Business

The U.S. government on Wednesday sued eBay, accusing the online platform of violating the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws by allowing the sale of several harmful products, including devices that defeat automobile pollution controls. EBay could face billions of dollars in penalties, including up to $5,580 for each Clean Air Act violation, according to the government's complaint filed in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday voted to advance a marijuana banking bill, raising hopes for the cash-dependent cannabis sector to get access to regular banking services. The Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act (SAFER) bill, introduced by a bipartisan group of senators last week, will now move to the Senate floor. Most banks in the country do not service cannabis companies as marijuana remains illegal at the federal level despite several states legalizing its medicinal and recreational use.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed former cryptocurrency billionaire known for his casual appearance, can dress up for his forthcoming fraud trial. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday ordered U.S. marshals and Brooklyn jail officials to provide Bankman-Fried with three suit jackets and pairs of slacks, four dress shirts, three ties, one belt, four pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes and "appropriate undergarments" to wear in the courtroom.

The son of Jimmy Lai, a media tycoon jailed in Hong Kong, said on Wednesday it was in the interest of the former British colony to release his father and not let him die in jail. Sebastien Lai, who was in Geneva to take part in a British-organised event on media freedom in Hong Kong, has not seen his 75-year-old father in three years. "I am optimistic because I believe that there's no benefit in the Hong Kong government having my father die in jail," Sebastien Lai said on the prospect of his father's release.

The strike by Hollywood screenwriters ended after their union said its members could return to work on Wednesday while guild members vote to ratify the agreement. Is the strike over? Yes, the Writers Guild of America leadership voted to end the strike on Wednesday after nearly five months on picket lines. Guild members will have until Oct. 9 to cast votes for the proposed agreement. What caused the strike and what were the demands?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit accusing Amazon.com of abusing its retail market power to stifle competition faces hurdles in court, testing the scope of U.S. antitrust law and posing roadblocks for the agency, legal experts said. The U.S. consumer agency, which enforces federal antitrust law, and 17 states filed their lawsuit against Amazon in Seattle federal court on Tuesday, asking a U.S. judge to consider an injunction and other penalties to combat alleged unlawful conduct.

A few years after graduating college, Sam Bankman-Fried grew worried he was not taking enough risks. So the son of two Stanford Law School professors quit his Wall Street job and in 2017 started a cryptocurrency hedge fund, setting off a sequence of events that culminate next week in his trial for what federal prosecutors have called one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history. Two years after launching a hedge fund, Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried founded FTX, an exchange that let users buy and sell digital assets such as bitcoin. Cryptocurrency valuations surged over the following two years, propelling Bankman-Fried to a net worth of $26 billion, according to Forbes magazine, before he turned 30.

U.S. financial firms are pushing for greater clarity on proposed new rules curbing U.S. investments in some China technology sectors which they say are too vague and put the onus of compliance on investors. Aiming to protect national security and prevent U.S. capital from aiding China's military, President Joe Biden issued an executive order last month restricting new U.S. investments in sensitive Chinese technologies. The Treasury Department subsequently kicked off a rule-making process to implement the order, and financial firms have been rushing to meet a Sept. 28 to provide input. The rules are expected to be implemented sometime next year.

The S&P 500 eked out a fractional gain on Wednesday after a see-saw session, as investors weighed whether to start bargain hunting following a sell-off fueled by elevated Treasury yields and uncertainty about the path ahead for interest rates. Investors were also attuned to developments in Washington as divisions among U.S. lawmakers put the federal government at risk of a partial shutdown by the weekend.

The chairs of three U.S. House of Representatives committees demanded Ford Motor turn over documents tied to its partnership with Chinese battery company CATL and threatened to call CEO Jim Farley to testify before Congress. Republicans Jason Smith, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Mike Gallagher - who chair the Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and China select committees - jointly wrote to Farley with a new deadline seeking documents about the CATL partnership and the automaker's plan to build a $3.5 billion battery manufacturing plant in Michigan using Chinese technology.