” with companies citing competition as the reason, he added.

Only 5% of companies fully disclosed the remuneration amount in dollar value paid to both directors and CEOs on a named basis, with breakdowns for salary, bonus and benefits, according to a review by KPMG LLP of the Code of Corporate Governance disclosures for Singapore-listed companies. The review’s findings were released in June.

The Singapore regulator is making a push for companies to become more ESG-conscious, also requiring mandatory climate-related disclosures as well as those around board diversity.

Smallest French Corn Crop Since 1990 Shows Drought’s Huge Toll

Megan Durisin
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- French farmers are collecting their smallest corn crop in more than three decades, highlighting the massive toll that summer drought has wrought on Europe’s food supplies.

Heat and dryness gripped much of the continent throughout summer, in what may be its worst drought in at least 500 years. That’s been particularly brutal for farmers, who are already dipping into winter forage reserves to feed cattle as pastures wither and who face shrinking output of everything from potatoes to sugar.

The corn harvest has just kicked off in France, one of Europe’s agricultural heavyweights. The country’s production of the staple grain used to feed chickens and pigs will fall 25% to 11.6 million tons, the lowest since 1990, its agriculture ministry said Tuesday. The adverse weather has reduced harvests of almost all crops from last year, apart from oilseeds, the report showed.

“No region is spared from the drop in yield,” the French ministry said of corn.

The smaller crops threaten to keep food prices high. Consumer food costs in July already jumped 12% from last year in the European Union and even more in the UK. The bloc is importing corn from nations like Ukraine to help ease the shortfall, although sales from the war-torn country are expected to fall by half versus the prior season.

Fields in Germany and Romania, other key EU producers, also suffered from drought. Plus, producers are grappling with spiraling costs of fertilizer and gas, which is used to dry crops like corn after they’re harvested.

Still, rains have picked up this month, according to forecaster Maxar. That should improve conditions for winter-wheat planting that is now underway.

French corn futures were little changed near the highest in almost three weeks on Tuesday.

P3 PUBLIC PENSIONS FUND PRIVATIZATION

OTPP Is Said to Near Deal to Buy EQT’s Stake in Packaging Firm

Manuel Baigorri and Kiel Porter

Mon, September 12, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, one of Canada’s largest public-sector pension managers, is nearing a deal to buy a stake in specialty packaging company GPA Global from buyout firm EQT AB, according to people familiar with the matter.

OTPP is poised to beat out rival bidders for the stake in GPA, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The parties are hammering out the final details of a transaction that could be announced in the next few weeks, the people said.

The Canadian fund and Asian private equity firm FountainVest Partners were among shortlisted bidders vying for the stake, Bloomberg News reported last month. The deal could value the packaging business at about $700 million to $800 million, people familiar with the matter have said.

While discussions are at an advanced stage, they could still be delayed or fall apart, the people said. Representatives for OTPP and Stockholm-based EQT declined to comment.

GPA, founded as Green Packaging Asia in 2007, makes premium packaging for items including electronics, beauty products, cannabis, wine and spirits, according to its website. It has manufacturing sites across North America, Europe and Asia. EQT bought a co-controlling stake in the business in 2017 for an undisclosed amount, with the business co-founders remaining as majority shareholders after the transaction.

OTPP, which has set a target of $300 billion in net assets by 2030, has made similar acquisitions in the past. It bought a stake in packaging firm Logoplaste from Carlyle Group Inc. last year for an undisclosed amount.

Nearly 300 demand South Korea probe their adoptions abroad

Peter Møller, attorney and co-founder of the Danish Korean Rights Group, speaks to the media after submitting the documents at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. Nearly 300 South Koreans who were adopted to European and American parents as children have so far filed applications demanding South Korea’s government to investigate their adoptions, which they suspect were based on falsified documents that laundered their real status or identities as agencies raced to export children. 

(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

KIM TONG-HYUNG Mon, September 12, 2022 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For 40 years, Louise Kwang thought she was an orphan baby found on the streets of the South Korean port city of Busan before her adoption by Danish parents in 1976.

She felt her entire sense of identity collapse in 2016 when her South Korean agency matter-of-factly acknowledged that her origin story was fiction aimed at ensuring her adoptability.

“(The English file) says you were transferred from Namkwang Children’s Home in Pusan (Busan) to KSS for international adoption. In fact, it was just made up for adoption procedure,” Kyeong Suk Lee, a social worker at the Korea Social Service, wrote in a letter to Kwang after she requested her original Korean-language file.

