‘I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis’: The energy crunch has made fertilizer too expensive to produce, says Yara CEO



Katherine Dunn
Thu, November 4, 2021

The world is facing the prospect of a dramatic shortfall in food production as rising energy prices cascade through global agriculture, the CEO of Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara International says.

"I want to say this loud and clear right now, that we risk a very low crop in the next harvest," said Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of the Oslo-based company. "I’m afraid we’re going to have a food crisis."

Speaking to Fortune on the sidelines of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Holsether said that the sharp rise in energy prices this summer and autumn had already resulted in fertilizer prices roughly tripling.

In Europe, the natural-gas benchmark hit an all-time high in September, with the price more than tripling from June to October alone. Yara is a major producer of ammonia, a key ingredient in synthetic fertilizer, which increases crop yields. The process of creating ammonia currently relies on hydropower or natural gas.

"To produce a ton of ammonia last summer was $110," said Holsether. "And now it's $1,000. So it's just incredible."

Food prices have also risen, meaning some farmers can afford more expensive fertilizer. But Holsether argues many smallholder farmers can't afford the higher costs, which will reduce what they can produce and diminish crop sizes. That in turn will hurt food security in vulnerable regions at a time when access to food is already under threat from the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, including widespread drought.

The company, whose largest shareholder is the Norwegian government, has donated $25 million worth of fertilizer to vulnerable farmers, Holsether said. But Yara isn't able to eat the costs of such a dramatic rise in energy prices, he says. Since September, it has been curtailing its ammonia production by as much as 40% due to energy costs. Other major producers have done the same. Reducing ammonia production will decrease the supply of fertilizer and make it more expensive, undermining food production.

The delayed effects of the energy crisis on food security could mimic the chip shortage crisis, Holsether said.

"That's all linked to factories being shut down in March, April, and May of last year, and we're reaping the consequences of that now," he said. "But if we get the equivalent to the food system…not having food is not annoying, that's a matter of life or death."

Holsether pointed to efforts by the director of the UN World Food Program, David Beasley, the former governor of South Carolina, to raise $6 billion in aid to combat preventable famine by directly targeting outspoken billionaires, including Elon Musk, for donations to the program.

Last week, Beasley called out Musk and Jeff Bezos, who appeared at COP26 on Tuesday, arguing that they could pony up the funds if they wanted to and barely feel the difference. In response, Musk tweeted that he was willing to sell $6 billion in Tesla stock if the World Food Program could explain "exactly" how that money would end world hunger.

Food scarcity is already reaching desperate levels in many regions. On Wednesday, Frédérica Andriamanantena, the World Food Program's Madagascar program manager, appeared on a COP26 panel to describe the severity of the country's drought and resulting famine. Andriamanantena, who is from Madagascar, said drought had this year reduced the harvest to one-third of the average of the past five years. Where families had once had comfortable meals, children are now subsisting on foraged plants and cactus leaves.

"That is where the situation is now," she said.

Race Is On to Frack Shale Fields Before Costs Jump in 2022


David Wethe
Fri, November 5, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Explorers are racing to get frack jobs done in the Permian Basin and other U.S. shale-oil fields before higher prices kick in next year, according to research and analysis firm Lium LLC.

The number of hydraulic-fracturing crews deployed across the U.S. shale patch jumped by 10 in recent weeks to 230, Lium analysts said in a note titled “Permianflation” on Friday. A crew typically consists of 25 to 30 workers who operate a huge array of truck-mounted pumps, storage tanks for fluids and sand, hoses, gauges and safety gear.

“Operators are accelerating completions activity in anticipation of 10-15% higher well costs next year,” according to Lium. “Rising well costs could slow down U.S. oil and gas production growth by putting pressure on maintenance capital scenarios.”

A number of shale explorers including Devon Energy Corp., Diamondback Energy Inc. and ConocoPhillips warned investors this week that inflation could rise 10% to 15% next year as supply-chain snarls make equipment and labor more pricey. Explorers have said they’ve so far been able to manage rising costs through efficiency gains in the field.

Drilling crews, which come in ahead of the frack workers to bore a hole several miles into rock, are also on the rise. The number of rigs drilling for crude in U.S. fields rose by 6 to 450 this week, according to Baker Hughes Co. data released Friday. One of America’s biggest drillers, Occidental Petroleum Corp., said it plans to add a pair of rigs every three months in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico.

