Posted by Ryan McNeilly.

Something we have come to know as Americans is that three things are certain in life. We will live, we will die, and we will pay taxes. Currently in the news, President’s Trump new tax plan has become the hot topic of discussion. People are disappointed to see another tax cut come about that seems to benefit the top 1% of society. Even some of the richest man in the world, like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, are speaking up against the new plan because they feel that they do not need more money. They think they need to be giving more of it away so that people who live from paycheck to pay check can have a little bit more leeway and a better opportunity to increase their standard of living.

This article posted by Politico looks at this tax law and delves deeper to see what is occurring behind the scenes. They set the stage by opening the article with “A political battle over the fate of hundreds of regulations and other guidance for the new tax law may soon land on President Donald Trump’s desk, forcing him to choose between two of his favorite Cabinet members.” This alone is enough to capture the attention of any reader. As you continue to read you come to find out that the two Cabinet members they are talking about are Steven Mnuchin the Treasury Secretary and Mick Mulvaney the White House budget director.  The President must decide who will get to define the laws and regulations within the tax act.  This is crucial because the vision of the treasury differs from the view of the budget director.

This dispute has a greater impact than people see because now two crucial sectors of the White House will now be pitted against one another. With this occurring internally, it could hinder the President’s goal for growth. His goal is to get this plan into action, but he will not be able to unless an agreement occurs. The article states “OIRA and Treasury have been going back and forth for years over which entity should have final say over the department’s regulations.” This pressure has increased because of the decision date is slowly approaching. Politico speculates that the OMB has already made a deal with the White House. If this is true, then the OMB will get control of regulations and guidances for this tax act. None of this is confirmed so now we must wait and see how this internal debacle sorts itself out.

Ryan is a finance and information management systems major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2020.

Source:

Link: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/23/tax-law-white-house-power-struggle-364885

Posted by Lilli Wofsy.

On October 11, 2016, Samsung reported that they would completely recall the Galaxy Note 7 and stop trying to fix the product overall. After there were many reports of the smartphone exploding or causing severe burns, Samsung attempted to fix the problem. With the hope of still profiting from the product, Samsung “decided to continue shipping new Galaxy Note 7s containing batteries from a different supplier” (Chen and Sang-Hun). Yet, using ATL battery instead of the original SDI battery did not help solve the issue of overheating. Many former employees of Samsung expressed they felt that the “militaristic” environment did not allow for there to be any communication from workers and the corporate bosses who just wanted to release the device.

While there have been “92 reports of Note 7 batteries overheating in the United States,” this is not the only Samsung product that has been flawed (Chen and Sang-Hun). There has been a recall in Australia for 144,000 washer machines that were likely to start fires in homes. Samsung has also had to recall “184,000 microwave ovens in the United States and 210,000 refrigerators in South Korea” (Chen and Sang-Hun). Though they have had many small recalls other than these large ones, customers have positively described their quickness in replacing or refunding their clients for the inconvenience.

Samsung has faced a hard hit due to the recent issues they have had with their products. On October 12^th, Samsung noted they “absorb[ed] $2 billion in losses” (Chen and Sang-Hun). They reportedly earned 33.3 percent less that what they had projected to earn from the Galaxy Note 7. Between October 11^th and 12^th, the company’s shares went down 8.65 percent. With Samsung fighting with Apple to keep up with their never-ending battle, Samsung might be releasing products too quickly in hopes of beating their opponent. Yet Apple has not faced as many large recalls when compared to Samsung, rather they have only recalled one of their Nano products and one type of Beats. Maybe if Samsung’s workers have more openness about possible problems with products or testing out products more prior to releasing them, they can revive their company and make back up what they have lost from their present predicament.

Lilli is an English and legal studies minor at Seton Hall University, Class of 2018.

Sources:

Posted by Kristina Volta.

In light of the recent events of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones setting on fire, many people have been looking to Apple as an alternative. However, the new news of Apple’s IPhone 7 catching flame has many consumers nervous. The most recent case was when an Australian surf coach, Matt Jones, left his phone under a pair of pants in his car while he taught a lesson. When he returned to his car he found that his car was full of smoke and where his phone was had been burnt up and the pants that had been on top of the phone were on fire. This is concerning for Apple whose stock has dropped .41%. This is going to be a knock to Apple’s popularity, especially after seeing the negative kickback that Samsung has been facing for a similar problem.