The agency turned out to know about Kwang’s biological parents, including her father whom she later met. There’s no indication Kwang was ever in Busan, which is several hours’ drive from the country’s capital, Seoul, where her father had been living in 1976.

“I was not an orphan. I have never been to Busan nor at the orphanage in Busan,” Kwang said at a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday. “This was all a lie. A lie made up for adoption procedure. I have been made non-existent in Korea, to get me out of Korea as fast as possible.”

Kwang is among nearly 300 South Korean adoptees in Europe and the United States who so far have filed applications calling for South Korea’s government to investigate the circumstances surrounding their adoptions, which they suspect were based on falsified documents that laundered their real status or identities.

Their effort underscores a deepening rift between the world’s largest diaspora of adoptees and their birth nation decades after scores of Korean children were carelessly removed from their families during a foreign adoption boom that peaked in the 1980s.

The Denmark-based group representing the adoptees also on Tuesday delivered a letter to the office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol urging him to prevent agencies from destroying records or retaliating against adoptees seeking their roots as the agencies face increasing scrutiny about their past practices.

The 283 applications submitted so far to Seoul’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission describe numerous complaints about lost or distorted biological origins.

Some adoptees say they discovered the agencies switched their identities to replace other children who died, were too sick to travel, or were retaken by their Korean families before they could be sent to Western adopters. They say such findings worsen their sense of loss and sometimes lead to false reunions with relatives who turn out to be strangers.

Peter Møller, attorney and co-founder of the Danish Korean Rights Group, said he also plans to sue two Seoul-based agencies -– Holt Children’s Services and KSS -– over their unwillingness to fully open their records to adoptees.

While agencies often cite privacy issues related to birth parents to justify the restricted access, Møller accuses them of inventing excuses to sidestep questions about their practices as adoptees increasingly express frustration about the limited details in their adoption papers that often turn out to be inaccurate or falsified.

Møller’s group last month initially filed applications from 51 Danish adoptees calling for the commission to investigate their adoptions, which were handled by Holt and KSS.

The move attracted intense attention from Korean adoptees from around the world, prompting the group to expand its campaign to Holt and KSS adoptees outside of Denmark. The 232 additional applications submitted Tuesday included 165 cases from Denmark, 36 cases from the United States and 31 cases combined from Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany.

The commission, which was set up in December 2020 to investigate human rights atrocities under military governments that ruled South Korea from the 1960s to 1980s, must decide in three or four months whether to open an investigation into the applications filed by the adoptees. If it does, that could trigger the most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions in the country, which has never fully reconciled with the child export frenzy engineered by its past military leaders.

While the commission’s deadline for applications comes in December, Møller said his group will try to persuade the commission to keep the door open for more applications from adoptees if it decides to investigate the cases.

“There are many more adoptees that have written us, called us, been in contact with us. They are afraid to submit to this case because they fear that the adoption agencies will ... burn the original documents and retaliate,” said Møller. He said such concerns are greater among adoptees who discovered that the agencies had switched their identities.

Holt didn’t respond to calls for comment. Choon Hee Kim, an adoption worker who has been with KSS since the 1970s, said the agency is willing to discuss issues surrounding its adoptions with adoptees individually but not with the media.

When asked about KSS letters admitting to the falsifying of biological origins, Kim said, “The adoptees are saying they received such letters because they did, and it’s not like they are making things up.”

About 200,000 South Koreans were adopted overseas during the past six decades, mainly to white parents in the United States and Europe and mostly during the 1970s and 1980s.

Military leaders saw adoptions as a way to reduce the number of mouths to feed, solve the “problem” of unwed mothers and deepen ties with the democratic West.

Special laws aimed at promoting foreign adoptions effectively allowed licensed private agencies to bypass proper child relinquishment practices as they exported huge numbers of children to the West year after year.

Most of the South Korean adoptees sent abroad were registered by agencies as legal orphans found abandoned on the streets, although they frequently had relatives who could be easily identified or found. That practice often make their roots difficult or impossible to trace.

It wasn’t until 2013 that South Korea’s government required foreign adoptions to go through family courts, ending the policy that allowed agencies to dictate child relinquishments, transfer of custodies and emigration for decades.