Russia gets partial win in $50B case over bankrupt oil giant


Netherlands Yukos - Russian opposition figure and former owner of the Yukos Oil Company Mikhail Khodorkovsky smiles during a news conference after the Vilnius Russia Forum at the "Esperanza" hotel in Paunguriai village, Trakai district west of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, on Aug. 20, 2021. The Dutch Supreme Court is ruling Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 in a $50 billion legal battle between Russia and former shareholders of the country's bankrupted oil giant Yukos. 

(AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis, File)


MIKE CORDER
Fri, November 5, 2021

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch Supreme Court on Friday handed Russia at least a temporary victory in an appeal of what’s believed to be the world’s largest award in an arbitration case after former shareholders of bankrupted Russian oil giant Yukos accused the Kremlin of taking down the company to silence its CEO, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin.

The decision further extends what already has been a yearslong legal battle between Russia and former Yukos shareholders. It quashed a lower court ruling, effectively setting aside a $50 billion award made to the former shareholders in 2014 and sending the case to another court in Amsterdam to consider Russian claims that the shareholders committed fraud in the original arbitration hearings.

However, the highest Dutch court rejected the rest of Russia's arguments, a move welcomed by the former shareholders, who said in a statement that they “won on all substantive grounds of Russia’s appeal.”

“We will study the Supreme Court ruling, but are confident that the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam will dismiss the baseless allegations raised by the Russian Federation, and the arbitral awards will be upheld,” said Tim Osborne, chief executive of GML, the holding company of former Yukos majority shareholders.

The Russian prosecutor-general’s office welcomed the ruling but said “it is regrettable" the high court didn't dismiss the award outright.

“The Russian Federation expects that the Amsterdam Court of Appeal will interpret the remaining controversial issues in accordance with international law ... and take comprehensive measures to protect the rights and legitimate interests of Russian taxpayers,” the office said in a statement.

An international panel of arbitrators concluded in 2014 that Moscow seized control of Yukos in 2003 by deliberately crippling the company with huge tax claims. The move was seen as an attempt to silence Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a vocal Putin critic.

Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and spent more than a decade in prison as Yukos’ main assets were sold to a state-owned company. Yukos ultimately went bankrupt.

The state launched “a full assault on Yukos and its beneficial owners in order to bankrupt Yukos and appropriate its assets while, at the same time, removing Mr. Khodorkovsky from the political arena,” the arbitrators said in their 2014 ruling.

The original case was handled under the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which is headquartered in The Hague. As a result, Russia appealed the arbitration decision in the Netherlands.

The Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday that a lower appeals court in The Hague wrongly dismissed — on procedural grounds — Russia’s claim that “shareholders committed fraud in the arbitral proceedings.” Those fraud claims weren't immediately clear.

In April, an independent adviser to the highest Dutch court had recommended that its judges reject Russia’s appeal in full.

Khodorkovsky is not involved in the case, which was brought by former shareholders united in a company called GML Ltd.

Green Trillions Face ‘Acid Test’ After Bankers Toast COP Pledges

Tom Metcalf and Alastair Marsh
Fri, November 5, 2021




(Bloomberg) -- The City of London’s top ambassador was in celebration mode Wednesday night.

Speaking to the 150 climate-summit guests gathered for a nightcap on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow, Lord Mayor of London William Russell toasted the finance industry. Its commitment to fighting climate change, he said, had been confirmed that day.

But away from the bamboo business cards and bicycling bankers on display at the COP26 talks in Scotland’s largest city, the gaping question remains whether financiers accustomed to making billions on fossil-fuel deals will have the willpower to stop.

“The acid test for financial institutions around this is: Are they willing to draw back?,” said Catherine Howarth, chief executive officer of ShareAction, a nonprofit that campaigns for responsible investing standards. “That is an enormous pivot for the financial community.”

Banks, investors and insurers representing $130 trillion in assets have now committed to decarbonizing their business by mid-century. Getting that many signatories was the crowning achievement of a campaign driven by former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. As co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, Carney has spent the better part of the year wooing bankers across continents in the hope of unveiling an enormous sum at the COP26 summit.

According to the terms of GFANZ, signatories must commit to decarbonize their operations by 2050, use science-based guidelines, and provide 2030 interim goals. Michael R. Bloomberg, the owner and founder of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, is co-chair of GFANZ.