Apple has been investigating this report, challenging that he was not at the car when the fire started. Many people are beginning to believe that there is a possibility that Apple’s IPhone 7 has a similar Lithium-ion battery, which can become “unstable” when it’s put in certain situations. There is a chance the phone became too hot wrapped up in the pants in the car and that could have been the reason the phone caught fire.

Even though these claims haven’t been solidified yet, this could still cause a major setback for Apple and their products. Although there haven’t been many claims about Apple phones catching fire, the fear consumers now have could be significantly detrimental to their sales of the IPhone 7. Not to mention, if the case does come out to show that it was the IPhone’s battery that caught fire, Apple will be held liable for it.

When companies put out products their consumers and shareholders are putting faith in the company that they are purchasing a safe good unless otherwise mentioned. Lithium-ion batteries have been known to have issues for other products like “Tesla cars, Boeing jetliners, Hewlett Packard laptops and Hoverboards” as well as other IPhones. There was a case in March of an IPhone 6 bursting into flames on a flight to Hawaii. This is concerning for not only Apple, but also any other company who is or plans to use Lithium-ion batteries. This is a risk these companies are taking considering the clear unpredictability of the safety of these batteries.

Kristina is a marketing major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Sources:

http://fortune.com/2016/10/21/apple-iphone-7-explodes/

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/10/21/2nd-fire-apple-iphone-7-threatens-mass-recall/

Posted by Mohammed Almanqari.

Uber Company is always thought of being sued now and then for one or two issues. Apparently, the company has sued an advertising company called Fetch Media. Uber has taken to court Fetch Media accusing it of click fraud. The company had improperly billed Uber for online advertisements, which were not genuine. Fetch Media took advantage of the same and benefited from application downloads that did not belong to it. Fetch Media is owned by Dentsu, one of the largest advertising company in Japan. The case was filed by Uber on 19^th September 2017 in the US District Court in San Francisco.

After placing the charges, Uber said that it expected not less than forty million dollars as compensation for the damages caused by Fetch Media. However Uber is not fond of taking to court most of the issues it faces; in fact, according to report prepared by Bloomberg, Uber has been a plaintiff twice but has been accused in more than 250 cases. Ever since the internet became a money-making platform, fraud related to online advertising has been on the rise. “One of the biggest challenges we face as digital marketers is to reduce mobile ad fraud.” This was according to the chief executive of Fetch Media, James Connelly. According to the head of media at Fetch Company, Steve Hobbs, a big percentage of downloads from Fetch`s system are noted as invalid or not genuine.

Uber became aware of this fraud during a period when it was putting efforts to shut down and avoid a scandal that was different. Uber Company then requested Fetch Media not to post any advertisements on a certain website called Breitbart news which was being run by the former chief strategist of President Donald Trump. However, ads stills appeared on that site. Fetch canceled the running of ads from any network that was related to Breitbart but this did not reduce the number of application downloads. There is a specific fee paid to Fetch by Uber when a customer downloads the company`s application. From the years 2015 to 2017, Uber had paid close to $8.4m for ads regulated by Fetch Company.

Mohammed is a graduate student at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University.

Reference:

http://www.fin24.com/Tech/Companies/uber-goes-on-rare-legal-offensive-suing-ad-agency-for-fraud-20170919

Posted by Ryan McNeilly.

Something we have come to know as Americans is that three things are certain in life. We will live, we will die, and we will pay taxes. Currently in the news, President’s Trump new tax plan has become the hot topic of discussion. People are disappointed to see another tax cut come about that seems to benefit the top 1% of society. Even some of the richest man in the world, like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, are speaking up against the new plan because they feel that they do not need more money. They think they need to be giving more of it away so that people who live from paycheck to pay check can have a little bit more leeway and a better opportunity to increase their standard of living.

This article posted by Politico looks at this tax law and delves deeper to see what is occurring behind the scenes. They set the stage by opening the article with “A political battle over the fate of hundreds of regulations and other guidance for the new tax law may soon land on President Donald Trump’s desk, forcing him to choose between two of his favorite Cabinet members.” This alone is enough to capture the attention of any reader. As you continue to read you come to find out that the two Cabinet members they are talking about are Steven Mnuchin the Treasury Secretary and Mick Mulvaney the White House budget director.  The President must decide who will get to define the laws and regulations within the tax act.  This is crucial because the vision of the treasury differs from the view of the budget director.

