Category Archives: Commerce

Manhattan US Attorney To Scale Back Crypto Cases, Prosecutor Says

Commerce, crypto currency

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan will devote fewer resources to policing cryptocurrency crimes after securing several major convictions, including that of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a senior prosecutor said on Friday, Reuters reported.

Scott Hartman, co-chief of the securities and commodities task force at the Southern District of New York, gave his assessment one day after President-elect Trump’s former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair Jay Clayton to become U.S. attorney there.

Hartman said the office would not ignore crypto cases, but has fewer prosecutors working on them when digital asset prices collapsed in 2022, a period known as “crypto winter.”

“You won’t see as much crypto stuff coming out of at least the SDNY in the future,” Hartman said at a conference hosted by the Practicing Law Institute in New York.

“We brought a lot of big cases in the wake of the crypto winter — there were a lot of important fraud cases to bring there — but we know or regulatory partners are very active in this space,” Hartman said, referring to agencies such as the the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Watcher.Guru reported the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office plan to reduce its pursuit of crypto cases and devote fewer resources to policing crypto crimes, prosecutors said Friday. This comes after the office succeeded in multiple recent crypto cases, including against Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX.

Scott Hartmann co-chief of the securities and commodities task force at the Southern District of New York, spoke Friday about the office’s future efforts in crypto cases. Hartman said the office would not ignore crypto cases but ha fewer prosecutors working on them than in recent years.

This assessment comes just one day after new president-elect Donald Trump nominated former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair Jay Clayton to become the next US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Cointelegraph reported: Scott Hartman reportedly said in New York’s Southern District had filed “a lot of big cases” after a crypto market downturn but suggested it was petering out.

A prosecutor with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has suggested that authorities are devoting fewer resources to brining cases involving cryptocurrency-related crimes.

Speaking at the Practicing Law Institute’s 56th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation on Nov. 15, Scott Hartman reportedly said there would not be “as much crypto stuff coming out of at least the SDNY in the future.” 

Hartman, the co-chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force at SDNY, hinted that many of its criminal cases against high-profile executives like former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried were filed in response to the crypto market downturn of 2022.

In my opinion, it sounds like the U.S. Attorney’s Office is lessening the amount of people who go after cryptocurrency crimes. 

 

New California Law Will Force Companies To Admit You Don’t Own Digital Content

Commerce

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law (AB 2426) to combat “disappearing” purchases of digital games, movies, music and ebooks. The legislation will force digital storefronts to tell customers they’re just getting a license to use the digital media, rather than suggesting they actually own it. The Verge reported.

When the law comes into affect next year, it will ban digital storefronts from using terms like “buy” or “purchase,” unless they inform customers that they’re not getting unrestricted access to whatever they’re buying. 

Storefronts will have to tell customers they’re buying a license that can be revoked as well as provide a list of all the restrictions that come along with it. Companies that break the rule could be find for false advertising.

“As retailers continue to pivot away from selling physical media, the need for consumer protections on the purchase of digital media has become increasingly more important,” California Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin said in a press release. “I thank the Governor for signing AB 2426, ensuring the false and deceptive advertising form sellers of digital media incorrectly telling consumers they own their purchases becomes a thing of the past.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom posted the following:

Making it easier to cancel subscriptions

AB 2826 by Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) address complicated auto-renewing subscription services that are easy to sign up for but hard to cancel. The bill requires companies offering offering automatic renewals and continuous services to provide consumers a means to cancel the subscription using the same medium they used to sign up; for example, a person who subscribes online has to be given an online click-to-cancel option. This ensures that consumers can easily exit from services they no longer want, without being trapped by confusing processes or hidden fees.

“At a time when too many in our community are struggling, unwanted subscription renewals can really add up. AB 2863 is the most comprehensive ‘Click to Cancel’ legislation in the nation, ensuring Californians can cancel unwanted automatic subscription renewals just as easily as they signed up — with just a click or two,” said Assemblymember Schiavo.

“California is setting a model for the nation on protecting consumers from unnecessary charges — giving them more control over their finances and helping small businesses. I’m grateful for that this important legislation was signed, as it will mean more money in the pockets of people throughout our community.”

Engadget reported California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2426, a new law that requires digital marketplaces to make clearer to customers when they are only purchasing a license to access the media.

The law will not apply to cases of offline permanent downloads, only to the all-too-common situation of buying digital copies of video games, music, movies, TV shows or ebooks from an online storefront. 

