Company news in brief

Airlines to pull some Boeing jets from serviceAirlines suspended the use of dozens of 737 MAX jets on Friday after Boeing Co warned them of a possible electrical fault in the production of some planes.The glitch is the latest problem to beset the US planemaker's most-sold model but is not related to cockpit safety issues that led to an almost two year grounding, lifted five months ago. The grounding followed two crashes that killed 346 people.The top three US 737 MAX operators - Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines - said they had removed more than 60 jets from service following the notice from Boeing.The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Boeing had notified it late Thursday of its recommendation to temporarily remove some planes from service to address a manufacturing issue that could affect the operation of a backup power control unit.Boeing said in a statement that it wants 16 MAX operators to check and verify that a "sufficient ground path" exists for a component of the electrical power system. – Nampa/ReutersAramco agrees US$12.4 bn dealSaudi oil producer Aramco has agreed a US$12.4 billion deal to sell a 49% stake in its pipelines to a consortium led by US-based EIG Global Energy Partners.Announced late on Friday, it is the company's largest deal since its record US$29.4 billion initial public offering in late 2019.The lease and leaseback agreement includes a 49% stake of newly formed Aramco Oil Pipelines Co and rights to 25 years of tariff payments for oil carried on Aramco's pipelines, it said in a statement. Aramco will retain a 51% stake in the new company.Aramco will retain operational control of the pipeline network and assume all operating and capital expense risk, the companies said. The deal will have no impact on Aramco's oil production.Abu Dhabi's National Oil Co (ADNOC) has signed similar deals over the last two years, raising billions of dollars through sale-and-leaseback agreements tied to its oil and gas pipelines. – Nampa/ReutersAlibaba hit with record antitrust fineChina slapped a record 18 billion yuan (US$2.75 billion) fine on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Saturday, after an anti-monopoly probe found the e-commerce giant had abused its dominant market position for several years.The fine, about 4% of Alibaba's 2019 domestic revenues, comes amid a crackdown on technology conglomerates and indicates China's antitrust enforcement on internet platforms has entered a new era after years of laissez-faire approach.The Alibaba business empire has come under intense scrutiny in China since billionaire founder Jack Ma's stinging public criticism of the country's regulatory system in October."This penalty will be viewed as a closure to the anti-monopoly case for now by the market. It's indeed the highest profile anti-monopoly case in China," said Hong Hao, head of research BOCOM International in Hong Kong.The State Administration for Market Regulation said it had determined that Alibaba, which is listed in New York and Hong Kong, had been "abusing market dominance" since 2015 by preventing its merchants from using other online e-commerce platforms. – Nampa/ReutersSky to cut total workforce in ItalyItaly's top pay-TV player Sky plans to reduce its total workforce, including contractors, by 25% under a four year re-organisation plan, unions said on Friday, as part of a wider overhaul in response to stiffer competition in the industry.The cuts are expected to yield savings of about 300 million euro (US$356.76 million), national unions Slc Cgil, Fistel Cisl and Uilcom said in a statement.Sky, owned by US company Comcast, intends to manage the redundancies through agreements with the unions, avoiding unilateral actions, the unions said.Sky currently employs nearly 11 000 people in Italy, including some 5 000 direct employees.The pay-TV broadcaster's operating model has been challenged by streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and DAZN, which offer flat-rate deals to view movies, series and premium sport content via internet-enabled devices. – Nampa/ReutersLinkedIn says some user data posted for saleSome LinkedIn data, including publicly viewable member profile, has been extracted and posted for sale, Microsoft Corp's professional networking site said based on an investigation.The incident was not a data breach and no private member account data from the platform was included, LinkedIn said, adding that the information on sale is a collection of data from a number of websites and companies.LinkedIn declined to provide more details on the incident, including the number of users affected.CyberNews had reported on April 6 that an archive of data scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles was put for sale on a popular hacker forum.Facebook Inc last week said "malicious actors" had obtained data prior to September 2019 by "scraping" profiles using a vulnerability in the platform's tool for syncing contacts. – Nampa/Reuters

Company news in brief

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Namibian Sun 2025-03-12

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Company news in brief

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Namibian Sun 2025-03-12

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