EU announces antitrust charges against Amazon
European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday announced official antitrust charges against Amazon saying the tech giant “illegally distorted competition in online retail markets.”
The European Commission said in a statement it had sent a Statement of Objections to Amazon over the findings of the July 2019 investigation into the company’s handling of 3rd-party seller “sensitive” data.
EU further said that it had begun an investigation into Amazon’s business practices, specifically the “Buy Box” on its platform and the Amazon Prime label.
“We must ensure that dual role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, do not distort competition. Data on the activity of third party sellers should not be used to the benefit of Amazon when it acts as a competitor to these sellers.” Margrethe Vestager said in a public statement.
Nikola Earnings
Nikola Motor Corporation has released its financial results for the third quarter of 2020 with its net loss widening by 658% to $117.47 million, from a net loss of $15.5 million a year prior.
The company’s operating expenses rose 790% to $117.3 million during the period under review.
“In the third quarter of 2020, Nikola made significant progress on key milestones. We delivered on our commitment to assemble the first Nikola Tre BEV prototypes and are continuing to work with customers on the prospective and previously announced BEV truck orders,” the company’s CEO Mark Russell said in a statement.
Novavax Earnings
American vaccine development company Novavax Inc. announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2020 with revenue swelling by 6163% from $2.51 million to $157.0 million. The company said the increase can be attributed to funding received for the development of the coronavirus vaccine.
“Novavax continued to deliver remarkable progress this quarter, with our most notable achievement being the initiation of a 15,000-person pivotal Phase 3 trial in the U.K. of NVX-CoV2373, our COVID-19 vaccine candidate,” chief executive Stanley Erck said in the press release, adding that the company expects “initial efficacy data potentially by early first quarter 2021.”
Adidas Earnings
Adidas AG, a German multinational corporation that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories reported on Tuesday that its revenue for the third quarter fell 7% to €5.96 billion.
Gross profit declined by 10.6% to €2.9 billion while operating profit fell by 11.6% to €794 million.
Adobe to acquire Workfront for $1.5Bn
American multinational computer software company Adobe Inc has announced on Monday the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Workfront, the leading work management platform for marketers for $1.5 billion.
In a blog post, the company’s CEO, “the combination of Experience Cloud and Workfront will bring efficiency, collaboration, and productivity gains to marketing teams everywhere. Workfront’s platform is agile and uniquely architected for the enterprise, with extensive integration capabilities that can be easily configured to meet the varied needs of companies of all sizes.”
Chakravarthy added that the acquisition is expected to close during the first quarter of Adobe’s 2021 fiscal year.