The list of members includes some of the biggest names on Wall Street and in the City of London: JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, BlackRock Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc. Together, members make up 40% of global financial assets. Absent from the list are the world’s three biggest banks, all of which are Chinese and all of which are major providers of coal finance.

The commitments GFANZ members have agreed to will be hard to police, according to Cynthia Cummis, director of private sector climate mitigation at the World Resources Institute. What’s more, the whole setup is voluntary. But for investors and others keen to track how well banks are living up to their net zero pledges, there are some key numbers to track, she said.

“One important metric to look at is what is the rate of finance invested in fossil fuels versus the capital flows going to climate finance,” Cummis said. “If you look now, the rate of finance going into fossil fuels is more than twice as large as the capital going into climate finance.”

Brown Finance

Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, banks have facilitated almost $4 trillion of fossil-fuel financing and scored $17 billion in fees in the process, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with about $1.5 trillion channeled into green investments over the same period.

This year alone lenders have arranged about $460 billion of bonds and loans for the oil, gas and coal sectors, and even those to have signed up to GFANZ have made clear they won’t be abruptly exiting the space.

JPMorgan, which only joined the alliance last month, has made about $985 million in revenue since the end of 2015 arranging debt and lending for the oil, gas and coal industries. That compares with the roughly $310 million it generated in income from green finance.

Another recent signatory, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has also made it clear it won’t stop working with fossil fuels, warning it could fuel inflation.

“We have to balance good public policy with the short-term implications and that’s why it is a transition,” Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said last month. That echoed comments by Standard Chartered Plc CEO Bill Winters, who has criticized “simple edicts like: No more fossil fuels. It’s just not practical.”

$200 Trillion

Even if all GFANZ signatories start to move away from brown financing, there’s plenty of capital waiting in the wings to fill the gap. The 450 firms that have signed up to the alliance are vastly outnumbered by those that have snubbed the network. In fact, almost $200 trillion of financial assets sit outside GFANZ. Aside from China, banks from Russia and India aren’t on the list.

Also absent: the thousands of smaller, closely-held boutique finance firms that don’t have to answer to increasingly green-minded investors or regulators of public markets.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink groused Tuesday about this disconnect, saying “the largest capital-market arbitrage in our lifetimes” was under way, as hydrocarbon assets move from public to private hands. “There’s more movement away from hydrocarbon assets into private hands than anytime, ever,” Fink said. “That does not change the net zero world. That’s window dressing, that’s greenwashing.”

And firms looking to incorporate sustainability into their investing practices may be years away from truly embedding it in their systems. Take hedge funds. Most say investor demand and regulatory pressure mean they expect environmental, social and governance investing to become a vital part of their business going forward. But nearly two-thirds don’t have a dedicated specialist on staff, according to a survey of 100 firms from the Alternative Investment Management Association.

GFANZ Skepticism

And then there are questions as to how GFANZ’s giant headline figure -- $130 trillion -- should be interpreted. It’s not sitting on the sidelines waiting to be deployed but instead is already invested in existing assets, meaning lenders will need to divest existing holdings.

The figure also disguises some double counting, according to a person familiar with how the alliance does its calculations. That’s because GFANZ doesn’t correct for asset values represented by sub-units of parent firms whose holdings have already been counted, said the person, who asked not to be identified revealing internal processes.

In other words, a financial conglomerate that has signed up to more than one sub-alliance will have its assets counted more than once.

Growing Momentum

Despite the caveats, even skeptics agree that $130,000,000,000,000 is too large a figure to ignore. And momentum is building. This year, aggregate financing for green projects topped that of fossil fuels for the first time, Bloomberg data shows.

Demand for sustainable investments from both retail and institutional clients is soaring. More and more investors are avoiding listed companies with negative climate angles, according to Hester White, head of Client Relationship Management and chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee at Peel Hunt.

“We have reached a tipping point in finance this week,” said Huw van Steenis, the veteran bank analyst and former Bank of England adviser who is leading UBS Group AG’s push into sustainable finance. “Leaving COP, the focus will be on getting the right data and metrics, and engaging with companies, on financing the transition to clean energy.”

That won’t be easy. Fink said during a COP panel on Wednesday that “deploying that capital is going to be far harder” than securing the commitments.

But after the panel was finished and the sun had set on a day of climate pledges, it was time to celebrate. A kilt-wearing saxophonist was standing in the wings, waiting for his instructions.

“Turn the music back on,” Russell said at the close of his remarks. “Enjoy yourselves.”