The move to digital storefronts has raised new parallel concerns about ownership and preservation for media in the modern age, Ubisoft’s move to delete The Crew from players’ libraries after the game’s servers shuttered is one of the most recent examples of how customers can suddenly lose access to media they owned. 

The new California law won’t stop situations like The Crew’s disappearance from happening, and it won’t stop those losses from hiring. But it does make clearer that ownership is a pretty rare and intangible thing for digital media.

In my opinion, if a company decides to remove video game content, that consumers paid for, it makes that company untrustworthy. It is unfair to sell a product and then grab it away from those who purchased it without warning.

Crypto To See Tighter Tax Rules Starting In 2026

Commerce, , ,

The Biden administration took a long-delayed step against tax evasion in cryptocurrency markets, though it left some work unfinished amid fierce lobbying by companies like Coinbase, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Treasury Department adopted a final rule Friday requiring many cryptocurrency platforms to report information about their users’ transactions to the Internal Revenue Service. Officials say the measure should deter tax evasion by making it clear to would-be miscreants that the IRS knows how much they owe.

It will also help law-abiding crypto investors by giving them a simple 1099 form each year, similar to those banks and brokers have long provided customers. In the absence of formal IRS rules, many crypto investors rely on an unregulated cottage industry of expensive, and often imprecise, service providers to estimate tax obligations.

The U.S. Department of The Treasury posted:

As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s implementation of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), and the Internal Revenue Service Service (IRS) today released final regulations on the IIJA’s reporting requirements with longstanding reporting requirements for traditional financial services.

Owners of digital assets have always owed tax on the sale of exchange of digital assets, and the IIJA did not change that or impose any new taxes on digital assets. It simply created reporting requirements, similar to those that already applied to traditional financial services, to help taxpayers file accurate returns and pay taxes owed under current law.

The final regulations announced today will require brokers to report gross proceeds on the sale of digital assets beginning in 2026 for all sale in 2025. Brokers will be required to also report information on the tax basis for certain digital assets beginning in 2027 for sales in 2026…

The U.S. IRS posted:

The U.S. Department of The Treasury and Internal Revenue Service today issued final regulations requiring custodial brokers to report sales and exchanges of digital assets, including cryptocurrency. These reporting requirements will help taxpayers to file accurate tax returns with respect to digital asset transactions, which are already subject to tax under current law.

These final regulations reflect consideration of more than 44,000 public comments received last fall on the proposed regulations. They require brokers to report certain sale and exchange transactions that take place beginning in calendar year 2025 and will be reported on the soon-to-be released Form 1099 -DA. The regulations implement reporting requirements by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, enacted in 2021…

…The final regulations require reporting by brokers who take possession of the digital assets being sold by their customers. These brokers include operators of custodial digital asset trading payments (PDAPs). The majority of digital asset transactions today occur by using the brokers…

In my opinion, these new rules could be the start of the regulation of cryptocurrency. This might be annoying to those have been buying or selling crypto without government oversight.

Qualcomm Wants Permission to Sell Chips to Huawei

Commerce,

The Wall Street Journal reported that Qualcomm Inc. is lobbying the Trump Administration to roll back restrictions on the sale of advanced components to Huawei Technologies. Qualcomm wants to sell chips for Huawei 5G phones.

Qualcomm is telling U.S. policy makers their export ban won’t stop Huawei from obtaining necessary components and just risks handing billions of dollars of Huawei sales to the firm’s overseas competitors, according to a presentation reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that the San Diego-based company has been circulating around Washington.

In May of 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce unveiled a rule that expands U.S. authority to require licenses for sales to Huawei Technologies of semiconductors made abroad with U.S. technology. The rule greatly expanded the ability of the United States to halt exports to Huawei.

The result of the rule is that Huawei is running out of smartphone chips. The company no longer has the access to the manufacturing it needs to continue making the Mate 40s Krin 9000 processor. As such, supplies of the Mate 40 smartphone will be limited.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Qualcomm is arguing that granting it a license to sell chips to Huawei would generate billions of dollars in sales for Qualcomm and help it fund development of new technologies.

Qualcomm’s lobbying effort comes after a resolution of a patent-rights dispute with Huawei. Qualcomm will receive a $1.8 billion lump-sum payment from Huawei to cover previously unpaid licensing fees. The settlement includes a multiyear agreement to license Qualcomm’s patented technologies for Huawei use.

