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Judges have backed Google-owned YouTube in Europe’s top court. They said online platforms were not liable for uploaded videos that broke copyright. Platforms were only liable if they failed to remove or block access to the content once they were notified of a copyright breach, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said. As things stand, online platforms “do not, in principle, themselves make a communication to the public of copyright-protected content illegally posted online by users of those platforms,” the ECJ observed. “YouTube is a leader in copyright and supports rights holders being paid their fair share,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “That’s why we’ve invested in state of the art copyright tools which have created an entirely new revenue stream for the industry.” The Telegraph notes that Google faces further investigations in the U.K. and U.S. The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority is examining its app store practices, while U.S. regulators are investigating whether Google should be broken up due to its huge power over digital advertising and online search.

 

CNBC

Reuters

The Daily Telegraph

The European Union has opened a formal antitrust investigation into allegations that Google abuses its leading role in the advertising-technology sector. The European Commission will examine a broad array of allegedly anticompetitive business practices around the firm's brokering of advertisements and sharing of user data with advertisers across websites and mobile apps. “Online advertising services are at the heart of how Google and publishers monetize their online services,” said Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief. “We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack.” A Google spokeswoman said European businesses choose to use Google’s advertising tools “because they’re competitive and effective,” adding that the company “will continue to engage constructively with the European Commission to answer their questions.”

 

CNBC	Wall Street Journal

Companies in certain industries received more auditor warnings about their ability to stay afloat over the past year, compared with the previous period, as the coronavirus pandemic put finance chiefs and balance sheets under pressure. These warnings, also called going-concern opinions, are published in the annual reports of public companies and refer to their likelihood to remain in business for the next 12 months. Even though going-concern filings at U.S. public companies overall declined during the 12 months ended May 31st, they rose in certain industries, such as real estate and transportation. The percentage of these filings increased in three industry sectors, which are categorized based on codes some U.S. government agencies use: construction; finance, insurance and real estate; and transportation, communication, electric and gas. Going-concern opinions for these three segments rose to 10.7%, 8.3% and 13.5%, respectively, up 1.1, 1.8 and 0.3 percentage points compared with the prior-year period, according to data provider MyLogIQ.

 

Wall Street Journal

The New York Mets have dismissed two senior employees and will overhaul their legal and human resources departments on the recommendation of an independent review following claims of sexual misconduct against former manager Mickey Callaway. Law firm WilmerHale was hired in March to review the organization’s culture. Callaway was fired in October 2019 for the team’s on-field performance, and was banned by Major League Baseball through at least 2022 in May following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward several women who work in sports media, including from his time with the Mets. Steven Cohen, who bought the team in the last off-season, has now detailed “changes we are going to make to ensure that our community and culture will always be safe, respectful and inclusive.” He also said that David Cohen – no relation and a longtime legal counsel to Mets ownership - and Holly Lindvall, the team's head of human resources, were to leave. Steven Cohen said the two would remain in place during a transition period.

 

New York Times

U.S. News

Morgan Stanley's staff and clients will be barred from entering the lender’s New York offices if they are not fully vaccinated against Covid. Unvaccinated employees will need to work remotely, according to a person familiar with the matter. The policy comes into effect next month, in a move designed to allow the lifting of other Covid-related rules. Last week, the investment bank's chief executive called on workers to return to the office. An internal memo said: "Starting July 12 all employees, contingent workforce, clients and visitors will be required to attest to being fully vaccinated to access Morgan Stanley buildings in New York City and Westchester." The BBC understands the move will allow the company to remove restrictions in offices on face coverings and social distancing. The policy currently operates on an honour system, but the bank may later decide to require proof of vaccination status. Morgan Stanley had already implemented so-called "vaccine-only" workspaces in some departments, including institutional securities and wealth management.

 

BBC News

Financial Times

A new report concludes that black workers in the U.S. continue to earn less than their white counterparts. The Conference Board report attributed the wage gaps to a range of factors, including geographical segregation and labor market segmentation, as well as different access to educational opportunities, social and professional networks. The report found that black men with a bachelor's degree or higher earned 18% less than white men in 2010. By 2019, that gap had widened to 24%, driven by what the think-tank said was the striking underrepresentation of black workers in high-paying industries and occupations. The tech industry was singled out in the report. The sector has experienced a surge in high earners in recent years, yet black workers account for only 4% of top earners, compared to 6% in other industries. The Conference Board also noted that black workers were similarly underrepresented in other booming fields for top earners, accounting for just 2.8% of top-earning CEOs and 3.8% of top earners in marketing management.

 

U.S. News

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 1.4m workers in 500 unions in the U.S., will vote on Thursday on a landmark resolution to make its highest priority helping Amazon workers achieve a union contract. It is also planning pressure campaigns involving work stoppages, petitions and other collective action to push Amazon to bargain over working conditions and meet worker demands. “The International Brotherhood of Teamsters recognizes that there is no clearer example of how America is failing the working class than Amazon,” the resolution reads.

 

Al.com

New York Times

The world’s financial leaders will endorse on July 9-10 a deal setting a global minimum corporate tax and call for technical work to be finished so they can approve the framework for implementation in October, according to a draft G20 communique. “After many years of discussions and building on the progress made last year, we have achieved an historical agreement on a new, fair and stable international tax architecture,” the draft said. It made no mention of a specific rate for a global minimum corporate tax nor other key details, which remain to be agreed by nearly 140 countries known as the Inclusive Framework meeting online next week in talks hosted by the OECD. “We endorse the core elements of the two pillars on the profit reallocation of multinational enterprises and the global minimum tax as set out in the statement released by the G20/OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS),” the G20 draft said in anticipation of those talks.

 

Metro U.S.

Meat processor major Smithfield Foods is being sued by a consumer advocacy group, which alleges that the firm misled the public when it raised an alarm over possible meat shortages in spring 2020. Smithfield temporarily closed some of its facilities as workers got sick with COVID-19 early on in the pandemic. Then-chief executive Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement announcing the closure of Smithfield's Sioux Falls plant that the country is "perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply". Food and Water Watch's case argues that the nation was never in danger of running out of meat, and that there were ample supplies in cold storage, while at the same time pork exports to China, in particular, were surging. “This fear mongering creates a revenue-generating feedback loop,” Food and Water Watch said in its lawsuit. “It stokes and exploits consumer panic — juicing demand and sales — and in turn, provides the company with a false justification to keep its slaughterhouses operating at full tilt."

 

CNN	New York Times

Legal services firm Crowell & Moring (C&M) has lost an early bid to dismiss claims that it crossed ethical lines by squaring off against former client Walgreens in an arbitration over drug prices. The pharmacy group sued C&M in March, arguing that the services that it earlier provided to Walgreens should have barred the firm from representing insurer Humana Inc in an arbitration against the chain. Walgreens has urged the D.C. trial court to strip fees Crowell has earned or will earn tied to the firm’s actions against Walgreens. 

 

Reuters

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) may not bar payments to student-athletes. The decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, clears the way for colleges to provide more school-related perks to students like computers, musical instruments and internships; it did not directly touch on the issue of whether athletes may earn money for the use of their names, images and likenesses, but some legal experts say the case could be a prelude to challenges aimed more broadly at compensation restrictions on college athletes.

 

The Hill

New York Times

Reuters