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New European Banking Authority head François-Louis Michaud has said European lenders have enough resilience to absorb current financial and geopolitical ‌shocks but need to prepare for future uncertainties including cybersecurity risks associated with AI. Reuters notes that the European Central Bank has made strengthening lenders' resilience to geopolitical ​risks a key priority for this year and will stress test the largest banks, after last month warning that ​markets were underpricing the stress on the financial system coming from such risks. "We also know that what's coming next will not be very much like what we’ve been seeing ​in the past, and we need to be prepared for that," Michaud added.

 

Reuters

The EU is planning the biggest relaxation of its rules on corporate mergers in decades to give greater weight to “innovation, investment and resilience of the internal market”, the FT reports.

 

Financial Times

A court in Milan has given the go-ahead to a class-action lawsuit on behalf of tens of millions of Facebook users affected by a data leak. According to the court ​order, the data scraping incident, ​which took place between January 2018 and ⁠September 2019 and was disclosed ​by Facebook parent Meta in 2021, affected around 533​m Facebook users globally. The CTCU consumer association seeks compensation on behalf of social media ​users who lost, or feared losing, ​control over their personal data in breach of ‌the ⁠EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). "We respectfully disagree with the court's decision, which is ​a procedural ruling only and ​makes ⁠no finding that Meta violated any law," a Meta spokesperson said, adding: "We are confident ⁠this ​meritless action will ultimately ​be dismissed."

 

Reuters

Silicon

Nutella maker Ferrero has confirmed it was the target of unannounced inspections by EU officials over possible violations of European antitrust rules that prohibit ⁠cartels ​and anti-competitive ​practices in the chocolate ‌confectionery ⁠market. Nestlé and ​Mondelez had previously said they were ​not targeted in the ⁠raids carried ​out on Monday. “Ferrero is aware that on-site inspections are currently taking place in its offices by European Commission officials,” the Italian confectionery giant said on Wednesday. “The company is fully cooperating and providing the information requested.”

 

Bloomberg

Reuters

An antitrust lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court accuses Google of shutting out rival Android app stores by monopolising app distribution ​and billing, in violation of US antitrust law. Aptoide, a Portuguese company that bills itself as "the alternative Android app store," ​and has about 436,000 apps in its catalog and more than 200m ​annual users by 2024, said it would have exerted substantially more pressure on Google's pricing and policies ​but for the tech giant's "anticompetitive chokehold" that shuts out smaller rivals.

 

Reuters

Rodrigo Valdés, director of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, has said EU economies need to keep their “fiscal guardrails” in place given rising public debt levels and jittery bond markets.

 

Financial Times

Stellantis has said it plans to invest €100m to transform its plant near Paris, which will keep making cars through at least the end of 2028, and then shift to activities including auto part production, recycling, and 3D printing. The company, which currently produces the Opel Mokka and DS compact sport utility vehicles at the Poissy facility, has vowed to retain 1,000 blue-collar jobs there by 2030, with no layoffs. Bloomberg notes that Stellantis has worked closely with labor unions on the project, which “guarantees an industrial future for the Poissy site at a time of rapid change for the automotive industry,” according to Xavier Chéreau, the group’s chief human resources and sustainability officer.

 

Bloomberg

Renault plans to reduce its engineering workforce by as much as 20%, resulting in up to 2,400 job losses over the next two years. The French carmaker said it aims to enhance its competitiveness against Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers. A spokesperson confirmed that the cuts would not involve forced layoffs, and the development of new technologies and fundamental design work would remain in France. Last month, Renault CEO Francois Provost announced a major restructuring, and said his intention was to "compete with Chinese vehicle manufacturers in terms of innovation, cost and speed."

 

Deutsche Welle (EN)

France 24

European airports in 15 countries have reported “very bad” delays of up to three hours resulting from the EU’s new electronic border system, the Airports Council International has told the FT.

 

Financial Times

At the recent HumanX conference in San Francisco, 6,500 investors, entrepreneurs and tech executives gathered to address the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs. An advertisement at the entrance to the event set the tone for the four days: "Stop hiring humans." Florian Douetteau, the chief executive of Dataiku, a French company specialising in enterprise AI, told AFP that the real human added value is "capacity for judgment." He detailed a scenario whereby an AI agent works through the night and its human counterpart reviews the results in the morning. Nevertheless, he worries that "We are going to have a generation of people who will never have written anything from start to finish in their entire lives . . . That's pretty unsettling."

 

Japan Times

Straits Times

UK banks will soon access Anthropic's advanced AI hacking tool, Claude Mythos, to enhance their cybersecurity by stress-testing their cyber defences. The AI tool can autonomously identify software vulnerabilities faster than a human hacker and Anthropic has delayed a public release due to its powerful capabilities. The AI Security Institute, the Government's testing lab, has confirmed that it has trialled the new technology, warning it was "a step up over previous frontier models." Pip White, Anthropic's UK chief, has emphasised the importance of responsible AI development.

 

The Daily Telegraph

Investors in Monte dei Paschi di Siena have voted to back ousted boss Luigi Lovaglio. Lovaglio was pushed out as chief executive of the world's oldest lender at the beginning of March, following disagreements with board members and billionaire industrialist Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone after presenting in February a strategy that envisaged a swift merger of recently-acquired rival Mediobanca into MPS to boost savings. Lovaglio's supporters won eight board seats after ​backing from investors representing about a third of MPS' capital. 

 

Financial Times

Reuters

Lloyds Banking Group has introduced an artificial intelligence board bot, marking a first for a UK blue-chip company. The bot, developed by Board Intelligence, assists executives in analysing confidential data and reducing human bias in decision-making. Nicola Putland, Lloyds' corporate governance director, commented: "We see real potential for AI to support decision making in boardrooms when used carefully and responsibly. We are trialling AI tools to support us to better prepare for discussions through faster analysis and access to a broader range of perspectives." The bank aims to increase the value generated by generative AI tools from £50m in 2025 to £100m this year.

 

Sunday Times