In the late 1980s, as the Iron Curtain fell, the US Army War College threw away its old Cold War playbook. In its place, trainee strategists were taught to see the world as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous: or ‘VUCA’ for short. The implications were far-reaching. Out went the old certainties. And in came a new approach that stressed the importance of approaching problems from different angles, drawing on multiple perspectives and scenarios, learning from mistakes, making robust decisions, and communicating openly about the uncertainties.
Where the military began, the business world followed: VUCA begat a million Harvard Business Review articles. Inevitably perhaps, it lost some of its shine in the decades that followed. But today it’s back – with a vengeance. The rules of global trade have been turned on their head. New geopolitical realities are dawning. Artificial intelligence, the energy transition, demographic change and the long shadow of COVID-19 are fundamentally changing our concepts of economic activity and work. And Australia, like elsewhere, is seeking new sources of productivity growth. With the world in flux, companies, households and governments must change how they think, act and plan – just like those army cadets of the 1980s.
Monetary policy cannot affect these profound changes. But it does have one key job – and that is to ensure that, of all the things people do have to worry about, inflation is not one. High inflation hurts everyone. It hits living standards, particularly for those on low and fixed incomes. And it disrupts households and companies’ plans. The past few years have been a vivid reminder of that. Around the world, core inflation reached multi-decade highs (Graph 1).
Uncertainty rose sharply too. Forecasting prices during the pandemic was harder than at any time in the past quarter of a century: for central banks (Graph 2) – and for everyone else too.
That left inflation much higher up peoples’ VUCA worry lists than it should be, harming livelihoods and crowding out focus on the economic choices that households and companies should be spending their time on. Our job is to put that into reverse – returning inflation to the background, where it belongs.
In my remarks today, I want to review progress towards that goal. I’ll start with the good news – inflation is down and employment is up. We are moving on from the narrow path. But monetary policy must always look ahead – and here I want to discuss two decidedly VUCA risks that shape that outlook: the prospects for world trade; and the degree of spare capacity in the Australian labour market. I will conclude with some implications for monetary policy.
Moving on from the narrow path
While Australia saw much the same pickup in inflation as elsewhere, our monetary policy response was different. Interest rates rose significantly – but they never reached the levels seen in many other developed economies (Graph 3).
That was an explicit choice, grounded in our mission: to bring inflation down, but at a pace that helped preserve sustained full employment. An implication of this strategy, clear from the start, was that just as interest rates rose by less, so they would also fall less far – and less quickly.
There were always risks on both sides of this ‘narrow path’ – and people regularly called them out. Some said the RBA should have tightened more to bring inflation down faster and earlier – and clearly we could have. But that would have risked materially higher unemployment. Others said we should have eased more quickly to help kickstart economic activity. And we could have done that too. But it would have risked inflation being higher for even longer. In the Board’s judgment, both alternatives would have left the Australian people worse off.
That is why the latest economic data are encouraging. Year-ended trimmed mean inflation, our preferred measure of underlying price pressures, fell to 3.2 per cent in the December quarter, 0.2 percentage points lower than expected in November. Among other things that reflected lower inflation in new dwelling costs, rents and market services – which had been stubbornly persistent. Measured on a shorter two-quarter annualised basis, trimmed mean inflation was in the 2–3 per cent target range (Graph 4).
While inflation has moderated, employment has continued to grow extraordinarily strongly. That’s true compared both with other developed economies (Graph 5), and with our own history: 64½ per cent of the population now have jobs, the highest on record.
By contrast, economic growth has been much more subdued, particularly in the private sector. But here too there is now cautiously better news, with partial indicators suggesting that household spending picked up in the December quarter. GDP growth is projected to rise back to trend over the forecast period.
So we look to be moving on from the narrow path. But central bankers are paid to worry, not celebrate. And monetary policy works with lags – so it must be set with an eye to the future, not the past. I will now discuss two key uncertainties that shape that outlook.
Key uncertainty 1: Global trade policy – VUC, but especially A?
To the naked eye, the four words in ‘VUCA’ seem just different versions of ‘chaos’. In fact, their meanings are distinct. Volatility and complexity are the simpler concepts. ‘Volatility’ means rapid change, whether predictable or unpredictable – and ‘complexity’ means a world of multiple overlapping causes and effects. Uncertainty and ambiguity are slipperier. ‘Uncertainty’, in the classical sense, means you know the model, but don’t know the parameters. So you have to estimate an imperfect model-based forecast, which you can refine as you get more information. ‘Ambiguity’ means you don’t know the model, so any model-based forecasts will break down, and feeding more information into those same models won’t help. In situations of ambiguity – or ‘Knightian uncertainty’ as economists sometimes call it – judgement and instinct are as important as formal analysis.
These concepts can help us think through the implications for Australia of global trade policy uncertainty – which is at a 50-year high (Graph 6).
As economists, our inclination is to approach this as an analytical problem of classical uncertainty. We might note for example that, from a macroeconomic perspective, Australia’s direct exposure to US tariffs levied on our exports is limited (Graph 7).
Such an analysis might quickly turn, however, to the fact that Australia is heavily integrated into, and reliant on, the global economy more broadly – and particularly China (Graph 8). Hence the bigger macroeconomic risk for us would be if the imposition of US tariffs on third countries triggered a global trade war that impaired our trade and financial linkages more broadly. As Australia’s long history has shown, we thrive when trade, labour and assets flow freely in the global economy, but we suffer when countries turn inwards.
