Business

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand on Saturday warned against the creation of online content that risked insulting the country’s monarchy, after a video by a social media influencer promoting e-commerce platform Lazada incensed royalists, who said it was mocking the palace.

Thai law prescribes punishments of up to 15 years in jail for each offence if found guilty of defaming, insulting or threatening King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his closest family.

The video, which has since been taken down, was promoting Lazada’s May 5 sale and featured a woman dressed in a traditional Thai costume sitting in a wheelchair and playing the role of an influencer’s mother.

Royalists complained the woman in the wheelchair was a veiled reference to a royal family member. The video did not use the language used by the royal family, nor mention any of its members.

In videos posted on Facebook, the influencer, Aniwat “Nara” Prathumthin, said the clip was a parody of a famous Thai soap opera and told critics the perceived royal insult was “all in your imagination”.

Lazada, the Southeast Asian arm of Alibaba Group Holding, in a statement apologised for the “emotional damage” the video had caused and said it should have been more careful.

Government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said such content risked damaging the reputation of brands.

“Let us warn marketers, influencers and content creators to be careful about presenting content or promotions that reference appearances or individuals of the institution that all Thais worship and love,” Thanakorn said in a statement.

“This is inappropriate, and will not only upset every Thai in the country, but also destroy the image and reputation of the brand. It could also be against the law.”

The incident follows an April Fool’s prank tweeted by a staff member at budget airline Thai Vietjet Air, an offshoot of Vietnam’s Vietjet Aviation JSC, about a new route to Munich that stirred anger among royalists, who said it was a hidden joke about the Thai king spending time in Germany. The airline apologised.

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Martin Petty and David Holmes)

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By Rowena Edwards

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices climbed for a third straight session on Friday, shrugging off concerns about global economic growth as impending European Union sanctions on Russian oil raised the prospect of tighter supply.

Brent futures rose $1.75, or 1.58%, to $112.65 per barrel by 1159 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude climbed $1.57, or 1.45%, to $109.83 a barrel.

Brent and WTI are on track to rise for a second week in a row, buoyed by the EU’s proposal to phase out supplies of Russian crude oil in six months and refined products by the end of 2022. It would also ban all shipping and insurance services for transporting Russian oil.

The EU is tweaking its sanctions plan in a bid to win over reluctant states, three EU sources told Reuters on Friday. [nL2N2WY0F7]

“The looming EU embargo on Russian oil has the makings of an acute supply squeeze. In any case, OPEC+ is in no mood to help out, even as rallying energy prices spur harmful levels of inflation,” PVM analyst Stephen Brennock said.

Ignoring calls from Western nations to hike output more, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and allied producers, a group known as OPEC+, stuck with its plan to raise its June output target by 432,000 barrels per day. nL2N2WX0IO]

However, analysts expect the group’s actual production rise to be much smaller as a result of capacity constraints.

“There is zero chance of certain members filling that quota as production challenges impact Nigeria and other African members,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst Asia Pacific at OANDA.

A U.S. Senate panel has advanced a bill that could expose OPEC+ to lawsuits for collusion on boosting oil prices.

Investors are also eyeing higher demand from the United States this fall as Washington unveiled plans to buy 60 million barrels of crude for its emergency stockpiles.

Demand concerns on signs of a weakening global economy capped the price rise.

The Bank of England on Thursday warned that Britain risks a double-whammy of a recession and inflation above 10% as it raised interest rates to their highest since 2009, hiking by a quarter of a percentage point to 1%.

And strict COVID-19 curbs in China are creating headwinds in the second quarter for the world’s second-largest economy.

(Additional reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore and Laura Sanicola in New York; editing by Jason Neely)

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(Reuters) -New York Stock Exchange-owner Intercontinental Exchange posted a rise in first-quarter profit on Thursday, driven by higher trading volumes in several asset classes as interest hike expectations and the Ukraine war raised market volatility.

Demand for portfolio protection grew as sky-high inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war and expectations of interest rate hikes roiled markets.

The exchange operator said on Wednesday it planned to acquire Black Knight in a cash-and-stock deal that values the software and data analytics firm at $16 billion, including debt.

Intercontinental Exchange’s first quarter performance follows strong earnings by rivals CBOE Global Markets Inc and CME Group Inc that sailed past Wall Street estimates as elevated volatility drove up transaction volumes of options and futures.