Most Read from Blo

The Trillion Dollar Push To Decarbonize Global Shipping


Editor OilPrice.com
Thu, November 4, 2021

Freight ships are huge carbon emitters and if countries and companies hope to meet Paris Agreement targets they must change the way freight shipping is managed, making it greener by using electric batteries or alternative fuels.

At present, shipping products across the ocean using freight ships creates more greenhouse-gas emissions than the estimated 2 billion U.S. cars and trucks on America’s roads, at around one billion metric tonnes. The shipping industry is thought to produce between 2 and 3 percent of global carbon emissions. Maritime shipping contributes around 10 to 15 percent of all sulfur- and nitrogen-oxide emissions. And, in reality, very little is known about the shipping freight emissions of some of the world’s largest companies as very few report these types of emissions.

But changing the face of freight shipping is not a simple task. First, manufacturers must consider the best renewable energy to use in fuelling these mammoth ships. And then there is the cost. The cost of developing the alternative fuel, of switching to said fuel, and the cost of changing all the mechanics inside the ship to make it run on the new fuel. To this end, the Global Maritime Forum estimates that to meet the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 2050 emissions target by switching to ammonia fuel, it would cost over $1.15 trillion.

But the work has already begun. This June, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee tightened ship efficiency requirements starting in November 2022, developing upon its 2018 strategy. The IMO has already introduced targets to reduce carbon emissions over the next decade, with the aim of a 40 percent reduction of CO2 emissions from international shipping by 2030 and a 70 percent reduction by 2050, compared to 2008, in line with Paris Agreement targets.

In terms of major individual shipping companies, in 2018, Maersk set the target of zero carbon emissions from operations by 2050. The aim is to have commercially viable carbon-neutral ships available by 2030 to achieve this goal. Søren Toft, Chief Operating Officer of Maersk explained, “The only possible way to achieve the so much needed decarbonisation in our industry is by fully transforming to new carbon-neutral fuels and supply chains.”

Related: Why Everyone Should Support Cutting Methane Emissions

Other companies are looking to change practices in the short term to encourage greater decarbonization until a long-term solution is available. For example, the Swedish/Norwegian shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen suggested lengthening transit times, as reducing the speed of its ships could decrease CO2emissions by as much as 20 percent. But this option, unsurprisingly, is not popular among most shipping companies that run to strict timeframes.

Windward, a predictive maritime intelligence company, believes they can help reduce emissions by using artificial intelligence (AI). The company has started using AI systems to measure fuel use and waste to improve carbon management. Instead of using assumptions of fuel use, Windward’s systems accurately track fuel use over time, speed, and location to provide a more detailed breakdown. They are now encouraging the greater uptake of AI systems in shipping through their ‘Data For Decarbonisation’ program.

One cohesive proposal that came out of the 8th Annual World Ocean Summit Virtual Week in June is the potential for a research and development fund to be used to develop new technologies for carbon-neutral shipping. The funding would come from a $2 per tonne of fuel mandatory levy, contributing around $5 billion within a decade.

Now some are speculating that electric batteries may be used in the future of freight shipping. The U.S.-based startup Fleetzero is constructing battery-electric cargo ships, in the hopes of decarbonizing the shipping industry as well as boosting freight potential through greater access to international ports. The co-founders of the company hope to develop the technology to fully convert a small diesel ship by as early as 2022.

This trend was predicted by Elon Musk in 2017, “Everything will go fully electric, apart from (ironically) rockets. Ships are the next easiest to solve after cars.”. Although until recently this seemed like a pipedream.

Fleetzero is testing the use of electric batteries in 20-foot shipping containers in Alabama, which are modified to power smaller ships so they can be swapped out with the container carrier once it enters the port. Co-founder Steven Henderson explains, “Our ships use rapid battery swapping to refuel, and in doing that we’re able to distribute the costs of our batteries over a greater number of shipping containers to a point where we can be competitive with diesel ships.”

Innovative solutions such as these are becoming increasingly necessary if major international companies hope to meet their climate targets, with Amazon, Ikea, and Unilever all pledging net-zero emissions shipping by 2040. This pledge was agreed upon by nine multinationals, but major funding is required to speed up the development of alternative fuels and technologies to be used on a wider scale

While it is clear that companies around the globe want to decarbonize freight shipping over the coming decades, the jury is out on exactly how this will be done. To achieve carbon-cutting pledges in the shipping industry in line with Paris Agreement targets, both state governments and multinational companies must establish a cohesive strategy and fund to speed up the development of new fuels and technologies to be used in shipping.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Helion secures $2.2B to commercialize fusion energy

Haje Jan Kamps
Fri, November 5, 2021

Helion Energy, a clean energy company committed to creating a new era of plentiful, zero-carbon electricity from fusion, today announced the close of its $0.5 billion Series E, with an additional $1.7 billion of commitments tied to specific milestones.

