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By Mike Scarcella WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a bid by Europe's largest software maker SAP to avoid a lawsuit by U.S. data technology company Teradata that accused it of violating American antitrust law. The justices turned away SAP's appeal of a lower court's decision that let Teradata pursue claims that its larger German rival violated U.S. antitrust law by tying sales of business-planning applications to the purchase of a key SAP database that can perform transactional and analytical functions. San Diego-based Teradata makes a rival analytics database. Teradata filed its lawsuit against SAP in federal court in California in 2018. SAP has denied any wrongdoing. A judge has scheduled an April 2026 trial on Teradata's claims, as well as on a counterclaim that SAP lodged against Teradata accusing it of patent infringement. SAP sells "enterprise resource planning" software to companies that lets them manage data used in daily activities such as finance and supply-chain operations. Teradata makes a database that can provide analytics on such a substantial amount of data. The company said SAP customers relied on other tech companies like Teradata to handle the data that SAP's applications produced. The lawsuit accused SAP of illegally tying sales of its business operations software with a new product that was developed to compete with Teradata's database. Two key legal standards guide how judges resolve whether conduct restrains competition: the "per se rule," under which alleged conduct is presumed illegal; and the "rule of reason," under which judges balance between anticompetitive effects and a defendant's procompetitive justification. SAP won in the district court, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived Teradata's case in 2024. The 9th Circuit said there was a material dispute between the companies that a jury could take up and decide. The 9th Circuit, using a version of the "per se rule," applied too stringent a standard in evaluating Teradata's claims, SAP told the Supreme Court in a filing. SAP said the 9th Circuit's ruling clashed with how another federal appeals court in Washington in 2001 resolved a landmark antitrust case against Microsoft. In its filing at the Supreme Court, SAP said its two products were integrated, and that such integration benefits consumers and allows companies to compete effectively. Teradata urged the justices to reject SAP's appeal. It disputed that SAP's two products were integrated and also denied there was any divide among the federal appeals courts about which rules judges should use to evaluate antitrust lawsuits. Meta Platforms and Microsoft jointly submitted a friend-of-the-court brief backing SAP at the Supreme Court. (Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Vallari Srivastava (Reuters) -Shares of Critical Metals surged over 62% on Monday after Reuters reported the U.S. government was in talks to buy a stake in the miner, the latest in Washington's deal-making push to secure the supply of rare earths. A deal, if successful, would give the U.S. government a direct interest in the largest rare earths project in Greenland, a strategically important and mineral-rich Arctic territory that President Donald Trump has previously suggested the U.S. should take over. "A U.S. stake in (Tanbreez) would mark a significant step toward building a diversified 'mine-to-magnet' supply chain independent of China," said Neha Mukherjee, a research manager at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Washington has been pushing to secure critical minerals and reduce reliance on China, taking stakes in producers such as Lithium Americas and MP Materials. The government is not just backing domestic projects, it is also targeting overseas assets in resource-rich but underdeveloped regions, Mukherjee said. "It also signals that we could see more such deals emerge, particularly in early-stage projects with significant resource potential." Critical Metals had acquired Greenland's Tanbreez rare earth deposit last year for $5 million in cash and $211 million in stock. The company applied earlier this year for a $50 million Defense Production Act grant, which Washington has since discussed converting into an equity stake, the Reuters report said, citing four sources. If finalized, that conversion would equal roughly an 8% stake, though talks remain preliminary, the sources said. Separately, Critical Metals said it agreed to raise $35 million from an unnamed institutional investor to fund Tanbreez's development. Shares have gained more than 91% this year, including Monday's gains. As of last close, the company was valued at $787 million. On Monday, the firm also said it has restated financial statements for the six months ended December 31, 2024, and 2023, cautioning investors not to rely on the earlier reports. (Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Leroy Leo)