In principle, it is possible to estimate the quantitative impact of policy alternatives on Australian activity and inflation using macroeconomic models, though the number of assumptions required is daunting. It includes: the scale, scope and persistence of US trade measures globally; the extent of any policy reactions in third countries (including both trade retaliation and domestic stimulus); the reaction in financial markets, including crucially how the exchange rate adjusts; and the responses of global trading firms, including both production and trade diversion.
Our February Statement on Monetary Policy included three stylised scenarios, involving different sets of these assumptions. These scenarios suggest some downward impact on Australian activity; and an impact on inflation that could be either positive or negative, depending on whether supply or demand effects dominate. But many other alternatives are possible too. Given the large uncertainties at this early stage, only limited changes were made to our central projections for global activity.
Up until very recently, financial markets appeared to be placing little weight on any severe adverse scenario. Measures of implied volatility in equity, bond and most foreign exchange markets were subdued. Estimates of equity risk premia were close to their post-Global Financial Crisis lows (Graph 9).
And equity investors appeared to take out only modest extra downside insurance in response to the early flurry of news about tariffs (Graph 10).
There are several possible reasons for this apparently benign reaction. Investors may have believed tariff threats were being used primarily as a negotiating tool, with relatively limited longer term economic effects. They may have believed other promised US policy initiatives, including fiscal measures and deregulation initiatives, would more than outweigh the impact on global activity. They may have believed that demand in countries outside the US, including Australia, would be insulated by adjustments in exchange rates and extra stimulus in key overseas markets. Or they may simply have believed that US policymakers would again show limited tolerance for declines in equity prices, as happened in 2018/19.
That confidence has taken a bit of a knock in recent days. Some of that reflects recent US data, and some evolution in the direction of tariff policy. But it may also reflect a growing recognition that, if companies and households come to conclude that trade policy uncertainty has moved on from classical Uncertainty (‘carry on till the fog lifts’) to genuine Ambiguity (‘almost anything could happen’), they may choose to batten down the hatches – postponing planned spending, particularly on longer term capital investment, until things become clearer. Such ‘watchful waiting’ could prove rational individually, but economically damaging in aggregate. As The Economist put it recently, ‘tariff uncertainty can be as ruinous as tariffs themselves’. The Federal Reserve estimated that heightened uncertainty over trade policy in 2018 reduced global GDP by nearly 1 per cent in 2019 – and Graph 6 suggests the pick-up in policy uncertainty is much larger this time around. The possibility of such an effect played a part in the Board’s policy deliberations in February.
Key uncertainty 2: Capacity in the domestic economy
A second key uncertainty lies closer to home, in the labour market. While the recent strength in employment growth is welcome, it’s also unusual after a period of such subdued GDP growth. The question is what it means for the margin of spare capacity in the economy, and hence for the inflation outlook.
Assessing this issue is harder than it seems. Spare capacity cannot be directly observed. And its sustainable level has no set value, and likely changes over time as the structure of the economy evolves. Some argue this makes the concept meaningless – but that does require you to have an alternative narrative for inflation. At the RBA, we prefer to give it some weight while recognising the pervasive uncertainties, by building up a picture using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, and analytical techniques – as well as regularly challenging how we could be wrong.
An obvious place to start when assessing labour market capacity is to look at proxy measures. Two of the most important are unemployment (those looking for work) and underemployment (those in work, but looking to do more hours). As recently as November, we were projecting unemployment to rise to 4¼ per cent by end-2024 and 4½ per cent in late 2025, as past weak activity reduced hiring rates. In fact, unemployment has remained at or around 4 per cent, and underemployment has fallen back to late-2022 levels. A range of other capacity measures have also stabilised or reversed in recent months, including the ratio of vacancies to unemployment, and surveys of firms’ reported labour constraints (Graph 11).
With activity projected to pick up in 2025 as private demand recovers, these developments have caused us to revise down our central projection for unemployment.
But the implications for inflationary pressure depend on where this leaves spare capacity relative to sustainable levels. Two considerations suggest labour market conditions are relatively tight. First, all of the measures in Graph 11 lie some distance above their historical averages – and unemployment remains close to its lowest level at any time in the past 50 years. But that can’t be the end of the matter – because the levels of nominal and real wage inflation associated with a given level of unemployment have fallen substantially over that period. So the sustainable level must be lower too. How much lower, no-one can say for sure. But it is possible to back out a range of time-varying estimates from past relationships between unemployment, wage and price inflation, using a suite of statistical methods of varying levels of sophistication. These estimates include the immediate pre-pandemic period, when wage inflation persistently undershot forecasts.
Those analytical approaches all suggest that, while sustainable unemployment levels are likely to have fallen materially in recent decades, current labour market conditions still appear relatively tight. Combined with the lower unemployment projection, that would suggest somewhat greater upward pressure on inflation from the labour market over the medium term. Exercises using the other measures in Graph 11 reach a similar conclusion.
But these are critical judgments – and serious commentators from academia, the financial markets and elsewhere have argued that we may be taking too pessimistic a view. We take those challenges seriously.
