In the wake of nationwide protests, corporate America has pledged to fight racism and support Black Americans. But a similar initiative started decades ago in Rochester shows it is a promise that is difficult to sustain.
Tag Archives: Corporations
Worrying About Your Carbon Footprint Is Exactly What Big Oil Wants You to Do
The only way to really address the climate crisis is through politics, policymakers and legislation.
Rand V. Araskog, Former Chief of ITT Corp., Dies at 89
Over two decades, during a tumultuous time for American business, he winnowed an unwieldy corporation and fended off corporate raids.
Few Women Ascend Japan’s Corporate Ladder. Is Change Finally Coming?
Only 6 percent of board seats at Japanese companies are held by women. After years of unkept promises, these businesses are now facing pressure both at home and abroad to diversify.
Who Discriminates in Hiring? A New Study Can Tell.
Applications seemingly from Black candidates got fewer replies than those evidently from white candidates. The method could point to specific companies.
Global Tax Overhaul Gains Steam as G20 Backs New Levies
The approach marks a reversal of years of economic policies that embraced low taxes as a way for countries to attract investment and fuel growth.
Yellen’s New Alliance Against Leprechauns
Is the world finally ready to take on tax havens?
Looking for Bipartisan Accord? Just Ask About Big Business.
In surveys and political discourse, Republicans are increasingly critical of corporations, but not for the reasons Democrats have long held that view.
‘Antitrust’ by Amy Klobuchar, and ‘The Tyranny of Big Tech’ by Josh Hawley
The senators are on opposite sides of the aisle, but both speak out on the dangers of big tech in their new books. It’s weird, really, how alike they sound.
Samsung Family to Pay South Korea’s Largest Inheritance Tax Bill
The Samsung family in South Korea will also donate billions of dollars’ worth of art, including Picasso and Monet.
Marco Rubio’s ‘Woke Capital’ Tantrum
Republicans are mad at big business, but not mad enough to raise taxes.
N.A.A.C.P. Leader Says ‘a Few Checks’ Can’t Fix Structural Racism
“There is a responsibility of corporations to ensure that we maintain a stable democracy,” Derrick Johnson said.
A Different Way of Thinking About Cancel Culture
Social media companies and other organizations are looking out for themselves.
Corporations of the World, Unite!
The internal contradictions of “woke capitalism” are a mixed blessing for the Democratic Party.
After Pandemic, Shrinking Need for Office Space Could Crush Landlords
Some big employers are giving up square footage as they juggle remote work. That could devastate building owners and cities.
Democrats Prepare Plan to Raise Taxes on Multinational Corporations
The proposal from Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Warner and Sherrod Brown could be a blueprint for financing part of President Biden’s infrastructure plan.
Biden Tax Plan Charts New Path to Economic Growth
The president sees public spending, rather than relying on businesses to turn tax cuts into investment, as the key to competitiveness.
Corporations, Vocal About Racial Justice, Go Quiet on Voting Rights
“They are complicit in their silence,” one activist said, as bills that would disproportionately affect Black citizens across the country stir public debate.
Countries Tried to Curb Trade in Plastic Waste. The U.S. Is Shipping More.
Data shows that American exporters continue to ship plastic waste overseas, often to poorer countries, even though most of the world has agreed to not accept it.
Companies Shouldn’t Require Employees to Get Vaccines
Let the government make the policy.
Companies Say They Care About the Climate. Their Actions Fall Short.
Many big businesses have not set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Others have weak goals.
AT&T, JPMorgan and Coca-Cola Pull Back Political Giving Following Capitol Riots
AT&T and Marriott were among companies that will stop campaign contributions to lawmakers who objected to certifying the election. Other companies, such as JPMorgan, paused all political donations.
After Riot, Business Leaders Reckon With Their Support for Trump
Many in corporate America endorsed the president’s economic policies, which were good for them and gave him mainstream business credibility. It was “fool’s gold,” one said on Thursday.
N.J. Approves $14 Billion in Corporate Tax Breaks in Less Than a Week
The incentive package was pushed by Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a progressive Democrat who has railed against similar tax breaks in the past. His allies are not happy.
Tesla, Profitable at Last, Bulls Its Way Into the S&P 500
The electric-car maker will be the biggest addition in the history of the benchmark index. Will that settle down its swings?
Supreme Court Seems Ready to Limit Human Rights Suits Against Corporations
Six citizens of Mali sued Nestlé USA and Cargill, saying the firms had profited from child slavery on Ivory Coast cocoa farms.
H. Jesse Arnelle, Pathbreaker in Corporate Law, Dies at 86
Thirty years after he led the Penn State basketball team to the Final Four, he and a friend started one of the few Black-owned firms catering to blue-chip clients.
These Are the Perks Companies Use to Get Workers Back to Their Offices
Free lunch. Discounted parking. Learning pods for children. Some New York City companies are offering incentives to workers who are required to return to the office.
Paid Time Off, Free Fries: How Corporate America Is Getting Out the Vote
Spurred by recent social unrest, many U.S. companies are trying to make it easier for workers, and urging their customers, to cast their ballots.
The I.R.S. Is Outgunned
The agency doesn’t have the resources to battle the tax lawyers of the ultrarich. Trump’s returns are just one example of how little the wealthy pay.
Stakeholder Capitalism Gets a Report Card. It’s Not Good.
The pandemic and the movement for racial justice have tested corporate pledges to elevate social concerns alongside shareholder interests. A new study finds companies are failing to follow through.
TikTok Deal Faces Complications as U.S. and China Ratchet Up Tit-for-Tat
China’s new export rules, which could delay or scuttle a sale of TikTok, have further turned giant companies into pawns in a geopolitical struggle.