Based on this, it seems to me that Qualcomm will have a problem if it fails to convince the U.S. government to grant it the license it is seeking. I don’t see how the company could make use of the multiyear agreement with Huawei without having that license.

U.S. Blocks Global Chip Supplies to Huawei Technologies

Commerce

The U.S. Department of Commerce unveiled a new rule that expands U.S. authority to require licenses for sales to Huawei Technologies of semiconductors made abroad with U.S. technology, according to Reuters, who was the first to report this. The new rule will enable the United States to vastly expand its ability to halt exports to Huawei Technologies.

Part of the wording of the Department of Commerce’s rule says:

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) today announced plans to protect U.S. national security by restricting Huawei’s ability to use U.S. technology and software to design and manufacture its semiconductors abroad. This announcement cuts off Huawei’s efforts to undermine U.S. export controls. BIS is amending its longstanding foreign-produced direct product rule and the Entity List to narrowly and strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.

The Commerce Department’s rule, effective Friday but with a 120-day grace period, also hits Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, the biggest contract chipmaker and key Huawei supplier, which announced plans to build a U.S.-based plant on Thursday.

According to Reuters, China’s response to this new rule is that Beijing is ready to put U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list”. The measure includes launching investigations and imposing restrictions on U.S. companies such as Apple Inc., Cisco Systems Inc, Qualcomm Inc, and the suspension of purchases of Boeing Co airplanes.

Vodafone to Remove Huawei from European Networks

Commerce,

Vodafone is going to strip Huawei systems out of the core of its European network, according to Financial Times. Doing so will cost €200m as the European telecoms sector moves to adapt to new limits on the use Huawei’s equipment. Financial Times reported that Vodofone Chief executive Nick Read said the process would take five years because of the complexity of removing systems critical to its network.

The Guardian reported that Nick Read said the Huawei equipment replacement program would have “very limited financial impact” on its UK operations as they were already mostly compliant with the new government measures.

In January of 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson approved the use of equipment made by “high-risk vendors”, but restricted access to “sensitive core” parts of the network. It is understood that “high-risk vendors” was a reference to Huawei. The UK will exclude “high-risk vendors” from all “safety critical networks” in the UK.

Huawei posted a statement on its Twitter account about the UK’s 5G decision. The statement said:

“Huawei is reassured by the UK government’s confirmation that we can continue working with our customers to keep the 5G roll-out on track. This evidence-based decision will result in a more advanced, more secure and more cost-effective telecoms infrastructure that is fit for the future. It gives the UK access to world-leading technology and ensures a competitive market.”

“We have supplies cutting-edge technology to telecoms operators in the UK for more than 15 years. We will build on this strong track record, supporting our customers as they invest in their 5G networks, boosting economic growth and helping the UK continue to compete globally.”

“We agree a diverse vendor market and fair competition are essential for network reliability and innovation, as well as ensuring consumers have access to the best possible technology.”

Also in January of 2020, the European Union unveiled security guidelines for next generation high-speed wireless networks. Their recommendations don’t specifically call for a ban on Huawei. Instead, its recommendations include blocking high-risk equipment suppliers from “critical and sensitive” parts of the network, including the core, which keeps track of data and authenticates smartphones connecting to cell towers.

That said, individual countries in the EU would be able to decide for themselves what kind of role Huawei will play in their own wireless network infrastructure.

AirPaper Cancels Comcast Bills for $5.00

Commerce,

AirPaper logoThere are a lot of reasons to cancel service with an ISP or cable TV provider. Perhaps the quality of service has gone done hill. Or maybe a competitor has offered a better deal. It could also be something as simple as moving out of that particular company’s service area. Whatever the reason, these companies have become notoriously difficult about letting customers cancel their service.

That’s where a clever new service called AirPaper comes in. For a small fee of $5.00, AirPaper removes the hassle of calling Comcast yourself when it’s time to cancel service. AirPaper will cancel the service using a quasi-loophole in Comcast’s terms of service.

Apparently, Comcast offers its customers two ways to cut the cord. The first one (and the one everyone would prefer to avoid) is by phone. The other is thru the mail. AirPaper gathers a customer’s details, determines which Comcast office is closest to them, and then composes a goodbye later and mails it directly to Comcast.

And AirPaper isn’t stopping with Comcast. The company is currently planning on developing systems to help with obtaining a San Francisco parking permit, registering a San Francisco business, and getting a Visa to travel to China.

Is there a bureaucratic process you think AirPaper should tackle? The company has an open form on its website where it’s accepting suggestions.