Some point out that business surveys of employment intentions have been at, or slightly below, long-run averages. And that is true, but such surveys typically focus on the market sector, where employment growth has been relatively subdued. They tell us less about pressures in the non-market sector, which has accounted for most of the recent strength in aggregate employment (Graph 12).
That leads to a different challenge – that non-market employment has limited influence on aggregate wage and inflation pressure, because it draws on a different labour pool. But it is hard to find support for this in the data. For example, the health care sector – a big contributor to aggregate employment in recent years – has drawn quite materially on workers in other industries (Graph 13), helping to equalise cross-sectoral wage growth. Discussion with liaison contacts suggest similar mechanisms are at work in other sectors too, including construction.
A third argument against the view that labour market conditions are relatively tight notes that nominal wage growth has been easing (Graph 14). But with measured productivity growth as weak as it has been recently, that still implies elevated growth in companies’ unit labour costs. Some of that apparent strength could reflect under-measurement of productivity growth or a temporary burst of real wage catch-up to past inflation, rather than labour market tightness. But such effects would need to be unusually large to account for the whole of the gap.
Finally, it is possible that, over and above the impact of labour market conditions, recent disinflation also reflects compression in other aggregate price drivers, including margins and housing costs. In that context it is noteworthy that output-based measures of capacity pressures have continued to fall.
Drawing this all together, our central projection reflects a judgement that labour market conditions will remain relatively tight over the forecast period, and a little tighter than assumed in November. At the same time, we have recognised the risk that recent inflation data may suggest we have overestimated the extent of excess demand in the labour market by applying a little downwards judgement on the inflation profile. And the Statement on Monetary Policy sets out what one would need to believe to justify an even larger downward adjustment, as a risk scenario.
Implications for the RBA’s monetary policy decision
Graph 15 compares the central projection for trimmed mean inflation in February with that in November. Inflation is slightly lower in the near term, reflecting the downside news on inflation, wages and activity. But it is a little higher further out, stabilising slightly above the midpoint of the target range, reflecting the surprising strength in the labour market.
Why then did the Board cut rates? Did we reject the staff forecasts, as some have claimed? Or did we suddenly and confusingly relax our previously stated intolerance for persistent inflation deviations from target? Nothing of the sort – for me at least, the rationale is relatively simple.
First, the encouraging news on price and wage inflation gave us somewhat greater confidence that underlying inflation is on track to return to the target range in the near term – if anything, a little more rapidly than previously expected. The Board noted that the combination of lower inflation data, and a lower near-term projection, put Australia in a very similar position to many other countries ahead of their first cuts (Graph 16).
Second, however, the Board also recognised that the uncertainties about the outlook for inflation become larger, the further out you go.
One uncertainty relates to future changes in the cash rate. All projections have to assume something about this path, and by convention we assume it follows market expectations. In February, that curve implied up to four 25 basis points cuts over the forecast horizon, at a somewhat more frontloaded pace than in November. In light of the data then available, including the strong labour market, it was not clear that a rate cutting cycle of this depth was likely to return underlying inflation sustainably to the midpoint of the target range. The February projections are consistent with that view.
Third, that did not, however, mean there was no case for a cut at all. To see that, the red swathe in Graph 17 shows an illustrative range of projections for underlying inflation at the time of the February forecast under the alternative assumption of an unchanged cash rate target of 4.35 per cent.
The centre of the swathe lies slightly below the midpoint of the target range, consistent with a bias to cut. But there were good arguments for both a hold and a cut – and the Board discussed them in some detail, as the minutes released earlier this week show. Foremost in that debate included the issues I have discussed today – the outlook for global activity, and the degree of spare capacity in the labour market.
Some have flagged a concern that the Board’s messaging on rates feels like fine-tuning. It is certainly true that the pervasive uncertainties we will face over the forecast period are orders of magnitude larger than the sorts of differences to the target midpoint I’ve discussed here. But the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy agreed between the Treasurer and the Board is clear: we set monetary policy such that inflation is expected to return to the midpoint of the target range. And we do that because it maximises the chances of inflation remaining sustainably in that range. The rate cut in February reduces the risks of inflation undershooting that midpoint, but the Board does not currently share the market’s confidence that a sequence of further cuts will be required.
That assessment will of course evolve as time proceeds and further data help distinguish between alternative narratives of the economy. Interest rates will go where they need to go to maximise the chances of keeping inflation sustainably in the target band while helping to sustain full employment. Progress towards that target has been good – but it is too soon to declare victory. Many households and companies are continuing to struggle – and the Board will continue to take decisions, meeting by meeting, in the interests of all Australians. In so doing, our goal is to remove inflation from the list of things people have to worry about, leaving them free to focus on navigating an increasingly VUCA world.
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 3
For Immediate Release: March 04, 2025
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is providing an at-a-glance summary of news from around the agency:
On Monday, the FDA approved the first generics of Xarelto (rivaroxaban), 2.5 mg, tablets to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events in adult patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and to reduce the risk of major thrombotic vascular events in adult patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD), including patients who have recently undergone a lower extremity revascularization procedure due to symptomatic PAD. Anticoagulants (blood thinners) are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the U.S., and Monday’s approval of the first generics of rivaroxaban, 2.5 mg, tablets will make a direct impact on American patients who rely on anticoagulant medications. Approving safe and effective generics to help provide patients more treatment options continues to be a priority for the FDA. On Friday, the FDA informed sponsors of testosterone products of new labeling changes resulting from the results of the Testosterone Replacement Therapy for Assessment of Long-term Vascular Events and Efficacy Response in Hypogonadal Men (TRAVERSE) clinical trial and the results from required postmarket ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) studies. The labeling changes include a new warning about the risk of increased blood pressure for testosterone products that currently do not contain such labeling information. On Friday, the FDA approved TNKase (tenecteplase) to treat acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in adults. The most common adverse reaction is bleeding. TNKase is for intravenous administration only and recommended dosing is available in the prescribing information.