NO PROBLEM CROSSING THE BORDER

Boon or threat? Mexico City wrestles with influx of remote U.S. workers

Mexico City wrestles with influx of remote U.S. workers


Tue, September 13, 2022

By Alberto Fajardo, Roberto Ramirez and Josue Gonzalez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - In a trendy part of Mexico City, in a park surrounded by hipster coffeeshops and restaurants, stands a figure dressed in white with hands in prayer like a Catholic statuette: the so-called patron saint against gentrification.

Sandra Valenzuela, a Mexican activist, created the statue to rally neighbors against what she regards as a rising threat to her community and others in the Mexican capital.

A wave of international visitors predominantly from the United States has poured into Mexico City's cafes, parks and AirBnbs as they work untethered from daily office commutes by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly two million foreigners touched down at the Mexico City International Airport in the first half of 2022, inching toward the record 2.5 million arrivals in the first half of 2019. Meanwhile, demand for short-term rentals across Mexico City surged 44% over the same period, according to AirDNA, a market research company that analyzes online rental listings.

Marko Ayling, a writer and content creator who lives in Mexico City, strolled through the coveted Condesa neighborhood, where "For rent" ads alternate with signs for chic cafes and plant-based eateries.

"There's obviously a lot of advantages if you can earn in dollars and spend in pesos," said Ayling, originally from San Diego, California. "You're essentially tripling your income."

But housing activists and some researchers say the digital nomad influx exacerbates inflation and transforms neighborhoods into exclusive expatriate bubbles, in a city well-known for stark divides between rich and poor.

RISING PRICES

Residents in lux neighborhoods like Condesa and Roma complain that long-time residents are getting pushed out as homeowners increasingly opt to rent their homes through short-term rental platforms like AirBnb, where they can earn 25,000 Mexican pesos ($1,261) per month, said Rafael Guarneros, president of a Condesa neighborhood association.

The gap between American and Mexican salaries means even affluent Mexico City residents can get priced out, in a city that is already home to wide wealth disparities. According to Mexico's statistics agency, the top 10% of Mexico City households earned more than 13 times as much as the bottom 10% of households in 2020.

Average daily rates for short-term rentals across Mexico City jumped 27% to $93 in August 2022, compared to August 2019, AirDNA data show. The Mexican government stopped publishing average rental rates in 2018, but a study by real estate website Lamudi found Mexico City rents dropped slightly between December 2020 and December 2021. However, there has been little research on this subject since the COVID-19 induced wave of remote work.

On an August afternoon, Juan Coronado slid into a leafy restaurant booth before opening his laptop to get work done while he dined.

Coronado, an architect and interior designer who lives between Los Angeles and Mexico City, said he understands locals are resentful.

"I don't live for free, I help the economy," he said. "But for them… my presence here doesn't help the fact that rents go up."

Although Mexico City landlords can only raise rents by up to 10% per year by law, the rules are rarely enforced. The short-term rental market has no such restriction.

NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE

Beyond rising prices, residents cite less tangible changes that make their neighborhoods feel more welcoming to foreigners than locals.

"There is no way for people to sleep peacefully," said Quetzal Castro, a resident of Condesa, which she says has become a center of noisy nightlife, pushing friends to leave.

Digital nomads - as people who travel while working remotely are known - impact the local economy differently than traditional visitors, said David Wachsmuth, a McGill University professor who researches gentrification.

More likely to settle in residential neighborhoods, they spend at local businesses, Wachsmuth said, but also create demand for services with little benefit to long-term residents: "Grocery stores turn into restaurants."

While digital nomads enjoy a lifestyle out of reach to most Mexico City workers, who earn 53 Mexican pesos ($2.67) per hour on average, Ayling from San Diego pointed to a silver-lining of foreigners' love for the capital city.

"It's not just narcos and violence and poverty," Ayling said. "There's beautiful sides of this country and they're celebrating that too."

($1 = 19.8210 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Alberto Fajardo, Roberto Ramirez and Josue Gonzalez; Additional reporting and writing by Jackie Botts; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Josie Kao)

Russian critic who urged Ukraine talks doesn't fear arrest


Tue, September 13, 2022 at 7:47 AM·3 min read

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian politician who made waves by questioning Russia's strategy in Ukraine on national television said Tuesday he spoke the truth and does not fear punishment under harsh laws against discrediting soldiers and spreading fake news about the conflict.