This dispute has a greater impact than people see because now two crucial sectors of the White House will now be pitted against one another. With this occurring internally, it could hinder the President’s goal for growth. His goal is to get this plan into action, but he will not be able to unless an agreement occurs. The article states “OIRA and Treasury have been going back and forth for years over which entity should have final say over the department’s regulations.” This pressure has increased because of the decision date is slowly approaching. Politico speculates that the OMB has already made a deal with the White House. If this is true, then the OMB will get control of regulations and guidances for this tax act. None of this is confirmed so now we must wait and see how this internal debacle sorts itself out.

Ryan is a finance and information management systems major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2020.

Source:

Link: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/23/tax-law-white-house-power-struggle-364885

Posted by Kristina Volta.

In light of the recent events of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones setting on fire, many people have been looking to Apple as an alternative. However, the new news of Apple’s IPhone 7 catching flame has many consumers nervous. The most recent case was when an Australian surf coach, Matt Jones, left his phone under a pair of pants in his car while he taught a lesson. When he returned to his car he found that his car was full of smoke and where his phone was had been burnt up and the pants that had been on top of the phone were on fire. This is concerning for Apple whose stock has dropped .41%. This is going to be a knock to Apple’s popularity, especially after seeing the negative kickback that Samsung has been facing for a similar problem.

Apple has been investigating this report, challenging that he was not at the car when the fire started. Many people are beginning to believe that there is a possibility that Apple’s IPhone 7 has a similar Lithium-ion battery, which can become “unstable” when it’s put in certain situations. There is a chance the phone became too hot wrapped up in the pants in the car and that could have been the reason the phone caught fire.

Even though these claims haven’t been solidified yet, this could still cause a major setback for Apple and their products. Although there haven’t been many claims about Apple phones catching fire, the fear consumers now have could be significantly detrimental to their sales of the IPhone 7. Not to mention, if the case does come out to show that it was the IPhone’s battery that caught fire, Apple will be held liable for it.

When companies put out products their consumers and shareholders are putting faith in the company that they are purchasing a safe good unless otherwise mentioned. Lithium-ion batteries have been known to have issues for other products like “Tesla cars, Boeing jetliners, Hewlett Packard laptops and Hoverboards” as well as other IPhones. There was a case in March of an IPhone 6 bursting into flames on a flight to Hawaii. This is concerning for not only Apple, but also any other company who is or plans to use Lithium-ion batteries. This is a risk these companies are taking considering the clear unpredictability of the safety of these batteries.

Kristina is a marketing major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Sources:

http://fortune.com/2016/10/21/apple-iphone-7-explodes/

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/10/21/2nd-fire-apple-iphone-7-threatens-mass-recall/

Posted by Alexa Constantine.

The New York Times on October 11th of this year released the article describing Wells Fargo’s fraud scandal that was brought to the public eye last month. The ethics scandal came to light last month, but the fraud has been going on for years, maybe even a decade with the first report in 2005. Julie Tishkoff in 2005 wrote to the Wells Fargo human resources about how she saw employees setting up sham accounts, forging customer signatures, and the sending out of unsolicited credit cards. Her complaining went on for four years. Tishkoff was not the only employee who was complaining to the internal ethics hotline, the human resources department, and to the managers and supervisors.

In 2011, John G. Stumpf, the board chairman, received at least two letters from Wells Fargo employees describing the illegal activities they have witnessed. Mr. Stumpf became president the year Julie Tishkoff wrote to human resources. In September of this year, Mr. Stumpf testified in front of Congress, twice, stating that, “he and other senior managers only realized in 2013 that they had a big problem on their hands — two years after the bank had started firing people over this issue.” In 2013, Wells Fargo launched the internal investigation within their company for the fraud they realized that was happening. But by then, the prosecutors and regulators caught on and in May of 2015 a lawsuit was filed. The Los Angeles city attorney filed the lawsuit for the creation of unauthorized accounts against Wells Fargo. The case was settled this September of 2016.

After the lawsuit settled, Mary Eshet, spokeswoman for Wells Fargo said, “We have made fundamental changes to help ensure team members are not being pressured to sell products, customers are receiving the right solutions for their financial needs, our customer-focused culture is upheld at all times and that customer satisfaction is high.” And since September 8th, Wells Fargo will pay $185 million in fines for the opening about two million customer accounts and credit cards without authorization. Wells Fargo is taking responsibility for the scandal and is making changes to the company.

The scandal still continues after the settlement. Former employees whose are suing Wells Fargo state that many of the managers at the branch level and the people who heard their ethics complaints are still employed. The employees who complained and brought to light the fraud within the company lost their jobs shortly after they complained. Between 2011 and this year, Wells Fargo terminated the employment of 5,300 workers, “around 10 percent of those worked at the branch manager level or above, according to the bank, but only one — an area president — had a high-level management role.” The whistleblowers lost their jobs while the people who should have acknowledged the fraud kept their jobs. Mr. Stumpf acknowledged the outrage of former employees about how the bank should have heeded what they said were warning and taken action earlier by saying, “We should have done more sooner.” Mr. Stumpf’s answer does not satisfy former employees.