Related Information
Related Information
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Boilerplate
The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, radiation-emitting electronic products, and for regulating tobacco products.
Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) delegates today urged the Secretariat to ramp up efforts to boost managerial accountability and internal controls, emphasizing the tone-setting role of top leaders in fostering a more effective United Nations.
“A strong system of accountability is not just a bureaucratic requirement, it is the very foundation of the trust that binds this Organization to Member States and to the citizens of the world,” said Switzerland’s delegate, speaking also for Liechtenstein. “Far from being a simple administrative reform, accountability is a fundamental principle that reflects our commitment to the values of the United Nations: integrity, transparency and efficiency in the service of peace and sustainable development.”
While the Secretary-General’s report highlights significant progress, it also stresses the persistent challenges that require determination and commitment to overcome, he said. Exemplary leadership is essential for greater accountability as the UN Values and Behaviours Framework emphasizes inclusion, integrity, humility and humanity. “A culture of accountability can only be built if those who lead the Organization embody these values on a daily basis,” he said.
He said that other essential components for boosting accountability are the use of data and transparency, such as the UN Results Portal, which strengthens the trust of Member States. In addition, sexual exploitation and abuse are an unacceptable betrayal of the Organization’s fundamental values while undermining public confidence. His delegation welcomes the Secretary-General’s efforts to strengthen prevention and response mechanisms, including improving ClearCheck, a screening database, and the adoption of a victim-centred approach.
The representative of Iraq, speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, underscored that accountability within the Organization requires managers and decision-makers at the highest levels to commit to the accountability system’s six components. He emphasized the importance of weaving more results-based steps — of both institutional and personal accountability — into future Secretariat progress reports. The Group also values the recommendations of the recent Joint Inspection Unit’s review of accountability frameworks in the United Nations system organizations.
He asked senior managers to keep improving the presentation of the proposed programme budget and ensure resources are clearly linked to a continuously improving results-based budgeting framework. “This should reflect existing mandates and the measures to achieve them,” he said. Noting the Organization’s ongoing financial constraints, the Group believes it is even more urgent for the Secretariat to keep strengthening internal controls and monitor effective expenditures to fully implement agreed mandates and programmes. The General Assembly has asked the Secretary-General to urge senior managers to meet the geographical targets contained in the senior managers’ compacts. The Group also wants to understand the appropriate accountability measures that will be taken when the targets stipulated in the compacts have not been met.
Accountability ‘Cornerstone of Effective Management’
Israel’s delegate called accountability the cornerstone of effective management. “It must be treated with the significance it deserves,” she said. Her delegation welcomed progress on addressing misconduct and disciplinary issues, including the revision of policies on discrimination and harassment, including sexual harassment and the abuse of authority. “We call on the Secretariat to strengthen these efforts, ensuring a cultural shift where such misconduct is not only condemned in words, but eradicated in practice,” she said, adding that perpetrators must face real consequences, and every staff member must feel safe to report misconduct without a fear of retaliation.
The increased availability of data and information will enhance the transparency of activities, investigations and their outcomes. “Accountability is a principle that must be demonstrated from the very top of any organization,” she said, urging the UN leadership to “set the tone, ensuring that oversight is not only a bureaucratic exercise, but a force that safeguards the integrity of this Organization”.
Secretariat Delivers Reports
Karen Lock, Director of the Business Transformation and Accountability Division of the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance, presented the Secretary-General’s “Fourteenth progress report on accountability: strengthening accountability in the United Nations Secretariat” (document A/79/696). Noting that the Secretary-General’s management reforms have shifted the focus from process to results, she said the report recognized that this transformation can only happen over time and must be part of a process of continuous improvement. While progress has been made in some elements of an accountability system that holds staff accountable for financial and programme performance, more needs to be done.
Some of the detailed measures taken in 2024, laid out in Section II of the report, include improving the internal control process, such as using targeted workshops and guidance on deepening the integration of internal controls and risk management and enhancing enterprise risk management. At the Secretariat-wide level, risk treatment and response plans were developed for 14 critical risks with corporate risk owners monitoring the implementation of mitigation measures. Sixty-four entities completed their risk assessments and have dedicated risk-governance practices in place.
The Secretariat’s data protection and privacy policy, meant to guide the responsible handling of personal data, provides transparency and lays down necessary safeguards, she said. The Secretariat has also disseminated the Secretary-General’s bulletin on the United Nations Values and Behaviours Framework, which aims to inform human resources processes, such as workforce planning, recruitment, learning and performance management.
