All posts tagged: company

Libbie Mugrabi in Legal Battle with Art-Backed Lending Company

Libbie Mugrabi in Legal Battle with Art-Backed Lending Company

Published by skeptic

Libbie Mugrabi, the New York–based socialite, art collector, and ex-wife of top art collector David Mugrabi, is embroiled in an ongoing legal battle with the art-backed lending company Art Capital Group (ACG) and its executives, Ian Peck and Terence Doran, over a $3 million loan that never materialized.  In court documents, ACG claimed that Mugrabi failed to pay fees associated with a loan application. As collateral, Mugrabi allegedly put up a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting stained with the artist’s blood worth at least $30 million. When Mugrabi couldn’t come up with the $12,500 due diligence fee, the suit claims, she offered another picture, a $1.5 million Andy Warhol portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as security.  Related Articles When the loan was denied “due to her checkered credit history and one or more substantial judgments against her,” the lawsuit said, ACG claimed that Mugrabi reported the Warhol as stolen to the police in Southampton. The suit also alleges that she posted “Wanted” posters with the faces of both Peck and Doran, along with their names, ages, race and …

Company hacked after accidentally hiring North Korean cyber criminal | Science & Tech News

Company hacked after accidentally hiring North Korean cyber criminal | Science & Tech News

Published by skeptic

A company was hacked after it hired a North Korean cyber criminal posing as an IT contractor. The unnamed company fell victim to a new North Korean hacking tactic, according to cybersecurity company Secureworks, which investigated the incident. A North Korean cyber criminal posing as an IT contractor was hired for a fixed-term contract by the firm, which is based either in the UK, US or Australia. Secureworks is keeping the company’s location general in order to protect the company. Within days of starting work, the criminal “accessed and exfiltrated company data”, according to Rafe Pilling, who is the director of threat intelligence at Secureworks. Then, when the employment contract was finished, the criminal used the hacked data “to demand a hefty ransom in return for not publishing” it, said Mr Pilling. This is a new tactic for the North Korean regime, which was already trying to sneak its workers into UK companies. “It is almost certain that UK firms are currently being targeted by [North Korean] IT workers disguised as freelance third-country IT workers …

A Natural Gas Company Just Became the First to Be Sued Over Climate Change

A Natural Gas Company Just Became the First to Be Sued Over Climate Change

Published by José

Gas utilities “continue to deceptively market methane gas as a climate solution.” Rapacious Conspiracy For the first time ever, a natural gas company is being sued by a local government for misleading customers about fossil fuels and the dangers they pose to the environment. As the New York Times reports, Oregon’s Multnomah County has added the gas utility NW Natural to its lawsuit that includes Shell, Exxon, McKinsey, and dozens of other companies for allegedly hiding or obfuscating their roles in climate degradation. In the suit, which also named the Koch and big oil-funded nonprofit Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, the county alleges that NW Natural and other entities conspired “rapaciously” to sell their services and products while covering up their own parts in climate change. This “scheme,” the suit alleges, resulted in the Pacific Northwest’s deadly “heat dome” temperatures in 2021 that killed at least 69 people in Multnomah County alone. “More people died from the June 2021 heat wave in Multnomah County than died from heat in the entire state of Oregon …

Philip Morris sells asthma inhaler company, citing ‘unwarranted opposition’ to its goals : NPR

Philip Morris sells asthma inhaler company, citing ‘unwarranted opposition’ to its goals : NPR

Published by Sam

Cigarette and tobacco company Philip Morris International is selling Vectura, a British pharmaceutical firm that makes asthma inhalers. An office of the company is seen here in Neuchatel, western Switzerland. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images Three years after raising health groups’ suspicions by acquiring Vectura, a British pharmaceutical firm that makes asthma inhalers, cigarette giant Philip Morris International has made a deal to sell off the inhaler business. Philip Morris says that under its corporate umbrella, the asthma inhaler business was hindered by “unwarranted opposition to PMI’s transformation” from a Big Tobacco stalwart into a broadly based health company. Health groups have met this stated goal with skepticism. The maker of Marlboro cigarettes is selling Vectura to Molex Asia Holdings Ltd., which plans to operate the inhaler business as part of its Phillips Medisize unit, which produces drugs and medical devices. The two-part sale includes an upfront cash payment of 150 million pounds sterling — around $200 million, at Friday’s exchange rate. The deal also calls …

Laura Loomer Ate Dog Food for a Company That Is Obsessed With “Masculinity” and Being “Naked”

Laura Loomer Ate Dog Food for a Company That Is Obsessed With “Masculinity” and Being “Naked”

Published by Sam

Last week, Derek Guy, the ultra-online brain behind the X account @dieworkwear, posted a screenshot of one of Laura Loomer’s recent posts, along with this: “i setup a fake dog food company last month, bought purina at the pet store, and paid laura loomer $100 for this post,” sparking confusion. Was Guy trolling? How deep did the troll go? Did Loomer really eat dog food—“bison topper”? And if Guy hadn’t gotten her to do it, who had? To peel back the first layer of the onion, let’s look at the source material. Loomer, the conservative extremist and Donald Trump’s recently appointed right-hand-woman who Marjorie Taylor Greene called “extremely racist,” did indeed post a video on September 6 in which she nom-noms some woof-woofs. Her former boss James O’Keefe, the ousted CEO of Project Veritas, described her in the foreword to Loomer’s 2021 memoir, Loomered, as “[not] wired like other people.” It’s as if, he writes, she is in possession of a brain that “doesn’t process information like the rest of us.” O’Keefe also notes that …