The remarks by Boris Nadezhdin, a former liberal national Parliament member, came as Russian forces retreated from much of Ukraine's Kharkiv region in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

During a talk show on state-controlled NTV on Sunday, Nadezhdin said President Vladimir Putin had been misled by intelligence services that apparently told him Ukrainian resistance would be brief and ineffective. Nadezhdin also called for fighting to end and negotiations to begin.

Russian officials in recent weeks have repeatedly accused Ukraine of being unwilling to negotiate, but they have also put forth draconian terms. Former President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday said Russia would demand total capitulation in order to negotiate.

In an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday, Nadezhdin said negotiations on a ceasefire “are possible always and everywhere.” But he said resolving issues such as the status of the eastern separatist regions and of Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, would be far more difficult.

“Negotiations on these issues? They are now absolutely unrealistic, because there is a position like this: ‘We will defeat you, no we will defeat you’,” he said.

Nadezhdin's televised comments were notable because of Russia's moves to stifle criticism of its sending troops into Ukraine. Days after the operation started, Parliament approved legislation that outlawed alleged disparaging of the Russian military or the spread of “false information” about the operation in Ukraine.

OVD-Info, a legal aid group that tracks political arrests in Russia, has counted 90 criminal cases on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military since Feb. 24.

“I have definitely not violated any Russian laws," Nadezhdin told the AP. “There was not a single fake at all, not a single fake in what I said. There was a statement of absolutely obvious facts."

The pullback of troops from the Kharkiv region and Ukraine's counteroffensive in Russian-held parts of the southern Kherson region have raised concerns that Russia is faltering in what officials insist be called a “special military operation.”

The leader of the Communist Party, the country's second-biggest political grouping, on Tuesday called both for a general mobilization to boost the military's manpower and for the conflict to be openly called a war.

“War and a special operation are fundamentally different. You can stop the special operation, you cannot stop the war, even if you want to," Gennady Zyuganov was quoted as saying by Russian news media.

“Maximum mobilization of forces and resources is required.” he said.

Mild criticism of Putin is also emerging.

Seven members of a local council in St. Petersburg last week called on the national Parliament to bring treason charges against Putin because of the Ukraine conflict; five of them have been charged with discrediting the army.

A local council in Moscow last week passed a resolution calling on Putin to resign, saying “The rhetoric that you and your subordinates are using has been riddled with intolerance and aggression for a long time, which in the end effectively threw our country back into the Cold War era. Russia has again begun to be feared and hated.”

A judge punished Alex Jones for refusing to turn over data that could reveal how much he made from Sandy Hook coverage

Kenneth Niemeyer,Ashley Collman,Natalie Musumeci

Tue, September 13, 2022 

Alex Jones.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

• Alex Jones is in court again to determine how much he should pay the families of Sandy Hook victims.

• On the trial's first day, the judge sanctioned Jones for refusing to turn over discovery material.

• Jones was ordered last month to pay $50 million to the parents of Jesse Lewis in a separate trial.

InfoWars host Alex Jones has been punished by a judge for not turning over documents to Sandy Hook families' lawyers — again.

The right-wing conspiracy theorist was sanctioned by a Connecticut judge on Tuesday at the opening of his defamation damages trial in the state for not turning over enough web data about his coverage of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.

Jones is on trial in Connecticut to determine how much he has to pay the families of several victims of the 2012 massacre over his repeated bogus claims that the mass shooting was a "hoax."

The families' lawyers wanted to draw a connection between the Google Analytics data and merchandise sales. Jones turned over data up through June 2019, but didn't reveal data from the last three years.

Judge Barbara Bellis called Jones' failure to fulfill his discovery obligations "stunningly cavalier" and sanctioned him. She also banned his lawyers from arguing that he didn't profit from his coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting.

"This stunningly cavalier attitude with respect to their discovery obligations is what led to the default in the first place," Bellis said in Connecticut Superior Court.

The judge added, "The defendants have consistently engaged in dilatory and obstructive discovery practices from the inception of these cases, right through to the trial."

Jones was nowhere to be seen at the courthouse in Waterbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday. The courtroom was packed with a mix of victims' family members and the media. About 20 family members entered together 15 minutes before the trial.

About an hour before the trial kicked off, a lone female protester held up a sign outside: "Alex Jones karma is a bitch," it read.