The round was led by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator. Existing investors, including co-founder of Facebook Dustin Moskovitz, Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital and notable sustainable tech investor Capricorn Investment Group also participated in the round. The funding includes commitments of an additional $1.7 billion dollars tied to Helion reaching key performance milestones. Round-leader Altman has been involved in the company as an investor and chairman since 2015.

Fusion energy has been a fiery dream for lovers of clean energy since the first controlled thermonuclear fusion reaction was accomplished some 60 years ago. The technology promises all the benefits of current-generation nuclear fission generators, at a fraction of the risk, with far less radioactivity when running, and with very little radioactive waste. There's been one catch: So far, it has been hard to get the fusion process to generate more energy than it has been consuming to keep the reaction under control.

Helion, as a company, has been focusing less on fusion as a science experiment and more on a more important question: Can their technology generate electricity at a commercial and industrial scale?

"Some projects in the fusion space talk about heat, or energy, or other things. Helion is focused on electricity generation. Can we get it out fast, at a low cost? Can we get it to industrial-scale power?" asks David Kirtley, Helion's co-founder and CEO. "We are building systems that are about the size of a shipping container and that can deliver industrial-scale power -- say on the order of 50 megawatts of electricity."


Deuterium and Helium-3 are heated, then accelerated through magnets, compressed and captured as inductive current. Animation courtesy of Helion Energy.

In June of this year, Helion published results confirming it had become the first private fusion company to heat a fusion plasma to 100 million degrees Celsius, an important milestone on the path to commercial electricity from fusion. Soon after, the company announced it had broken ground on building its factory to start the process of preparing for manufacturing of its seventh-generation fusion generator, which the company calls "Polaris."

TechCrunch was surprised to learn of the company's $1.5 million round back in 2014, when the company said it would be able to get net power generation of fusion up and running within three years. Here we are seven years later, and it appears that Helion hit a couple of wobbles -- but the company also found a focus along the way.

"We ended up pivoting a little bit in direction, to focus less on scientific milestones of energy and focus more specifically on electricity. We had to prove some of the technologies on the electricity, and electricity extraction side of things. We also needed some funding things that had to happen to get us all the way to those technical milestones," Kirtley reflects. "Unfortunately, that took a little bit longer than we had hoped."

The Helion team standing by to energize you. Image Credits: Helion Energy

As part of the investment round, Sam Altman steps up from being the chairman of the board, to Helion's executive chairman, with a higher degree of activity, including input into the commercial direction of the company.

"Our first funding round was led by Mithril Capital, and Y Combinator was part of it. That's where we got introduced to Sam. He has been involved in our fundraising ever since. He is an ambassador that actually understands physics; it's pretty amazing. We were really pleased that he was interested in leading the investment, rather than us having to bring in external investors that might have been differently aligned and have a less deep understanding of the technology," Kirtley explains. "He's seen the successes, and he has seen what they mean. That's why we're excited not only to have him as an investor but have him more actively involved. It means we can accelerate the timelines. The funding is part of it, and the technology is another part of it. Ultimately, we need to get it out there in the world, and that's something Sam can help us do."

"I’m delighted to be investing more in Helion, which is by far the most promising approach to fusion I’ve ever seen," said Altman. "With a tiny fraction of the money spent on other fusion efforts, and the culture of a startup, this team has a clear path to net electricity. If Helion is successful, we can avert climate disaster and provide a much better quality of life for people."

Helion's CEO speculates that its first customers may turn out to be data centers, which have a couple of advantages over other potential customers. Data centers are power-hungry, and often already have power infrastructure in place in order to be able to accept backup generators. In addition, they tend to be a little away from population centers.

"They have a backup power of diesel generators, giving them a few megawatts that keep the data centers running just long enough to sustain any power grid issues," Kirtley says, but suggests that the company is more ambitious than just replacing backup diesel generators. The low cost and high power availability mean that the company could start powering whole data centers as the default power source: "We are excited about being at the 50-megawatt scale, and being able to get electricity costs down to a cent per kilowatt-hour. You can completely change how data centers work, and you can really start answering climate change. Our focus is making low-cost and carbon-free electricity."

