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President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will oversee workplace raids as part of its broader immigration crackdown, according to incoming “border czar” Tom Homan. Homan, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who was an early advocate of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents in the first Trump administration, said the workplace raids would address labor and sex trafficking. “Where do we find most victims of sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking? At worksites,” Homan said. Such an approach is unlikely to help combat trafficking, opponents say. “He’s conflating the traffickers with the people being trafficked,” observed Heidi Altman, director of federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center.

 

The Hill

Amazon has confirmed a data breach involving employee contact details through a third-party vendor, but assured that no sensitive data was compromised and its systems remain secure. The breach includes the employees’ name, work contact information, and what location they work at. “Amazon and AWS systems remain secure, and we have not experienced a security event. We were notified about a security event at one of our property management vendors that impacted several of its customers including Amazon. The only Amazon information involved was employee work contact information, for example work email addresses, desk phone numbers, and building locations,” Amazon spokesperson Adam Montgomery said.

 

TechCrunch

404 Media

Forbes

The Verge

Nearly two years to the date of its bankruptcy filing, FTX’s estate is suing former ally and competitor Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao for $1.76bn, a sum it alleges was fraudulently transferred by Sam Bankman-Fried as part of a July 2021 share repurchase deal. Mr. Bankman-Fried paid for the stock repurchase using a mix of FTX’s exchange token FTT and Binance-branded coins BNB and BUSD  FTX and its sister trading house Alameda Research “may have been insolvent from inception and certainly were balance-sheet insolvent by early 2021,” the estate said in the filing. As a result, the share repurchase deal was made fraudulently, it alleged. FTX also accused Zhao of posting a series of “false, misleading, and fraudulent tweets” shortly before FTX’s collapse, the content of which was “maliciously calculated to destroy his rival.” A spokesperson for Binance denied the allegations, describing them as "meritless."

 

Banking Dive

Bloomberg

Financial Times

Yuet-Peng Cheong, a former product manager at Meta, has filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging wrongful termination and retaliation after she raised concerns about inflated revenue projections for the company's generative AI technology. Cheong claimed that her supervisor, Maryam Gholami, pressured data scientists to increase revenue estimates by $1.5 bn, a figure which Cheong believed was “pulled out of thin air.” After expressing her concerns, Cheong said she faced harassment and was ultimately fired in June 2023. Meta has denied the allegations, stating they are “without merit” and that it will “vigorously defend against them.” Cheong is seeking unspecified damages for the alleged mistreatment and retaliation she experienced during her employment.

 

The Columbian

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found that most Americans believe President-elect Donald Trump will push the U.S. government deeper into debt in his new term. The two-day poll, which closed on Thursday, showed that 62% of respondents, including 94% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans, said it was likely Trump's policies "will push the U.S. national debt higher." Some 89% of Democratic respondents said they were concerned by the prospect of Trump pushing the debt higher, compared to 19% of Republicans. Republicans in Congress point to buoyant gains in federal tax receipts since 2017 as proof that Trump's tax cuts raised revenues and say his current agenda will bring more of the same.

 

Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly keen to appoint someone with a Wall Street pedigree as Treasury Secretary, with potential contenders including Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick, hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, and former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent. Robert Lighthizer, who served as Trump's U.S. trade representative in the first term and is the architect of his sweeping tariff proposals, is also reportedly among the candidates for Treasury.

 

Accounting Today

Online travel agency Booking.com has said it could cut jobs as part of a review of its organizational structure. "This is a difficult but necessary proactive step to make sure Booking.com remains agile in a very competitive industry and keeps driving customer-centered innovation at pace," the company said in a statement, adding "We believe these efforts will improve operating expense efficiency, increase organizational agility, free up resources that can be reinvested into further improving our offering to both travelers and partners." The review is specific to Booking.com and not its other brands, including Priceline, Agoda, Kayak and OpenTable, a company spokesperson said.

 

Reuters

Findings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that 7% of dairy workers exposed to H5N1-infected cows in Michigan and Colorado have developed antibodies to bird flu. The rate is significantly higher than previously understood. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, said news of cases flying beneath the radar is “completely unsurprising . . . When you test people at their place of work, and if the consequence of testing positive is that they have to stay home and possibly not earn an income, you should expect that people might not tell you if they've had symptoms. Also, everything we know about flu gives us the very strong suspicion that there would be asymptomatic infections.”

 

The Guardian

The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has announced the revocation of JTC Fair Song CPA Firm's registration due to "repeatedly" violating agency rules and failing to cooperate with investigations. The Shenzhen-based firm neglected to make necessary filings over several years and did not respond to formal requests for documents. Although the firm did not admit or deny the findings, it consented to a disciplinary order. This action follows a landmark agreement in 2022 allowing the PCAOB to inspect accounting firms in China and Hong Kong. 

 

Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a $17.5m penalty to Invesco Advisors to settle allegations that the company misled investors about the extent of its assets that included environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. The Atlanta-based investment adviser suggested that 70%-94% of its parent company’s assets were ESG integrated, according to its marketing materials and client communications. However, the SEC’s findings reveal that these figures included assets in passive ETFs that did not incorporate ESG considerations in their investment decisions. 

 

FinTech Global

Compliance Week

Recent research by YouGov reveals that approximately 50% of consumers are uncomfortable with brands using artificial intelligence (AI) to create marketing content, as it undermines brand authenticity. The survey, which spanned 17 global markets, highlighted that shoppers are increasingly wary of AI-generated images and text, with many able to identify AI content over half the time. Experts suggest that while AI can be a useful tool, it is the personal, creative input from humans that truly resonates with consumers. The findings indicate a growing need for brands to balance AI capabilities with genuine human engagement to avoid a competitive disadvantage.

 

Forbes

Mattel has expressed its deep regret over a packaging error involving its “Wicked” movie-themed dolls, which mistakenly linked buyers to a pornographic website instead of the official WickedMovie.com page. The misprint was highlighted on social media, prompting widespread attention. Mattel said: “We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this”. While the company has not confirmed whether it will remove unsold products from stores, some dolls have already become unavailable on major retail sites like Amazon and Target. Consumers who purchased the dolls are advised to discard the packaging or obscure the link and contact Mattel's customer service for further assistance. The “Wicked” collection was launched earlier this year, featuring characters from the upcoming film adaptation of the Broadway musical.

 

USA Today

Boston Globe

Chicago Tribune

CNBC

Attempts to stop some of the world’s biggest companies shifting profits across borders to avoid paying tax are “in peril” following Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election win, experts say.

 

Financial Times