U.S. Sanctions 24 Chinese Companies Over Role in South China Sea
The Trump administration moved to cut off two dozen Chinese companies from the American market on Wednesday, saying they had contributed to China’s controversial island-building campaign.
U.S. Small Business Bailout Money Flowed to Chinese-Owned Companies
Millions of dollars of Paycheck Protection Program loans went to China-backed businesses in critical sectors, a study found.
How Pimco’s Cayman-Based Hedge Fund Can Profit From the Fed’s Rescue
Congress said borrowers in taxpayer-backed rescue programs had to be from the United States. Wall Street has a workaround.
As the Pandemic Forced Layoffs, C.E.O.s Gave Up Little
Some corporate bosses offered to cut their pay, but most did not. Those who did gave up less than 10 percent of what they received last year.
Is Corporate Change Really Possible?
On setting boundaries in an unpaid internship, navigating corporate bias and mandatory social check-ins.
Legaltech startup Orbital Witness scores £3.3M to create a ‘universal risk rating’ for real estate
Orbital Witness, a U.K.-based legaltech startup developing “AI-powered” software to transform the £4 billion U.K. property due diligence market, has raised £3.3 million in seed funding.
The round is led by LocalGlobe and Outward VC, with participation from previous investors, including Seedcamp and JLL Spark. It brings Orbital Witness’s total funding to £4.5 million.
Launched with its first customer in September 2018 and now used by numerous large law firms, including four of the five so-called “Magic Circle” firms, Orbital Witness’ long-term vision is to build a “universal risk rating” for real estate. “Think of a credit risk check for land and property,” Orbital Witness co-founder and COO Will Pearce tells me.
To do this, the startup is employing machine learning technology that it hopes can mirror the process a lawyer goes through when gathering and checking property information. The idea is to use AI to “predetermine” issues that constitute a potential risk.
“Our technology is adept at trawling through and extracting key issues from the wide range of sources that a property lawyer considers, including HM Land Registry and local authorities,” explains Pearce. “For example, a user is alerted to third party rights, charges and restrictions that might block a sale. In our current state of product development, this allows Orbital Witness to act as an ‘early warning system’ for property lawyers”.
Zooming out further, Pearce says real estate is the world’s largest asset class, but that the process of recording and reporting on property rights has not materially changed in 150 years. This sees real estate lawyers having to manually collect and review information from an array of disparate sources, which can often take weeks to arrive before they can even start. Meanwhile, the various real estate stakeholders — from banks making lending decisions, large commercial real estate PE funds, to residential homebuyers — can’t sign off transactions until the lawyers have completed their due diligence.
“Anyone who has ever bought a home will appreciate the frustrations of dealing with this legal due diligence process, and in commercial real estate, where Orbital Witness is initially focussed, many of these problems are amplified,” says Pearce.
The longer term plan is to ingest a broader range of data, so that Orbital Witness can eventually become trusted to provide a universal risk rating for real estate. This will see its risk modelling solutions wired to also include geographic information (e.g. flood risk), privately held information that can be uploaded to the platform (e.g. rights of lights reports), and also non-legal information (e.g. financial data from public records and ratings agencies).
Adds the Orbital Witness co-founder: “Very importantly, risk in real estate is dependent on the context of a transaction. For a real estate investor purchasing a block of flats, they are interested in understanding the security of rental income derived from the leaseholds. However, a property developer transacting on the same building, may be more interested in any hidden covenants that could prevent the ability to build or redevelop the site”.
ESPN Employees Say Racism Endures Behind the Camera
In meetings and conversations among colleagues, ESPN employees have criticized the career pipeline and diversity of top leadership, eliciting a promise from executives to do better.
Income and Wealth Inequality Has Devastated American Workers
Workers have been left behind as the U.S. economy expanded and CEO salaries skyrocketed over the last four decades.
American Workers Deserve to Live With Dignity
We need to save democracy from capitalism, and save capitalism from itself.
Corporate America’s Black Lives Matter Pledges Fall Short
It’s time for companies to move beyond mere tweets and hire more black employees at every level.
‘Corporate America Has Failed Black America’
For a group of elite black executives, police killings and protests have unleashed an outpouring of emotion and calls for action.
Dismal Earnings, Bullish Stock Investors and the Fed’s Invisible Hand
First-quarter profits shrank at the fastest rate in over a decade. Analysts don’t like what they see coming down the pike. Investors keep pushing stocks higher.
T.S.M.C. Is Set to Build a U.S. Chip Facility, a Win for Trump
The White House has called for building up U.S. manufacturing and criticized a tech supply chain centered in China.
Repeat After Me: The Markets Are Not the Economy
The two have been intertwined in the American psyche since the 1929 stock crash and the onset of the Great Depression. But stocks are not a reliable gauge of overall economic health.
First Quarter Earnings Were Terrible, But Executives Offer Some Hope
While the pandemic has made it hard to offer forecasts, some corporate leaders said things might be getting a little better — or at least no worse.
A Big, Once-Reliable Source of Investor Cash Is Drying Up
The losses aren’t coming just from the drop in stock prices. The effect of the dividend cuts sweeping through the market will hurt, too.
How Bad Will the Economy Get? Companies Will Provide Clues
The quarterly parade of corporate earnings and management comments could reveal how much damage the pandemic will do and how long the pain will last.
As Virus Hobbles Economy, Companies Race to Tap Credit and Raise Cash
The clamor for corporate funding is raising concerns about a financial reckoning reminiscent of 2008.