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By Joel Jose (Reuters) -Brokerages are largely bullish on buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) lender Klarna as they begin coverage on Monday, though some warn that rising costs could pressure near-term profitability. Shares of the Swedish fintech are up 6.5% in early morning trading. Klarna made its long-awaited U.S. public debut last month at $52 a share, above its initial IPO pricing of $40, after shelving its listing plans in April amid tariff-driven market turbulence. The offering capped the company's years-long push to go public and signaled a broader resurgence in the U.S. IPO market. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley were among the underwriters for the offering. "We view Klarna as the market leader in BNPL solutions, with a particularly strong franchise in Europe, where we believe Klarna is a new, emerging closed loop payment scheme," analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note. Klarna is the largest Swedish company to list its shares in the U.S. since music streaming giant Spotify in 2018. Founded in 2005 when online shopping was still in its early stages, Klarna has grown into a major player in BNPL, offering short-term installment options – a model that gained significant traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite being profitable for its first 14 years, Klarna has faced losses in recent years as it expanded in the U.S. and other markets. Analysts at Citigroup said short-term profitability could be hit by rising costs in Klarna's growing Fair Financing business, but they expect margins to recover by full-year 2026 as that segment matures and the company deepens its presence in the U.S. and Europe. Shares of the company have fallen about 22% from their September 10 opening price and have traded as low as $35.60, amid a broader sell-off in fintech stocks. "Ability to attract and retain higher income and higher FICO consumers will be key to long-term success", analysts at Morgan Stanley noted. FICO is the most widely used consumer credit score in the United States.Some analysts said Klarna trades at a "healthy" discount to U.S.-based rival Affirm, whose shares have surged about 23% this year, presenting a longer-term opportunity to close the gap though it may require multiple quarters of solid execution. (Reporting by Joel Jose in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

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By Dawn Chmielewski LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -When Bari Weiss walks into CBS News as editor-in-chief, she'll bring something the former home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite has not seen in its nearly century-long history: a leader whose career has been built on challenging journalism’s most august institutions. The 41-year-old journalist's ascent from opinion page and book review editor to network news chief represents one of the most unorthodox appointments in broadcast journalism history.  Paramount Skydance acquired Weiss's online publication The Free Press in a deal announced on Monday, elevating its iconoclastic founder to the new role where she will report directly to Paramount CEO David Ellison. The deal is valued at $150 million, according to a source familiar with the deal terms. A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.  BUILT A MEDIA COMPANY FROM SCRATCH Unlike her predecessors, Weiss has never managed a television newsroom, never operated foreign bureaus, and is not known to have produced broadcast news content. What she has done is build a media company from scratch after walking away from the New York Times in 2020 with a blistering resignation letter accusing it of abandoning its role of writing the first draft of history in favor of satisfying “the narrowest of audiences.” "She is unwaveringly fair and balanced and rational," said Bobby Kotick, the former Activision CEO who became an early investor in The Free Press. "She has this ability to break through clutter, avoid noise, avoid bias, and she has a willingness to learn. She doesn't come to any conversation with a preconceived judgment." Weiss defies easy characterization, though she has sometimes been called a “radical centrist.” At a TED Talk in April 2024, she said she voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for president in 2016 and 2020. She is pro-choice, proudly pro-Israel, and believes in gay marriage “so much so that I’m actually in one myself.” But she also believes that mandatory school lockdowns during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic were “a big mistake” and that people should be hired based on merit. “I am — or at least until a few seconds ago in historical time, I used to be — considered a standard-issue liberal,” said Weiss at the TED Talk. “And yet somehow, in our most intellectual and prestigious spaces, many of the ideas I just outlined and others like them, have become provocative or controversial, which is really a polite way of saying unwelcome.” Ahead of the deal’s formal announcement, Weiss’s expected arrival at CBS News was met with a mixture of concern and optimism. One senior executive who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed hope that she would revitalize the struggling Tiffany network, while another articulated concern about her lack of experience managing a sprawling global television news network. BOOK EXAMINED RISING ANTISEMITISM Weiss' journalism often circles back to her Jewish identity. As a sophomore at Columbia University, she was a member of a group of Jewish students who complained they were intimidated by pro-Palestinian professors for their views. The university convened a panel to investigate the allegations, but found only one instance of unacceptable behavior. Her book, "How to Fight Anti-Semitism," examined