Last month, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million to the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, one of the 26 killed in the school massacre, after they sued him for defamation for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax.

Bellis ruled in 2021 that Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were liable for defaming 15 plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are suing Jones for defamation, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The plaintiffs in the Connecticut trial were part of three separate lawsuits that have been consolidated and include relatives of several Sandy Hook shooting victims and one FBI agent.

The plaintiffs say they have been harassed in person and received death threats and abusive comments online from Jones's followers because of his claims that the shooting was a hoax, according to the Associated Press.

During his initial defamation trial in Texas, Jones admitted that the Sandy Hook shooting was 100% real and apologized for hurting the feeling of the victims' families, but he later reneged on his apology in an interview and said "I don't apologize anymore. I'm done."

Alex Jones' attorney suggests at

defamation trial that Sandy Hook 

plaintiffs are just anti-gun activists

Ashley Collman,Jake Epstein

Tue, September 13, 2022 

Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones speaks outside of the Dirksen building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 5, 2018.AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File

• InfoWars' Alex Jones faces another trial for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook massacre was a "hoax."

• Families of eight victims — plus an FBI agent who responded to the attack — are the plaintiffs.

• The trial is in Waterbury, Connecticut – under 20 miles from where the 2012 mass shooting unfolded.

The defense attorney for InfoWars host Alex Jones suggested during his defamation damages trial Tuesday that parents of children who died during the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre are exaggerating their claims to promote an anti-gun political agenda.

During his opening remarks, Norm Pattis said the plaintiffs were attempting to silence Jones for supporting the Second Amendment. Jones has long claimed the massacre was a charade designed to give the government a reason to take away people's guns.

The conspiracy theorist shock jock was nowhere to be seen Tuesday as he faced a second trial for spreading the false claim that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a government-orchestrated "hoax" played out by "crisis actors."

The trial is taking place in Waterbury, Connecticut — fewer than 20 miles from Newtown, where 20 first-graders and six educators were killed in the mass shooting — and is the second of three defamation damages cases against Jones.

Last month, the first of those trials ended with a Texas jury awarding the parents of one of the victims nearly $50 million.

Much more is at stake in Connecticut, where the families of eight victims plus an FBI agent who responded to the attack are all plaintiffs.

Jones has already lost all three defamation cases, and the current round of trials concern how much he owes the families. The Connecticut trial is expected to last five weeks, and Jones is expected to testify, though it is unclear when.

Day one kicked off with a major victory for the plaintiffs, who complained Jones had not turned over enough Google Analytics data to illustrate how Infowars monetizes web traffic.

As a result, Judge Barbara Bellis sanctioned Jones and banned his lawyer from arguing he didn't profit from his Sandy Hook coverage. Bellis called Jones' failure to fulfill his discovery obligations "stunningly cavalier."

Chris Mattei, an attorney representing the Sandy Hook families, kicked off opening statements Tuesday morning, telling the jury of three men and three women that Jones started claiming the massacre was fake the very morning of the shooting, before many of the families had even learned what had happened to their children.

Mattei said none of the family members wanted to sue Jones, but they were defenseless against his lies that questioned their grave loss and led to them to be harassed by Jones' legion of followers.

"None of them wanted to bring this lawsuit, they don't want to be here. We trust you to decide what's appropriate here," he told the jurors.

The families will never get back what they lost, he said, but this lawsuit may help stop Jones when another school shooting inevitably takes place.

"Where will Alex Jones be? Will he be in the studio ready to pounce? Or will you stop him?" Mattei asked the jurors.

Pattis then gave his opening remarks, which started off barely audible for those in the gallery. He said he was "stunned" to hear his opposing counsel's opening statements since "stopping Alex Jones" is "not why we're here."

Instead, jurors are tasked with deciding what the plaintiffs are owed according to the law, Pattis said.

Mattei made several objections when his opposing counsel started describing the parents as political activists for gun control, most of which the judge sustained. He warned Pattis that he was being "improper," and after the third objection, scolded him: "One more time and I will ask you to be seated," he said.

Pattis' arguments were largely tied to free speech. He said that while some people believe Jones, most simply tune him out. He questioned whether the Sandy Hook parents should try to "turn him off" simply because they object to his message.

When Pattis at one point said that "no one will minimize" what the families have lost, a Sandy Hook mother in the gallery could be heard whispering under her breath.

"He just did," she said.