Chinese Company Places .2 B. Bid for K11 Art Mall in Hong Kong

Chinese Company Places $1.2 B. Bid for K11 Art Mall in Hong Kong

Published by skeptic

In a shock development that sparked headlines in Bloomberg, the Business Times, and Sing Tao this past week, K11 Art Mall in Hong Kong’s shopping district, Tsim Sha Tsui, received a $1.2 billion offer from CR Longdation, a state-owned Chinese company and a subsidiary of China Resources Holdings Co. K11 Art Mall is owned by Hong Kong–based property firm New World Development, which was founded by Cheng Yu-tung in 1970. His son, the billionaire Henry Cheng, is its chairman. Cheng’s grandson, Adrian Cheng, currently serves as the company’s CEO and is a familiar face on the annual ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list. Related Articles Per Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the family is worth more than $20 billion. Adrian Cheng launched the K11 Group, which includes various entities such as K11 Craft and Guild Foundation and the K11 Art Foundation. The latter, an internationally renowned foundation, has staged more than 60 exhibitions across China’s major cities and beyond, showcasing works by some of the world’s leading contemporary artists, including Katharina Grosse, Guan Xiao, Neïl Beloufa, Zhang Enli, and …

How the Oldest Company in the World, Japan’s Temple-Builder Kongō Gumi, Has Survived Nearly 1,500 Years

How the Oldest Company in the World, Japan’s Temple-Builder Kongō Gumi, Has Survived Nearly 1,500 Years

Published by José

Image from New York Pub­lic Library, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons If you vis­it Osa­ka, you’ll be urged to see two old build­ings in par­tic­u­lar: Osa­ka Cas­tle and Shiten­nō-ji (above), Japan’s first Bud­dhist tem­ple. In behold­ing both, you’ll behold the work of con­struc­tion firm Kongō Gumi (金剛組), the old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly run com­pa­ny in the world. It was with the build­ing of Shiten­nō-ji, com­mis­sioned by Prince Shō­toku Taishi in the year 578, that brought it into exis­tence in the first place. Back then, “Japan was pre­dom­i­nant­ly Shin­to and had no miyadaiku (car­pen­ters trained in the art of build­ing Bud­dhist tem­ples),” writes Irene Her­rera at Works that Work, “so the prince hired three skilled men from Baek­je, a Bud­dhist state in what is now Korea,” among them a cer­tain Kongō Shiget­su. There­after, Kongō Gumi con­tin­ued to oper­ate inde­pen­dent­ly for more than 1,400 years, run by 40 gen­er­a­tions of Kongō Shiget­su’s descen­dants. By the time Toy­oto­mi Hideyoshi had the com­pa­ny build Osa­ka Cas­tle in 1583, it had been estab­lished for near­ly a mil­len­ni­um. In the cen­turies since, “the cas­tle has …

Chinese Company Approved to Test Robotaxis in California

Chinese Company Approved to Test Robotaxis in California

Published by José

More robotaxis, more problems. Taxi! Chinese startup WeRide got the green light to test out its squad of autonomous vehicles in California, according to Reuters. The approval comes with some notable caveats: the three-year permit prohibits WeRide from accepting fares or transporting the general public, the news agency reports. WeRide will be testing out its fleet of just 12 vehicles in and around San Jose, with or without a company driver behind the wheel, along with passengers made of WeRide personnel. WeRide, which has permits for robotaxis in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, is joining the crowded streets in California, where rival and Google spinoff Waymo has made steady inroads as a robotaxi service in San Francisco and now Los Angeles. It remains to be seen if WeRide’s foray into California will be a success. Robotaxis have been met with a mixed reception from the public — and regulators alike. Traffic Jam Case in point, General Motors’ Cruise had to take its entire fleet off the roads last year after a woman became stuck …

Walsall: Local company admits it is behind ‘serious’ chemical spill as around 100 fish die in canal | UK News

Walsall: Local company admits it is behind ‘serious’ chemical spill as around 100 fish die in canal | UK News

Published by Sam

A local company has said it is responsible for a spillage of toxic chemicals after around 100 fish died in a West Midlands canal that is being tested for sodium cyanide and other substances. Anochrome Ltd, a supplier of specialist surface coatings and other services, said in a statement on Wednesday a “chemical incident occurred” at its site in Walsall early on Monday and “regrettably, as a result, some of the released chemicals entered a canal in Walsall. It said it had immediately contacted the Environment Agency and Severn Trent Water and senior managers were working on site with “all relevant agencies” to minimise and contain the spill. Walsall Council said the Environment Agency told it about a spillage that went directly into the canal in Pleck, West Midlands, on Monday. A major incident was declared, involving police, the fire service, the Canal and Rivers Trust and Severn Trent Water. There is potentially a “serious risk to health” if people or their pets are exposed to the chemical by touching the water, the council said. …