rising antisemitism through the lens of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh—the very synagogue where she became a bat mitzvah. Eleven Jews were murdered as they prayed in what remains the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. Early in her career, Weiss worked as a senior editor at Tablet, an online magazine of Jewish life, before joining the Wall Street Journal in 2013. She spent four years as an op-ed and book review editor, leaving after encountering resistance to political op-ed pieces that were viewed as “too anti-Trump,” she told Reason magazine. Weiss joined the New York Times as a staff editor and writer in the opinion section in 2017 to expand the ideological range of the opinion staff during Trump’s first term, according to an account in the Times. She would later describe the experience as a whipsaw-like transition, going from “being the most progressive person at the Wall Street Journal to being the most right-winged person at the New York Times.” She departed the Times in 2020, complaining about a culture of intolerance in an open letter of resignation addressed to publisher A.G. Sulzberger, in which she said she was “the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views.”  Weiss launched a newsletter initially called Common Sense, which would evolve into The Free Press. The publication now tops Substack's U.S. politics rankings with 1.25 million subscribers, including 155,000 paid members generating an estimated $15 million annually.  AUDIENCE 'WANTS TO BE TOLD THE TRUTH' In a 2022 interview with the Hoover Institution, Weiss described her target audience as the "exhausted, self-silencing majority" who reject the binary political views of Fox News and MSNBC.  In the interview, she said she believed there was a "huge" audience "that wants to be told the truth, even when it's inconvenient to them," adding that people want to understand "the world as it actually is, because that's how you make actual decisions about where to move, how to raise your family, where your kids go to school, what to invest in." That philosophy has led The Free Press into contentious territory. When Elon Musk invited a handful of journalists to review Twitter's internal documents in 2022, Weiss was among them, publishing stories about platform censorship that revealed "how a handful of private companies can influence public discourse profoundly."  In 2023, Weiss called for dismantling institutional diversity, equity and inclusion programs, writing that the movement "threatens not just Jews—but America itself." Last month, The Free Press published an interview with a medical expert who said he does not believe vaccines cause autism but that “the scientific establishment blindly defending the U.S. vaccine schedule is incorrect." "We focus on stories that are ignored or misconstrued in the service of an ideological narrative," Weiss wrote about The Free Press's mission. "For us, curiosity isn't a liability. It's a necessity."  Weiss' fierce independence has attracted prominent backers including venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz, and hedge fund tycoon Paul Marshall. A $15 million funding round in 2024 valued The Free Press at $100 million. The company has expanded beyond its newsletter to include podcasts such as its flagship Honestly with Bari Weiss and live events. At a summer meeting with media journalists, Ellison acknowledged the network's heritage—home to Walter Cronkite, the trusted anchorman who guided Americans through JFK's assassination and the Vietnam War—while pledging future investment. "Being the trust business and being the truth business and being the facts business is something that is incredibly important to me," Ellison said. "It's a vital part of our democracy." Whether Weiss's curiosity can coexist with the demands of a legacy broadcast network—with its union contracts, regulatory obligations, and shrinking but still substantial audience—is the question that will define her tenure. She's built a career on challenging institutions from the outside. Now she'll have to run one from within. (Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; editing by Kenneth Li and Nick Zieminski)

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By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) -Emerging market economies have become better at weathering major global economic shocks thanks to their credible inflation targeting, improved foreign exchange regimes and strong fiscal guardrails, a study by the International Monetary Fund showed. External shocks such as the fallout of COVID-19 from 2020 or Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have rocked the global economy and financial markets – events that usually translate into increased pressure on emerging economies that have smaller fiscal buffers and riskier ratings.  But the study, part of the IMF's World Economic Outlook report, showed that stronger economic policy frameworks and independent central banks have, since the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008, helped accelerate growth while pressuring consumer prices lower.  Meanwhile, some positive external conditions like the zero interest rate policy in the United States added to momentum, found the study published Monday as part of the IMF's World Economic Outlook report.  “While favorable external conditions contributed to this resilience, improvements in policy frameworks played a critical role in bolstering the capacity of emerging markets to withstand risk-off shocks," wrote the authors of the second chapter, released Monday ahead of the full report next week. Quantifying the impact of better policies – which are broadly promoted by the fund – by comparing recent shocks to the impact of crises in the late 1990s, the analysis showed better policy added a half a percentage point to growth and reduced inflation by 0.6 percentage points. "We're not saying that there is a fantastic turning point (during the global financial crisis) and everything changes," said Andrea Presbitero, a co-author of the chapter, in an interview. "It's more of a gradual change." In a separate chapter also released Monday, the IMF underscored the importance of deeper domestic capital markets in emerging economies, which have bolstered liquidity. But it warned that disparities persist, with smaller, riskier frontier markets struggling to attract investment compared to more established economies like South Africa and Mexico. The Fund cautioned against over-reliance on local banks to absorb local debt issuance during stress periods, urging reforms to make debt issuance more transparent and attract diverse investors. Recommendations included improving borrowing systems, strengthening institutions that manage government debt, and making debt issuance more transparent and on a schedule. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York; editing by Karin Strohecker and Hugh Lawson)

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(Reuters) – Some non-U.S. companies have said they are looking at expanding their presence or setting up shop in the United States to mitigate the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported goods. Below are some of the plans flagged by those companies. AIR LIQUIDE The French industrial gases company flagged an up to $200 million investment in Louisiana in June and a more than $50 million investment in the U.S. semiconductor industry in July. ASTRAZENECA The drugmaker plans to spend $50 billion to fund a new plant in Virginia and expansion in Maryland, Massachusetts, California, Indiana and Texas, it said on July 21. HONDA The Japanese carmaker plans to move some car production from Mexico and Canada into the U.S., aiming to make 90% of cars sold in the country locally, the Nikkei reported in April. HYUNDAI MOTOR  The South Korean automaker plans to further localize production in the U.S. and make hybrid vehicles at its new factory in Georgia, it said in January. INVENTEC The Taiwanese company, which makes AI servers that use Nvidia chips, has agreed to invest up to $85 million to build manufacturing facilities in Texas, it said in April. LAVAZZA  The Italian coffee maker will press ahead with its U.S. expansion, it said in April. Lavazza, which produces locally around half of what it sells in the U.S., plans to increase this output to 100%. NISSAN MOTOR The Japanese automaker weighs moving production of its Sentra automobile from Mexico to the U.S., Automotive News reported on May 14. The Nikkei relayed in April that Nissan was also considering shifting some domestic production of U.S.-bound vehicles there. NOVARTIS The Swiss drugmaker plans to spend $23 billion to build and expand 10 facilities in the U.S., it said in April. ROCHE The Swiss pharmaceutical giant will invest $50 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, it said in April. On May 12, it announced an additional $550 million investment to expand its Indianapolis diagnostics manufacturing hub. ROLLS-ROYCE The London-listed power and propulsion developer plans a $75 million investment to increase U.S. manufacturing capabilities in South Carolina, it said in July. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS The tech giant is considering moving manufacturing of dryers from Mexico to its plant in South Carolina, Korea Economic Daily reported in January. SANOFI  The French drugmaker plans to invest at least $20 billion in the U.S. through 2030 to boost manufacturing and research, it said in May. STELLANTIS The automaker behind brands such as Chrysler, Jeep and Peugeot plans to invest about $10 billion in the United States, Bloomberg News reported on October 4, citing people familiar with the situation. TSMC The Taiwanese chipmaker is expanding investment in the U.S., planning to build five chip facilities there in coming years, its CEO said in March. VOLKSWAGEN Volkswagen's Audi brand will expand production in North America with a focus on its most important cars for the U.S. market and will make a decision on where to base itself this year, Audi CEO said in February. VW CFO said in January it planned to produce more in the U.S. (Compiled by Tomasz Kanik and Vera Dvorakova in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)