Due to physical limitations with the way the power is generated, the current generation of the company's tech wouldn't be able to replace your Tesla Powerwall and solar panels -- the size of a generator is roughly the size of a shipping container. But at 50 megawatts, the generators could power around 40,000 homes, and with that amount of power, the technology could open some really interesting opportunities for distributed power grids.

One interesting innovation in Helion's power generation solution is that it doesn't use water and steam as intermediary steps in the power generation.

"At the beginning of my career, I kept looking at the way we were doing fusion and said hey, you have this beautiful energy that is all electric, including the plasma. And then what do you do? You boil water, you use an old, low-efficiency, capital-intensive process," explains Kirtley. Instead of going via water, the company decided to skip a step and use inductive energy instead. "Can you bypass that whole era? Could we do the equivalent of bypassing the gasoline engine and go right to electric cars right from the beginning? And so that's been what we've been focusing on."

The company is aiming to be able to generate more electricity than what it takes to run the fusion reactor by 2024, and the CEO points out that the goal at this point is to generate electricity at a commercial scale.

"Our 2024 date is not a key demonstration of the science at this point. The goal is to go after commercially installed power generation. There's a huge market, and we want to be able to get this out in the world as soon as possible," concludes Kirtley.

"By focusing on getting to electricity as soon as possible, we should be able to count on fusion as part of the natural conversation we're having about climate change and about carbon free electricity generation. We're really excited we've secured this funding, and the amount we raised should be able to get us all the way there."

US Supreme Court case could "rip" disability laws, advocates warn

Michael Roppolo
Fri, November 5, 2021


The Supreme Court will hear a case next month that could have far-reaching effects on disability rights. The question at the heart of the case, CVS Pharmacy, Inc. vs. Doe, is whether claims of unintentional discrimination against people with disabilities are allowed under federal law.

At issue is language in Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act — language that is used in two other landmark laws: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Affordable Care Act, protecting against discrimination for those with preexisting conditions. Section 504 bars "criteria and methods of administration that have the effect of subjecting" disabled people to discrimination on the basis of disability.

The Supreme Court case stems from a lawsuit filed against CVS by multiple people who take prescription drugs for HIV/AIDS and say changes to the company's terms now meant they could not opt out of mail-only delivery or utilize another pharmacy with experience handling their special medication needs.

They argued that, even if unintentionally, the company's policy had a discriminatory effect. The suit was thrown out, with the trial court ruling that the problems they described did not violate federal disability laws.

When they appealed, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the unnamed plaintiffs, known as the Does. CVS then appealed to the highest court in the land, saying in court filings the ruling would "upend insurance plans and skyrocket healthcare costs nationwide."

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a brief supporting the Does.

The Supreme Court justices will hear arguments in the case on December 7.

Advocacy groups are sounding the alarm, with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF), and The Arc of the United States filing briefs in support of the Does.

"A ruling that Section 504 does not reach 'unintentional' discrimination or 'disparate impact' discrimination would rip out a central tenet of our disability rights law in key sectors of our society that are covered only by Section 504," Claudia Center, the legal director at DREDF, told CBS News.

She said the court's ruling would have an impact in many different aspects of American life.

"Starting with the federal government," Center said. "National parks, Veterans Administration programs, Medicare, Social Security Administration benefits, federal student loans, HUD programs — the only disability nondiscrimination law that reaches these federal programs is Section 504."

CVS, which was awarded the Excellency in Disability Inclusion Award from the Department of Labor in 2019, tells CBS News: "We have always and will continue to strongly support essential and foundational legal protections for people with disabilities."

"As a company with a longstanding commitment to the disability community and ensuring that marginalized populations can access affordable health care and medicines in their community, our position should not be misconstrued," the company said in a statement. "This case concerns the ability to provide health care coverage equally to all plan members."

But DREDF notes that businesses already have protections under current law, thanks to a 1985 Supreme Court ruling that created a framework for considering the rights of businesses and people with disabilities.

More than 30 years later, a ruling in this case could upend that framework.

"To state the obvious, we have a very different Court today than in 1985," Center said. "The Court is also much more polarized. … The 1985 opinion was unanimous, which is almost unheard of today."