As the transparency of information lies at the core of accountability, the Secretariat has enhanced Member States’ portals, she said. For example, the results portal (https://results.un.org) now provides information on when planned targets were met, exceeded or not reached. The Workforce Portal now provides up-to-date information on staff and demographics. The compendium of disciplinary measures contains detailed information based on nearly 14 years of practice in disciplinary matters and is available online on the human resources portal (https://hr.un.org). “The report shows the Secretariat’s continued progress — not perfection — in reinforcing accountability as a central pillar of its management system,” Ms. Lock said. “It includes planned activities in 2025 and beyond to drive continuous improvement.”
Caroline Nalwanga, Vice-Chair of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), presented that body’s related report (document A/79/772). The Advisory Committee trusts the Secretary-General will use existing resources to develop a maturity model for the accountability system and lay out a clear road map and benchmarks so progress can be noted and areas for improvements can be identified.
Turning to the performance-appraisal system, ACABQ reiterates that the performance appraisal system must be strengthened and “that more efforts be made to ensure a link between high-level deliverables outlined by legislative bodies and individual staff workplans”. An enhanced performance-appraisal system could not only show how performance has delivered results, but could better assess staff compliance with regulations, rules and the responsible stewardship of funds and resources.
Regarding the review of the Organization’s system of internal controls, the Advisory Committee noted the Assembly’s request to review the first and second lines of defence in the accountability system, including human resources and asset management. The Advisory Committee backs a comprehensive review that includes financial and budget management, information communications technology and supply chain management. “The Advisory Committee trusts that the review will be followed by the strengthening of the exercise of second line of defence across different departments in the accountability framework,” she added.
Fifth Committee Chair Egriselda Aracely González López (El Salvador) opened the meeting by thanking delegates for their monumental efforts during their final session in December 2024. Their collective commitment allowed them to finalize a complex session within the established time frame. She encouraged delegates to maintain the same momentum and spirit of collaboration as they forge ahead in this session and the second part of the resumed session.
NEW YORK, March 04, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Medallion Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: MFIN, “Medallion” or the “Company”), a specialty finance company that originates and services loans in various consumer and commercial industries, along with offering loan origination services to fintech strategic partners, announced today its results for the quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2024.
2024 Fourth Quarter Highlights
Net income was $10.1 million, or $0.43 per share, compared to $14.3 million, or $0.60 per share, in the prior year quarter, and included $1.3 million of taxi medallion recoveries in the current quarter compared to $12.5 million in the prior year quarter.
Net interest income grew 6% to $52.0 million from $49.0 million in the prior year quarter.
Net interest margin on net loans was 8.15%, compared to 8.50% in the prior year quarter, and on gross loans it was 7.84%, compared to 8.20% in the prior year quarter.
Loan originations grew 69% to $285.7 million, compared to $169.1 million in the prior year quarter.
Credit loss provision increased to $20.6 million from $10.8 million in the prior year quarter.
The Board of Directors increased the quarterly dividend 10% to $0.11 per share.
In connection with a pending agreement in principle with the SEC’s Division of Enforcement on terms of settlement, the Company recorded a charge of $3.0 million as well as a benefit of $5.5 million related to insurance coverage of legal costs incurred.
2024 Full-Year Highlights
Net income was $35.9 million, or $1.52 per share, compared to $55.1 million, or $2.37 per share, in the prior year, and included $6.9 million of taxi medallion recoveries in the current year compared to $29.6 million in the prior year.
Net interest income grew 8% to $202.5 million from $188.1 million in the prior year.
Net interest margin on net loans was 8.35%, compared to 8.68% in the prior year, and on gross loans it was 8.05%, compared to 8.38% in the prior year.
Loan originations were $1.0 billion, compared to $960.0 million in the prior year.
Total loans, including loans held for sale, grew 12% to $2.5 billion as of December 31, 2024, compared to $2.2 billion a year ago.
Credit loss provision increased to $76.5 million from $37.8 million in the prior year.
The Company repurchased 570,404 shares of common stock at an average cost of $8.07 per share in the year, for a total of $4.6 million.
Total assets grew to $2.9 billion as of December 31, 2024, an 11% increase over December 31, 2023.
Executive Commentary – Andrew Murstein, President of Medallion
“We continue to be pleased with our quarterly and full-year performance. In the fourth quarter of 2023, taxi medallion recoveries added $0.37 to our bottom line compared to only $0.04 this quarter. For the full year, and the first time in our history, we originated over $1 billion of loans, more than half of which were high yielding recreation loans. We are quite pleased with this accomplishment.
Our commercial lending group, Medallion Capital, exited a portfolio investment during the quarter generating net gains of $3.8 million on equity investments, with full year net gains of $6.9 million. Although our equity investments are small, over time they have generated meaningful earnings to our bottom line, with net gains totaling nearly $15 million over the past three years.
Finally, in the quarter we reached an agreement in principle on terms of settlement and recorded a charge of $3.0 million related to the SEC matter as well as recognized a $5.5 million benefit related to insurance coverage of legal costs associated with this matter. The agreement is subject to approval of the Commissioners of the SEC and the court, and we look forward to bringing closure to this matter.
We are quite happy with where we are as a company, especially with the performance we have delivered over the past several years. We finished the year with record total interest income, net interest income, assets, strategic partnership loan volume, and total equity. We believe we are well-positioned for 2025 and the years ahead.”
Business Segment Highlights
Recreation Lending Segment
Originations were $72.2 million during the quarter, compared to $62.7 million a year ago.