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(Reuters) -Algen Biotechnologies said on Monday it has agreed to grant AstraZeneca a license to develop gene therapies the U.S.-based biotech discovers using its artificial intelligence-driven platform, in a deal worth up to $555 million. Under the deal, AstraZeneca will get exclusive rights to develop therapies that target immune system-related disorders. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical major will also get the right to sell the treatments, if they get approved, while Algen will get upfront and milestone payments. AstraZeneca has been advancing its cell and gene therapy capabilities through acquisitions and partnerships as it works towards its target of $80 billion in sales by 2030. Globally too, drugmakers are increasingly turning to AI for drug development. The drugmaker in March agreed to buy Belgian biotech EsoBiotec for up to $1 billion, gaining access to technology that modifies immune cells directly inside the body. Monday's deal, however, does not include AstraZeneca buying a stake in the company, Algen CEO and co-founder Chun-Hao Huang told Reuters in an interview. "Together with AstraZeneca's deep expertise in translational science and clinical development, we aim to uncover new biological insights to accelerate the development of novel therapies," Huang said. Algen was spun out from the lab at UC Berkeley, where biochemist Jennifer Doudna pioneered the CRISPR technology that won her the Nobel Prize. The biotech firm's AI platform, AlgenBrain, can map genes to disease outcomes, helping the companies decide their development focus for therapies. The Financial Times had first reported the news. (Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)

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PARIS (Reuters) -The Paris prosecutor's office said on Monday it was investigating Siri, Apple's voice assistant, after it received a complaint. Politico reported earlier on Monday that Apple is suspected of using users' recordings without their knowledge. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Makini Brice)

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By Tim Hepher PRAGUE (Reuters) -Executives from Boeing and Airbus dampened speculation of imminent decisions to replace their best-selling narrowbody models, telling a major audience of investors that it would take time to achieve the required jump in performance. The Wall Street Journal reported last Monday that Boeing was in the early stages of developing a 737 successor. But marketing chief Darren Hulst told the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading that a launch is "some way off" while a senior Airbus executive said it would "take a bit of time" to achieve the efficiency gains needed to attract the market. The executives were speaking in separate responses to questions on stage during an ISTAT event in Prague on Monday. The world's dominant planemakers have faced record demand for narrowbody models like the 737 and its European competitor, the A320 family. Both were developed decades ago but were refreshed with new engines in the middle of last decade. BOEING 'NOT CLOSE TO LAUNCHING' NEW PLANE The question of when they will launch the next phase of their epic rivalry by introducing an all-new design is one of the main dilemmas facing the aerospace industry, though most analysts agree a launch is unlikely before later this decade. Earlier this year, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg met Rolls-Royce to discuss a new engine, according to the WSJ report. "We are never not looking at new technology but we are also not close to launching a new airplane," Hulst, Boeing's vice president for commercial marketing, told the ISTAT conference. An aircraft launch is the stage at which a manufacturer begins development of a specific product and seeks new buyers. In a note to staff last week, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg reiterated any new plane would depend on the market, technology and the company itself being ready, FlightGlobal reported. Boeing is saddled with some $50 billion of debt following a safety crisis involving its best-selling 737 MAX model. It meanwhile has four projects awaiting certification: two variants of the MAX and the larger 777-9 passenger jet as well as its sister freight model, collectively known as the 777X. Bloomberg reported last week that the 777X faced a new delay in certification to 2027, bringing cumulative delays to seven years. Hulst said bringing completing pending projects was the main priority before a new model, but did not comment on 777X timing. AIRBUS SAYS EFFICIENCY GOAL WILL TAKE TIME Airbus, which is outselling Boeing, particularly with the larger versions of the A320 family, has expressed interest in radical new engine technology. Airbus Head of Trading and Asset Management Francois Collet told ISTAT any new plane would need to deliver a 25 to 30% jump in efficiency, something that would take "a little bit of time". (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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(Reuters) -Ferrari has completed the construction of e-Vortex, the new test circuit next to its Fiorano test track in less than four months, the sports car maker said on Monday. The infrastructure is about 2 kilometers long, covers 37,000 square metres and is divided into sectors: two banked curves with longitudinal slope, a central straight and handling curves for dynamic behaviour studies. The circuit features porphyry block paving and sections for noise, vibration and harshness (NVH), comfort and durability analysis. Ferrari said concentrating tests on the track will move activity off public roads and ease local traffic problems. The company also built a 1,000-square-metre on-site workshop for static checks to optimise its vehicle overhaul process. (Reporting by Laura Contemori, editing by Ed Osmond)

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