Net income attributable to the company was up nearly 2% at $657 million, or $1.16 per share, for the three months ended March 31 from $646 million, or $1.14 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, ICE, which runs futures and equities exchanges as well as clearing houses, data services and a mortgage origination business, earned $1.43 per share, edging past analysts’ mean estimate of $1.42 a share, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Total revenue, excluding transaction-based expenses, rose nearly 6% to $1.9 billion, as revenue from exchanges business rose 2%, fixed income and data services rose 8.7% while mortgage tech arm fell 13.5%.

(Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

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(Reuters) – Levi Strauss & Co said on Wednesday it will reimburse travel expenses for its full- and part-time employees who need to travel to another state for health care services, including abortions.

The apparel company best known for its jeans is the latest U.S. company to offer the benefit as various states clamp down on access to abortions.

And now, the U.S. Supreme Court looks set to vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, according to a leaked initial draft majority opinion published by Politico on Monday.

“Given what is at stake, business leaders need to make their voices heard and act to protect the health and well-being of our employees. That means protecting reproductive rights,” the company said in a statement.

Other companies have pledged to offer similar support to their U.S. employees who need to travel out of states like Texas and Oklahoma that have restricted access to abortion services.

Amazon.com Inc, the second-largest U.S. private employer, on Monday told employees it will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses yearly for non-life threatening medical treatments, among them elective abortions.

Crowd-sourced review platform Yelp, Inc said it will start in May to cover expenses for its employees and their dependents who need to travel to another state for abortion services.

One of the leading Hollywood talent agencies, UTA, said it would reimburse travel expenses related to receiving women’s reproductive health services that are not accessible in an employee’s state of residence.

“We’re doing this to support the right to choose that has been a bedrock of settled law for almost half a century,” Jeremy Zimmer, UTA’s chief executive, wrote in a staff memo Wednesday that was seen by Reuters.

Citigroup Inc became in March the first major U.S. bank to make a similar commitment.

(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo; Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Anna Driver, Alexandra Hudson, Kirsten Donovan)

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OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s Equinor posted record pretax profits for the first quarter on Wednesday as the war in Ukraine triggered an energy supply crunch that sent the price of natural gas soaring to all-time highs.

Adjusted earnings before tax rose to $18 billion in the January-March quarter, up from $5.5 billion a year earlier, beating the $17.1 billion predicted in a poll of 25 analysts compiled by Equinor.

“Continued capital discipline and cost focus enabled us to deliver very strong financial results and cash flow, strengthening the balance sheet,” Chief Executive Anders Opedal said in a statement.

The sale of natural gas is now Equinor’s most profitable business, exceeding traditionally dominant crude oil revenues as Europe scrambles to fill depleted gas storages amid fears the war in Ukraine will lead to cut-off of Russian supplies.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)

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By Ann Saphir

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to raise interest rates by half of a percentage point and announce the start of reductions to its $9 trillion balance sheet as U.S. central bankers intensify efforts to bring down high inflation.

Fed policymakers have widely telegraphed a double-barreled decision that would lift the Fed’s short-term target policy rate to a range between 0.75% and 1%, and set in motion a plan to trim its portfolio of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) by as much $95 billion a month.

The policy statement is due to be released at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) following the end of the Fed’s latest two-day meeting.

Markets have priced in further rate increases through this year and into next, including at least a couple more half-percentage-point hikes, as traders bet the central bank moves much more quickly than it had anticipated it would in March to get borrowing costs up to where they will start actively curbing inflation.

With no fresh Fed economic or policy rate projections due until the central bank’s June meeting, most clues on how far and how fast it is prepared to go will come from Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference, which starts at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

‘SOUND HAWKISH’

The Fed began its current round of policy tightening in mid-March with a quarter-percentage-point rate hike, smaller than many policymakers had wanted given inflation had hit a 40-year high, but calibrated so as not to inject more uncertainty into global markets roiled by Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

In the weeks since that decision, inflation has gained new steam as the war pushed up oil and food prices and China’s strict lockdowns to combat the spread of COVID-19 further disrupted supply chains.

Data on the U.S. labor market also suggests increasing labor market tightness, with employment costs surging as businesses struggle to hold onto workers. A record number of job openings may also translate to higher wages that could also feed through to inflation.

