Category:

International News

GM boosts spending on electric vehicles, to add two new U.S. battery plants

“EV adoption is increasing and reaching an inflection point,” GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson told reporters on a conference call. “We want to be ready to be able to produce the capacity that we need to meet demand over time.”The No. 1 U.S. automaker said it will now spend $35 billion through 2025 on EVs, an increase of 75% from March 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the industry.

read more

Alibaba victim of huge data leak by consultant: Chinese Court

A central Chinese court ruled that an employee of a consultant that helps merchants on Alibaba’s Taobao online mall was guilty of dredging up more than a billion data items on Taobao users since 2019, using that to serve clients. The court imposed jail terms of more than three years on the staffer and his employer, alongside fines totaling 450,000 yuan ($70,260).

read more

Hedge Funds remain an option for some insurers

The life/annuity segment raised its dollar exposure in hedge funds 5.8%, to $5.4 billion, and the property/casualty segment, 5.5%, to $6.6 billion.
Several qualities made hedge funds attractive to investors during the pandemic, including risk diversification and a low correlation to other asset classes. The hedge fund industry still lost approximately $44.5 billion in asset flows in 2020, according to the report, but that is nearly half the amount pulled out in 2019.

read more

UK COVID-19 BI claims exceed $1 Billion; About half of claims Paid

In total, 16,159 claims have been paid in full out of 37,702 claims that have been accepted by insurers for a final clearance rate of 42.86%.

Aggregate claims paid has risen by 7.9% since the last FCA report, which showed £701.4 million in claims paid. Insurers have made initial or final payments on 53.97% of BI claims that have been accepted by the carriers.
The payments are being made after the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in a BI test case in April. It found insurers are liable for the COVID-19-related business interruption claims of about 370,000 policyholders under policies written before the outbreak and never designed to cover pandemic claims.

read more