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
J&J Renews Fight to Halt Baby Powder Suits Using Bankruptcy

Steven Church
Fri, November 5, 2021



(Bloomberg) -- Johnson & Johnson is seeking to revive its strategy for resolving tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder caused ovarian cancer and other health problems in women.

The company ended a two-day trial in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday to decide whether to temporarily halt 38,000 lawsuits aimed at J&J and about 250 retailers and insurance companies. The judge said he would announce his ruling next week when J&J’s bankrupt unit returns to court.

Stopping the suits is a key part of J&J’s strategy to pay at least $2 billion to end all current and future claims related to baby powder and other talc-based products. To do so, J&J executed a legal strategy known as the Texas Two Step, creating a unit in Texas to hold all of the lawsuits, then transferring that unit to North Carolina and placing it in bankruptcy.

If the lawsuits continue “outside of this court, it will effectively end this reorganization in its infancy,” company attorney Greg Gordon said.

The company decided earlier this year to employ the tactic in order to deal with the lawsuits now, in one place, instead of spending millions every month for decades fighting in courts around the country, said John Kim, the J&J lawyer leading the company’s effort.

One of the main reasons: it often takes many years for some of the diseases caused by asbestos and other harmful substances allegedly in baby powder to develop, he told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Whitley.

“If litigation continues for the next 60 years,” and victims keep winning huge awards, “no company could survive that,” Kim said.

Day in Court

The move angered lawyers for alleged baby powder victims, who say J&J is trying to block cancer victims from having their day in court. The lawsuits against J&J’s bankrupt unit, LTL Management as well as the operating company that once sold baby powder in the U.S., have already been halted as part of standard Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules.

It also caught the attention of Congress. The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to advance a bill banning the strategy.

Now, Whitley must decide whether to stop the cases against J&J as well. Under certain circumstances, a non-bankrupt parent company can benefit from a bankrupt unit’s lawsuit stay. Last month, Whitley declined to immediately protect J&J from the lawsuits and asked the company to return to present more evidence.

Next week LTL Management will be back in Charlotte for a hearing about whether its case should be moved to a different bankruptcy court. Last month, just days after the Chapter 11 was filed, Whitely said he was considering sending the case to Delaware or New Jersey, in part because he has so many other, big Texas Two Step cases.

At that hearing, Whitely will say if he intends to issue an injunction protecting J&J from the lawsuits while LTL is in bankruptcy.

Whether he moves the case “could have an impact on what we do with the injunction and how long it lasts,” Whitley said.

If Whitley refuses to halt the cases, J&J will lose a key benefit of the Texas Two Step. Under the strategy, which is being employed in Charlotte by several other companies, victims are pressured to negotiate a deal that would set up a trust fund to pay them, instead of allowing any lawsuits to continue.

J&J attorneys argue a bankruptcy trust fund is more fair because it gives all victims a payout, instead of subjecting some victims to court losses that pay nothing, while others win huge jury verdicts. Earlier this year, the company paid $2.5 billion to about 20 women who blamed J&J’s baby powder for their ovarian cancer. And some of the cases against J&J, whose stock is valued at more than $430 billion, are nearing a jury verdict.

A lawsuit halt would be an opening move in what is likely to be a long court fight. Whitely has said he may send the case to New Jersey or Delaware, where the Texas Two Step has never been tried.

The case is LTL Management LLC, 21-30589, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Western District of North Carolina (Charlotte).

(Adds comment from judge about when he will rule in second paragraph, company attorney comment in fourth.)

Death of pregnant woman ignites debate about abortion ban in Poland

Protest against Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruling on abortion, in Warsaw

Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Kacper Pempel
Fri, November 5, 2021

WARSAW (Reuters) - The death of a pregnant Polish woman has reignited debate over abortion in one of Europe's most devoutly Catholic countries, with activists saying she could still be alive if it were not for a near total ban on terminating pregnancies.

Tens of thousands of Poles took to the streets to protest in January this year when a Constitutional Tribunal ruling from October 2020 that terminating pregnancies with foetal defects was unconstitutional came into effect, eliminating the most frequently used case for legal abortion.

Activists say Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy who her family said died of septic shock after doctors waited for her unborn baby's heart to stop beating, is the first woman to die as a result of the ruling.

The government says the ruling was not to blame for her death, rather an error by doctors.

Izabela went to hospital in September after her waters broke, her family said. Scans had previously shown numerous defects in the foetus.