Recreation loans, including loans held for investment and loans held for sale, grew 15% to $1.5 billion, or 62% of total loans, as of December 31, 2024, compared to $1.3 billion, or 60% of total loans, a year ago.
Interest income grew 15% to $51.3 million for the quarter, from $44.4 million in the prior year quarter.
The average interest rate was 15.07% at year-end, compared to 14.79% a year ago.
Recreation loans 90 days or more past due were $10.0 million, or 0.67% of gross recreation loans, as of December 31, 2024, compared to $9.1 million, or 0.70%, a year ago.
Allowance for credit loss was 5.00% at year-end for loans held for investment, compared to 4.31% a year ago.
In December 2024, we signed a letter of intent to sell up to $121 million of recreation loans at a premium to par value.
Home Improvement Lending Segment
Originations were $82.5 million during the quarter, compared to $66.0 million a year ago.
Home improvement loans grew 9% to $827.2 million, or 33% of total loans, as of December 31, 2024, compared to $760.6 million, or 34% of total loans, a year ago.
Interest income grew 16% to $19.9 million for the quarter, from $17.2 million in the prior year quarter.
The average interest rate was 9.81% at year-end, compared to 9.51% a year ago.
Home improvement loans 90 days or more past due were $1.4 million, or 0.17% of gross home improvement loans, as of December 31, 2024, compared to $1.5 million, or 0.20%, a year ago.
Allowance for credit loss was 2.48% at year-end, compared to 2.76% a year ago.
Commercial Lending Segment
Commercial loans were $111.3 million at 2024, compared to $114.8 million a year ago.
The average interest rate on the portfolio was 12.97%, compared to 12.87% a year ago.
Taxi Medallion Lending Segment
The Company collected $2.6 million of cash on taxi medallion-related assets during the quarter.
Total net taxi medallion assets declined to $7.7 million, a 37% reduction from a year ago, and represented less than 0.5% of the Company’s total assets, as of December 31, 2024.
Capital Allocation
Quarterly Dividend
The Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.11 per share, payable on March 31, 2025, to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 17, 2025.
Stock Repurchase Plan
As of December 31, 2024, the Company had $15.4 million remaining under its $40 million share repurchase program. During 2024, the Company purchased 570,404 shares for $4.6 million.
Conference Call Information
The Company will host a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter and full-year financial results tomorrow, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time.
In connection with its earnings release, the Company has updated its quarterly supplement presentation, which is now available at www.medallion.com.
A link to the live audio webcast of the conference call will also be available at the Company’s IR website.
Replay Information
The webcast replay will be available at the Company’s IR website until the next quarter’s results are announced.
The conference call replay will be available following the end of the call through Wednesday, March 12
U.S. dial-in number: (844) 512-2921
International dial-in number: (412) 317-6671
Passcode: 1019 6407
About Medallion Financial Corp.
Medallion Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: MFIN) and its subsidiaries originate and service a growing portfolio of consumer loans and mezzanine loans in various industries. Key industries served include recreation (towable RVs and marine) and home improvement (replacement roofs, swimming pools, and windows). Medallion Financial Corp. is headquartered in New York City, NY, and its largest subsidiary, Medallion Bank, is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more information, please visit www.medallion.com.
Forward-Looking Statements Please note that this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties relating to business performance, cash flow, net interest income and expenses, other expenses, earnings, growth, and our growth strategy. These statements are often, but not always, made using words or phrases such as “will” and “continue” or the negative version of those words or other comparable words or phrases of a future or forward-looking nature. These statements relate to future public announcements of our earnings, the impact of the pending SEC litigation, expectations regarding our loan portfolio, including collections on our medallion loans, the potential for future asset growth, and market share opportunities. Medallion’s actual results may differ significantly from the results discussed in such forward-looking statements. For example, statements about the effects of the current economy, whether inflation or the risk of recession, operations, financial performance and prospects constitute forward-looking statements and are subject to the risk that the actual impacts may differ, possibly materially, from what is reflected in those forward-looking statements due to factors and future developments that are uncertain, unpredictable and in many cases beyond Medallion’s control.In addition to risks relating to the current economy, a description of certain risks to which Medallion is or may be subject, including risks related to the pending SEC litigation, the settlement of which remains subject to SEC and court approval, please refer to the factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in Medallion’s 2023 Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Achieved Cerberus third tranche of operational performance milestones and secured final $40.5 million to fully fund $210.5 million Delayed Draw Term Loan
Closed $303.5 million loan guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office and secured first funding of $68.3 million
Secured $8 million standalone BESS order for Naval Base of San Diego to advance American energy independence
Grew customer orders backlog to $682 million, a 28% increase year over year
Launched Factory 2 Works with eight states responding to Requests for Proposals and multiple sites now shortlisted
Reiterates 2025 full-year revenue guidance range of $150 million – $190 million
Strengthened executive leadership, appointed current Chief Financial Officer, Nathan Kroeker to Chief Commercial Officer; welcomed new Chief Financial Officer, Eric Javidi, who brings extensive investing, operating and leadership experience within the energy and energy infrastructure spaces, along with a track record of success with high growth companies
EDISON, N.J., March 04, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ: EOSE) (“Eos” or the “Company”), America’s leading innovator in designing, manufacturing, and providing zinc-based long duration energy storage (LDES) systems sourced and manufactured in the United States, today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2024.