Alexa is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Ryan McNeilly.

Something we have come to know as Americans is that three things are certain in life. We will live, we will die, and we will pay taxes. Currently in the news, President’s Trump new tax plan has become the hot topic of discussion. People are disappointed to see another tax cut come about that seems to benefit the top 1% of society. Even some of the richest man in the world, like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, are speaking up against the new plan because they feel that they do not need more money. They think they need to be giving more of it away so that people who live from paycheck to pay check can have a little bit more leeway and a better opportunity to increase their standard of living.

This article posted by Politico looks at this tax law and delves deeper to see what is occurring behind the scenes. They set the stage by opening the article with “A political battle over the fate of hundreds of regulations and other guidance for the new tax law may soon land on President Donald Trump’s desk, forcing him to choose between two of his favorite Cabinet members.” This alone is enough to capture the attention of any reader. As you continue to read you come to find out that the two Cabinet members they are talking about are Steven Mnuchin the Treasury Secretary and Mick Mulvaney the White House budget director.  The President must decide who will get to define the laws and regulations within the tax act.  This is crucial because the vision of the treasury differs from the view of the budget director.

This dispute has a greater impact than people see because now two crucial sectors of the White House will now be pitted against one another. With this occurring internally, it could hinder the President’s goal for growth. His goal is to get this plan into action, but he will not be able to unless an agreement occurs. The article states “OIRA and Treasury have been going back and forth for years over which entity should have final say over the department’s regulations.” This pressure has increased because of the decision date is slowly approaching. Politico speculates that the OMB has already made a deal with the White House. If this is true, then the OMB will get control of regulations and guidances for this tax act. None of this is confirmed so now we must wait and see how this internal debacle sorts itself out.

Ryan is a finance and information management systems major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2020.

Source:

Link: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/23/tax-law-white-house-power-struggle-364885

Posted by Kristina Volta.

In light of the recent events of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones setting on fire, many people have been looking to Apple as an alternative. However, the new news of Apple’s IPhone 7 catching flame has many consumers nervous. The most recent case was when an Australian surf coach, Matt Jones, left his phone under a pair of pants in his car while he taught a lesson. When he returned to his car he found that his car was full of smoke and where his phone was had been burnt up and the pants that had been on top of the phone were on fire. This is concerning for Apple whose stock has dropped .41%. This is going to be a knock to Apple’s popularity, especially after seeing the negative kickback that Samsung has been facing for a similar problem.

Apple has been investigating this report, challenging that he was not at the car when the fire started. Many people are beginning to believe that there is a possibility that Apple’s IPhone 7 has a similar Lithium-ion battery, which can become “unstable” when it’s put in certain situations. There is a chance the phone became too hot wrapped up in the pants in the car and that could have been the reason the phone caught fire.

Even though these claims haven’t been solidified yet, this could still cause a major setback for Apple and their products. Although there haven’t been many claims about Apple phones catching fire, the fear consumers now have could be significantly detrimental to their sales of the IPhone 7. Not to mention, if the case does come out to show that it was the IPhone’s battery that caught fire, Apple will be held liable for it.

When companies put out products their consumers and shareholders are putting faith in the company that they are purchasing a safe good unless otherwise mentioned. Lithium-ion batteries have been known to have issues for other products like “Tesla cars, Boeing jetliners, Hewlett Packard laptops and Hoverboards” as well as other IPhones. There was a case in March of an IPhone 6 bursting into flames on a flight to Hawaii. This is concerning for not only Apple, but also any other company who is or plans to use Lithium-ion batteries. This is a risk these companies are taking considering the clear unpredictability of the safety of these batteries.

Kristina is a marketing major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Sources:

http://fortune.com/2016/10/21/apple-iphone-7-explodes/

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/10/21/2nd-fire-apple-iphone-7-threatens-mass-recall/

Posted by Abigail Murphy.

A way to raise money, fund a project, or venture from a large number of people for a small startup in the earliest stage money sounds simple. Not so much. Every so often, there are crowdfunding campaigns gaining popularity via Facebook newsfeed, twitter feed, and emails. These campaigns come with issues of the right amount of regulation and increasing issue of inequality of funding portals.