All that is ratcheting up the pressure on the Fed to act more decisively to rein things in.

“Powell will continue to have a strong incentive to sound hawkish,” Piper Sandler economist Roberto Perli said this week. “The Fed’s focus these days is 100% on bringing inflation down, and hawkish expectations help that cause.”

In the run-up to this week’s meeting, Powell has said he wants to get rates “expeditiously” to what Fed policymakers regard as a “neutral” range of 2.25%-2.5%, and then higher if needed.

Most of his colleagues appear to be on board with at least the first part of that plan.

The aim would be to lift borrowing costs high enough and fast enough that households slow spending and businesses pare hiring in response, reducing inflation that is now about three times the Fed’s 2% target.

But the central bank wants to avoid raising rates so high or so fast that it short-circuits the labor market and trips up the economy. The U.S. unemployment rate has only just dropped to 3.6%, near the pre-pandemic level, and any large reversal could be a prelude to a recession.

The Fed has managed “soft landings” infrequently in the past, analysts say, and at this point has allowed inflation to rise so much faster than interest rates that it may have already missed its chance to do so.

A fast trip to neutral https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/POWELL/zdvxogolapx/chart.png

Fed policy trails inflation by historic margin https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-FED/gdpzynrmnvw/chart.png

And while it is expected to raise rates rather quickly now to compensate, the inflation path will also depend on a number of factors beyond the Fed’s control, including the evolution of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and ongoing supply and labor shortages connected to both.

The Fed’s plan to reduce its balance sheet will also be a focus on Wednesday. While the broad outlines were disclosed about three weeks ago in minutes of the Fed’s March meeting, investors expect to learn details of the speed and extent of the plan, including possible MBS sales at some point in the future.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Paul Simao)

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By Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s $1.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund is prepared for a rocky ride as it confronts the biggest geopolitical changes in three decades, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

“We probably face the greatest changes for 30 years,” Nicolai Tangen told a Norwegian parliamentary hearing, adding the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund expects “growing frictions between superpowers and a reversal of globalisation”.

Tangen said that the Norwegian fund, which invests all of its assets in foreign stocks, bonds, property and renewable energy projects, has “nowhere to hide” and must manage the risk that comes with exposure to global markets.

“We have a rocky ride ahead,” he said, adding that inflation, already on the rise before the Ukraine conflict, has continued to increase, while interest rates are still very low and share prices remain high.

Of all the risk factors, stagflation was “the worst”, Tangen said, adding it could potentially lead to a 40% fall in the fund and that it was a more likely scenario than six months ago.

“We have a combination of high price rises and lower-than-before economic growth, inflation is going up and growth is on its way down,” Tangen later told Reuters.

“It looks like we are potentially nearer a scenario of (stagflation) than we were earlier.”

Founded in 1996, the fund invests revenue from Norway’s oil and gas sector and holds stakes in 9,300 companies globally, owning 1.3% of all listed stocks.

Assets now correspond to $230,000 for every Norwegian, and the purpose of the fund is to share the proceeds of the country’s oil and gas revenues with future generations.

RUSSIA AND RENEWABLES

Norway ordered the fund to first freeze and then divest its Russian assets, worth some 27 billion crowns ($2.85 billion) and equivalent to 0.2% of its total value at the end of 2021, after Moscow began its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

However, the fund has not yet begun selling, Tangen said, adding that he did not know when this would be possible as the Moscow market was not functioning well with traded volumes not large enough for its needs.

It could not be sure who counterparties were, making it hard to avoid selling to individuals under international sanctions.

Elsewhere, the fund took its first ever direct stake in a renewable energy project, a Dutch wind farm, in April last year, but has not done so since.

Tangen said even though the fund has a mandate from parliament to invest up to 2% of its total value in renewables, it would take some time as competition was fierce and “good prospects (are) hard to find”.

($1 = 9.4587 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Terje Solsvik, Louise Heavens and Alexander Smith)

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(Reuters) -Pfizer Inc maintained sales forecasts for its COVID-19 products for the first time since launching its coronavirus vaccine, in a sign that the dizzying growth of the past few quarters has slowed.

The company said it expects $22 billion in sales of its COVID pill Paxlovid this year, compared with analysts’ average expectation of $26.1 billion.