Fourth Quarter Highlights
Revenue totaled $7.3 million, a 10% increase compared to the prior year and 749% increase compared to last quarter.
Gross loss of $23.5 million, consistent with prior year, on lower Z3 material costs offset by higher project execution costs related to commissioning and field operations.
Operating expenses totaled $28.2 million, a 52% increase compared to prior year, with 45% of the total representing non-cash items. Cash operating expenses remained relatively flat, with $8.5 million (or 88% of the increase over prior year) driven by non-cash items such as PP&E write offs and stock-based compensation expense as a result of a significant stock price increase.
Net loss attributable to shareholders of $268.1 million, largely driven by non-cash change in fair value tied to mark-to-market adjustments related to the Company’s increased December 31, 2024, stock price. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $44.6 million, a 20% increase compared to the prior year, driven by an increase in Gen 2.3 PP&E write offs and Cerberus debt issuance costs.
Total cash of $103.4 million, including restricted cash, as of December 31, 2024.
$14.4 billion commercial opportunity pipeline, a 9% increase from prior year, with a $682 million orders backlog, an increase of 16% compared to prior quarter and 28% compared to December 31, 2023.
Achieved SOX compliance by strengthening the Company’s internal controls, eliminating previously disclosed material weakness.
Full-Year 2024 Highlights
Revenue totaled $15.6 million in line with the Company’s revised 2024 revenue guidance.
Gross loss of $83.3 million, a 13% increase compared to the prior year; lower Z3 material costs were more than offset by labor and overhead inefficiencies related to manual sub assembly and increased project execution.
Operating expenses totaled $91.9 million, a 16% increase compared to the prior year, with 29% of the total representing non-cash items. The year over year increase included $7.7 million in cash expenses which was primarily driven by strategic investments in sales, sourcing, software engineering, and controllership to position the Company for scaled growth.
Net loss attributable to shareholders of $685.9 million, largely driven by non-cash change in fair value tied to mark-to market adjustments stemming from the increase in stock price as of December 31, 2024. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $156.6 million.
“Over the past 12 months the team delivered significant results. The organization brought the first state-of-the-art manufacturing line into full operation, reduced Z3 costs, increased commercial opportunity pipeline and orders backlog and secured two major financing investments with Cerberus and the Department of Energy,” said Joe Mastrangelo, Eos Chief Executive Officer. “These two critical proof points strongly validate our long-term strategy and capabilities, positioning the Company to scale with the growing demand for long-duration energy storage. With the announcement of Factory 2 Works and plans to order three additional manufacturing lines, Eos is now hyper-scaling its capacity expansion to secure larger orders and deliver for customers and shareholders.”
2025 Outlook
For the full-year 2025, Eos expects to achieve revenue between $150 million and $190 million. This projected growth is expected to be driven by increased production volume on the Company’s first state-of-the-art manufacturing line as staged sub-assembly automation comes online.
Recent Business Highlights
Cerberus Strategic Investment As announced in January, Eos successfully achieved the third tranche of performance milestones previously agreed upon between Eos and an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management LP (“Cerberus”) as part of their strategic investment in the Company. Meeting these performance milestones allowed the Company to access the final $40.5 million of the Delayed Draw Term Loan (DDTL), fueling ongoing operations and U.S. production expansion. The $210.5 million DDTL announced in June 2024 is now fully funded, driven by the Company consistently achieving key operational milestones related to the Company’s state-of-the-art manufacturing line, raw materials cost-out, Z3 technology performance improvement and customer cash conversion. The Company surpassed its January raw materials cost-out target by 6% while delivering manufacturing cycle times below 10 seconds and maintaining 98% first pass yield to further demonstrate continued operational efficiency and progress towards profitable growth.
Commercial Growth & Bankability In the fourth quarter, the Company secured several key standalone storage orders including contracts with a municipal cooperative in Springfield Missouri, the U.S. Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton in San Diego and most recently the Naval Base of San Diego. Eos deployment of American-made energy storage systems is becoming increasingly vital, not only for enhancing military resilience but also for strengthening the U.S. against global energy disruptions and securing America’s energy independence.
To drive further growth, the Company launched a comprehensive insurance program in partnership with Ariel Green, a division of Ariel Re, to enhance the bankability of the Company’s technology. These products include investment tax credit (ITC) and ITC recapture protections, along with contractual warranty and performance guarantee backstop coverage. Most recently, the Company also updated its standard warranty to a 3-year term with the option to extend to 5 or 10 years. These customer-focused solutions, combined with extensive third-party validations and a more robust Company balance sheet, provide greater risk mitigation, enhanced operational stability and increased economic certainty.
Operational Capacity Expansion Demand for safe, multi-cycle, American-made energy storage has reached a level that requires significant capacity expansion. As announced in December 2024, the Company launched its search for Factory 2 Works, submitting Requests for Proposals (RFPs) to eight states, with multiple sites now shortlisted. In parallel, Eos is progressing with plans to procure three additional manufacturing lines, including sub-assemblies, battery manufacturing, and cube assembly to support 6 GWh of additional annualized manufacturing capacity. This expansion is a crucial step in scaling operations to meet the growing demand for reliable, high performance energy storage.
The Company is expanding its first manufacturing line from 1.25 GWh to 2 GWh annualized capacity and continues to progress through Factory Acceptance Testing with its staged sub-assembly automation implementation. The Company expects full implementation to occur in the second and early third quarter, which is essential for increasing throughput and reducing labor and overhead costs.
