JPMorgan fined $200M after staff used personal chats for company business
JPMorgan Chase was fined $200 million by regulators Friday for failing to track work-related communication on employees’ personal cellphones and email. Staff members in the bank’s securities division avoided oversight by discussing company business on their personal devices via text messages, messaging service WhatsApp and personal email accounts, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which fined the bank $125 million. The bank’s “widespread and long-standing failures” spanned from January 2018 to November 2020, the SEC said. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also fined the bank $75 million in a separate enforcement order for similar misconduct dating back to 2015.
Former McDonald’s CEO repays company $105M
Former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook, who was ousted in 2019 for having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, has returned $105 million in cash and stock to the company. Easterbrook has been engaged in a contentious battle with McDonald’s for the past year, after the company sued him for lying to investigators at the time of his dismissal. As part of the deal announced Thursday, McDonald’s agreed to drop its lawsuit against Easterbrook. In a message to employees, Enrique Hernandez Jr., McDonald’s chair, said the company wanted to hold Easterbrook “accountable for his lies and misconduct, including the way in which he exploited his position as CEO.”
EV maker Rivian will build new factory in Georgia
Rivian Automotive, an electric vehicle company that had an initial public offering last month, said Thursday that it planned to spend $5 billion to build its second factory, in Georgia. The announcement, which came on the same day that Rivian said it lost $1.2 billion in the three months ended in September, was the latest investment by an automaker aiming to capture a big chunk of the fast-growing electric vehicle market. Rivian’s new Georgia plant, east of Atlanta in Morgan and Walton counties, will have the capacity to produce up to 400,000 vehicles a year. The plant is expected to eventually employ 7,500 people.
Appeals court reinstates OSHA’s vaccine mandate for workers at larger businesses
A federal appeals panel Friday reinstated a Biden administration rule requiring that many companies mandate their workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face weekly testing. The decision, by a split three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Cincinnati, overturned a ruling by its counterpart in New Orleans, the 5th Circuit, that had blocked the rule last month. Issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the rule is expected to make its way to the Supreme Court. The rule orders that businesses with at least 100 employees have until Jan. 4 to mandate COVID vaccinations for their workers.
By wire sources