After years of back and forth, in October 2015 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented Title III of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. JOBS allowed startup companies to safely use the internet to offer securities to investors. Prior to 2012, the internet could not be used to match investors and startup ventures due to the “general solicitation rule.” In a short 6 years, the SEC has developed their stance that the internet as a matchmaker for investors and startups is solicitation to a lacking concern for the inequality of funding portals.

A funding portal is the basic platform for the fundraising to take place and act as an intermediary. Both the funding portal pursuant and the broker-dealer must be registered through the SEC, however rising inequality have expressed that regulation is not enough. Concerns are expressed due to argument of crowds vs. expert’s wisdom, including liability. Wisdom for a crowd verses one single investor is never going to be definitive, while a single expert’s wisdom could be too specific. In addition, some are urging the SEC to reevaluate the liability of both parties in a crowdfund due to the easy loophole of fraud. If experts are considered the investors of crowdfunding, do their duties violate under the 1940 Advisers Act? Is crowdfunding an indirect security? This act set grounds for investors to follow and a guideline for compensations, economic activity, and other indirect securities. If the experts end up being categorized as investors, then they too are responsible for any fraudulent financial activity.

Personally, I believe that the overturning of the 2012 JOBS solicitation rule and the 2015 implementation of Title III of JOBS is all still very new. There are no past comparisons of any type of money exchange and investment to base crowdfunding off of. As this topic gains popularity and a crowd does flock to crowdfunding, there will be a need for heavier regulations on the liabilities and registration to create an ethical and financially stable funding portal. I was surprised to read about such an open ended definition when it comes down to the investor vs expert responsibilities in relation to the Advisers Act in 1940. Crowdfunding is an innovative way and already has several fundraising success stories. Over the next few years it will be interesting to see the investor return reports. As long as the finances stay in line, and both the crowdfund pursuant and the investors stay happy I see no issue in allowing the internet to play a role in matchmaking.

Abigail is an economics major at the Stillman School of Business, Class of 2018.

Source:

http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4958&context=nclr

Posted by Caroline Weeks.

On November 5, 2015 a dam in the Brazilian city of Mariana collapsed, resulting in multiple causalities and irreparable damage to the surrounding cities and ecosystems. In total, nineteen people lost their lives. The collapse also “released a torrent of sludge that washed away villages, displaced hundreds of people, and traveled more than four hundred miles through southeast Brazil’s Rio Doce basin before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.” It is said that this is “believed to be the biggest disaster of its kind anywhere.” The yearlong criminal investigation into the collapse recently ended and has resulted in homicide charges being filed against twenty one people in connection with the disaster. Some of the people charged are “current and former top executives of mining giants Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd., and Samarco Mineração SA.” In addition, employees of a consulting firm that performed checkups on the dam were charged with “presenting false stability reports.” This disaster is an example of companies being concerned solely with short run profit maximization and an inherent lack of corporate social responsibility.

The federal prosecutor in Brazil has stated that “the motivation of the homicides was the excessive greed of the companies.” It has been detailed that the victims were killed by the “violent passage of the tailings mud” and that they “had their bodies mutilated and…dispersed across an area of 110 kilometers.” These innocent employees died a cruel and painful death at the hands of corporate greed. Samarco focused on short run profit maximization and did not take into account the effects of their actions. The prosecutor says that there is evidence that Samarco, and its shareholders, were “aware of chronic structural problems” as early as April 2009. If this is true, the company knew about critical problems with the structure for more than 6 years and chose to continually ignore the warnings. The board not only failed to make the facility structurally sound, but responded to these structural issues by “pressuring the company to extract more iron ore.” If the company had simply taken head to these warnings they would’ve prevented the loss of innocent lives, the damage of surrounding communities, and incredibly expensive lawsuits along with a permanently tarnished reputation. These findings show the goal of the company was to maximize profits as quickly as possible. They did not take into account the repercussions of a dam collapse and innocent people paid the price for their greed.

This fatal event also details Samarco’s lack of corporate social responsibility. The company chose to focus on profits and purposely chose to ignore the issues with their facility. The company did not act ethically and they certainly did not take into account the surrounding communities. As a result of the dam collapse, families have lost their homes, and even entire communities have been washed away. Not only have these villages been destroyed, but so has the surrounding ecosystem. The river “is still tainted a rusty red form the sediment” that washed through the river basin after the dam collapsed. If the company had acted ethically, they could’ve saved lives and communities. This disaster is a prime example of executives acting carelessly in the hopes of inflating their bank accounts.

Caroline is a mathematical finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.