"The baby weighs 485 grams. For now, thanks to the abortion law, I have to lie down. And there is nothing they can do. They'll wait until it dies or something begins, and if not, I can expect sepsis," Izabela said in a text message to her mother, private broadcaster TVN24 reported.

When a scan showed the foetus was dead, doctors at the hospital in Pszczyna, southern Poland, decided to perform a Caesarean. The family's lawyer, Jolanta Budzowska, said Izabela's heart stopped on the way to the operating theatre and she died despite efforts to resuscitate her.

"I couldn't believe it, I thought it wasn't true," Izabela's mother Barbara told TVN24. "How could such a thing happen to her in the hospital? After all, she went there for help."

Budzowska has started legal action over the treatment Izabela received, accusing doctors of malpractice, but she also called the death "a consequence of the verdict".

In a statement on its website, the Pszczyna County Hospital said it shared the pain of all those affected by Izabela's death, especially her family.

"It should ... be emphasised that all medical decisions were made taking into account the legal provisions and standards of conduct in force in Poland," the hospital said.

On Friday, the hospital said it had suspended two doctors who were on duty at the time of the death.

The Supreme Medical Chamber, which represents Polish doctors, said it was not immediately able to comment.

NOT ONE MORE

When the case came to public attention as a result of a tweet from Budzowska, the hashtag #anijednejwiecej or 'not one more' spread across social media and was taken up by protesters demanding a change to the law.

However, Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party rejects claims that the Constitutional Tribunal ruling was to blame for Izabela's death, attributing it to a mistake by doctors.

"When it comes to the life and health of the mother ... if it is in danger, then terminating the pregnancy is possible and the ruling does not change anything," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Friday.

PiS lawmaker Bartlomiej Wroblewski told Reuters that the case should not be "instrumentalised and used to limit the right to life, to kill all sick or disabled children".

But activists say the ruling has made doctors scared to terminate pregnancies even when the mother's life is at risk.

"Izabela's case clearly shows that the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal has had a chilling effect on doctors," Urszula Grycuk of the Federation for Women and Family Planning told Reuters.

"Even a condition that should not be questioned - the life and health of the mother - is not always recognised by doctors because they are afraid."

In Ireland, the death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar in 2012 after she was refused a termination provoked a national outpouring of grief credited by many as a catalyst for the liberalisation of abortion laws.

Budzowska told Reuters that a debate similar to the one that took place in Ireland was underway in Poland.

"Both Izabela's family and I personally hope that this case ... will lead to a change in the law in Poland," she said.

Poland's president proposed changing the law last year to make abortions possible in cases where the foetus was not viable. The Law and Justice dominated parliament has yet to debate the bill.

(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Kacper Pempel; Additional reporting by Anna Koper; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Deng Deng, the abandoned Shiba Inu, sells for $25k at auction in China



Fri, November 5, 2021

An abandoned dog who became an internet sensation in China has sold at auction for 160,000 yuan (£18,500; $25,000).

The Shiba Inu called Deng Deng had been left at a pet training centre seven years ago and his owner never returned.

A Beijing court ordered the eight-year-old dog be put up for auction after the owner could not be located.

The online bidding generated enormous interest, with Deng Deng selling for 320 times the initial asking price of just $78.

The auction was supposed to last for 24 hours. But it had to be extended by a further five, after attracting 480 bidders and more than 166,000 views.

Driven by the rise of the cryptocurrency that shares its name, the market for Shiba Inus, a breed of Japanese hunting dogs, has exploded in recent months. Last month, billionaire Elon Musk shared a picture of his Shiba Inu puppy, Floki.

Deng Deng had been left at the centre and had been incurring unpaid fees.

The centre reportedly sued the owner and demanded he pay the money. But after the court failed to contact the owner, it advertised Deng Deng's auction online.

The advert, and an accompanying video, went viral on Chinese social networking site Weibo, where many users expressed sympathy for the dog's plight.

The Shiba Inu is an agile, small- to medium-sized hunting dog with short fur and a fox-like face.

The identity of the buyer has not been disclosed.

Livestreaming sales have boomed in China during the Covid pandemic as many people have been forced to stay at home under strict lockdown rules.

Can live-streaming save China's economy?

Last month, Li Jiaqi, a livestreaming star known as China's "lipstick king", sold about £1.2bn worth of goods in 12 hours on e-commerce giant Alibaba's Taobao platform.