Pfizer had previously said that its forecast for $22 billion in Paxlovid sales only represents a fraction of the 120 million courses the company is able to manufacture this year.

The company’s reluctance to lift the forecast could suggest that it did not sign significant new sales contracts for the pill during the first quarter.

In prepared remarks for the company’s conference call with investors, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said the company had seen a significant pickup in the drug’s use in the United States recently and said that some countries that have experienced recent outbreaks have asked for more treatment courses.

The drugmaker also reiterated its forecast of $32 billion in sales from the vaccine it developed with BioNTech. It has raised the forecast for the vaccine’s sales every quarter in 2021.

“Sales (of the vaccine) are expected to eventually slow as an increasing percentage of the global population receive a complete vaccination course,” said Millie Gray, analyst at Informa Pharma Intelligence.

At the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, several drug companies have adjusted their forecasts to include expenses from milestone payments and acquisitions.

The company said it now expects full-year adjusted profit of $6.25 to $6.45 per share, below its prior forecast of $6.35 to $6.55, mostly due to the impact of those expenses.

Pfizer’s shares fell nearly 1% to $47.94 in choppy premarket trading.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru and Michael Erman in New Jersey; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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NEW YORK (AP) — In a court appeal, a lawyer for Donald Trump said Monday it is “unconscionable and indefensible” for the ex-president to be held in contempt and fined $10,000 a day for failing to turn over documents he doesn’t possess.

Attorney Alina Habba made the argument in a submission to a New York state appeals court requesting that the contempt order and fine be suspended until the challenge can be heard by appeals judges.

The arguments were submitted a week after State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron in Manhattan said Trump and his lawyers had failed to show they conducted a proper search for records sought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, in a civil probe of his business dealings.

James had asked the court to hold Trump in contempt after he failed to produce any documents to satisfy a March 31 deadline to meet the terms of the subpoena. She has said her investigation has found evidence that Trump may have misstated the value of assets like skyscrapers and golf courses on financial statements for over a decade.

Trump, a Republican, has been fighting James in court over her investigation, which he has called a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

Habba told Engoron a week ago that she met with Trump to ensure he had no records and there were none to be found. On Friday, she submitted additional documents explaining the document search, including an affidavit in which Trump claimed he has no documents. Engoron criticized the affidavit as lacking in detail.

In Monday’s written arguments submitted to the appellate division of the state’s trial court, Habba wrote that the daily fine “is not only unwarranted, it is also patently improper and impermissible by law.”

She said Trump and his representatives had performed a “diligent, thorough and comprehensive search” for everything sought in the subpoena and provided complete and accurate responses to the attorney general. She said the additional submissions last week amounted to “extraordinary efforts to comply.”

“Given these circumstances, it is unconscionable and indefensible for Appellant to be held in contempt in any manner, must less at the inordinate expense of $10,000 per day,” she said.

The written submission Monday came after Habba notified the appeals court last week that she was appealing. Trump is also appealing Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling requiring him to answer questions under oath. Oral arguments in that appeal are scheduled for May 11.

A message seeking comment from the attorney general’s office was not immediately returned.

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Associated Press Writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this story.

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By Maria Ponnezhath

(Reuters) – Netflix Inc said on Sunday it has decided to drop works on Meghan Markle’s animated family series “Pearl” as the streaming platform hew its animated content.

Netflix decided to stop developing several projects, including Meghan’s series as part of its strategic decisions on creating animated series, the company said in a statement, without providing further details on its decisions.

Archewell Productions, the company formed by Meghan and her husband Prince Harry, formally known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, had announced last year that Meghan would be an executive producer of “Pearl”. The series was planned to be centered on the adventures of a 12-year-old girl, who is inspired by a variety of influential women from history.

Archewell Productions did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Netflix also decided not to move forward with two animated kids’ series “Dino Daycare” and “Boons and Curses.”

The decision to cancel these shows came after Netflix reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, falling well short of its forecast of adding 2.5 million subscribers.

However, Netflix confirmed that the company would continue to work on a number of projects with Archewell Productions, including previously announced documentary series “Heart of Invictus”. The series will focus on athletes competing in the Invictus Games for injured veterans in The Hague in 2022.

Netflix did not respond to a query on whether it will cut down more animated shows.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft)

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