Earnings Conference Call and Webcast Eos will host a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 results on March 5, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. ET. The live webcast of the earnings call will be available on the “Investor Relations” page of the Company’s website at Eos Investors or may be accessed using this link (registration link). To avoid delays, we encourage participants to join the conference call fifteen minutes ahead of the scheduled start time.
The conference call replay will be available via webcast through Eos’ investor relations website for twelve months following the live presentation. The webcast replay will be available from approximately 11:30 a.m. ET on March 5, 2025, and can be accessed by visiting Eos Investors.
About Eos Energy Enterprises
Eos Energy Enterprises, Inc. is accelerating the shift to American energy independence with positively ingenious solutions that transform how the world stores power. Our breakthrough Znyth™ aqueous zinc battery was designed to overcome the limitations of conventional lithium-ion technology. It is safe, scalable, efficient, sustainable, manufactured in the U.S., and the core of our innovative systems that today provides utility, industrial, and commercial customers with a proven, reliable energy storage alternative for 3 to 12-hour applications. Eos was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Edison, New Jersey. For more information about Eos (NASDAQ: EOSE), visit eose.com.
Forward Looking Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our expected revenue, for the fiscal years December 31, 2025, our path to profitability and strategic outlook, statements regarding orders backlog and opportunity pipeline, statements regarding our expectation that we can continue to increase product volume on our state-of-the-art manufacturing line, statements regarding our future expansion and its impact on our ability to scale up operations, statements regarding our expectation that we can continue to strengthen our overall supply chain, statements regarding our expectation that our new comprehensive insurance program will provide increased operational and economic certainty, statements that refer to the delayed draw term loan with Cerberus, milestones thereunder and the anticipated use of proceeds, statements that refer to outlook, projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intends,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, them. Because such statements are based on expectations as to future financial and operating results and are not statements of fact, actual results may differ materially from those projected.
Factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: changes adversely affecting the business in which we are engaged; our ability to forecast trends accurately; our ability to generate cash, service indebtedness and incur additional indebtedness; our ability to achieve the operational milestones on the delayed draw term loan; our ability to raise financing in the future; risks associated with the credit agreement with Cerberus, including risks of default, dilution of outstanding Common Stock, consequences for failure to meet milestones and contractual lockup of shares; our customers’ ability to secure project financing; the amount of final tax credits available to our customers or to Eos pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act; the timing and availability of future funding under the Department of Energy Loan Facility; our ability to continue to develop efficient manufacturing processes to scale and to forecast related costs and efficiencies accurately; fluctuations in our revenue and operating results; competition from existing or new competitors; our ability to convert firm order backlog and pipeline to revenue; risks associated with security breaches in our information technology systems; risks related to legal proceedings or claims; risks associated with evolving energy policies in the United States and other countries and the potential costs of regulatory compliance; risks associated with changes to the U.S. trade environment; our ability to maintain the listing of our shares of common stock on NASDAQ; our ability to grow our business and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain our management and key employees; risks related to the adverse changes in general economic conditions, including inflationary pressures and increased interest rates; risk from supply chain disruptions and other impacts of geopolitical conflict; changes in applicable laws or regulations; the possibility that Eos may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; other factors beyond our control; risks related to adverse changes in general economic conditions; and other risks and uncertainties.
The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to additional risks, uncertainties, and factors, including those more fully described in the Company’s most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. Further information on potential risks that could affect actual results will be included in the subsequent periodic and current reports and other filings that the Company makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Moreover, the Company operates in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment, and new risks and uncertainties may emerge that could have an impact on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and, except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Key Metrics
Backlog. Our backlog represents the amount of revenue that we expect to realize from existing agreements with our customers for the sale of our battery energy storage systems and performance of services. The backlog is calculated by adding new orders in the current fiscal period to the backlog as of the end of the prior fiscal period and then subtracting the shipments in the current fiscal period. If the amount of an order is modified or cancelled, we adjust orders in the current period and our backlog accordingly, but do not retroactively adjust previously published backlogs. There is no comparable US-GAAP financial measure for backlog. We believe that the backlog is a useful indicator regarding the future revenue of our Company.
Pipeline. Our pipeline represents projects for which we have submitted technical proposals or non-binding quotes plus letters of intent (“LOI”) or firm commitments from customers. Pipeline does not include lead generation projects.
Booked Orders. Booked orders are orders where we have legally binding agreements with a Purchase Order (“PO”), or Master Supply Agreement (“MSA”) executed by both parties.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
To provide investors with additional information regarding our financial results, we have disclosed in this earnings release non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS, which are non-GAAP financial measures as defined under the rules of the SEC. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered supplemental to, not a substitute for, or superior to, the financial measures of the Company’s calculated in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”). The Company believes adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS are useful measures in evaluating its financial and operational performance distinct and apart from financing costs, certain non-cash expenses and non-operational expenses.
We believe that non-GAAP financial information, when taken collectively may be helpful to our investors in assessing its operating performance. There are a number of limitations related to the use of these non-GAAP financial measures and their nearest GAAP equivalents. For example, the Company’s definitions of non-GAAP financial measures may differ from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Below is a description of the non-GAAP financial information included herein as well as reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measure. You should review the reconciliations below but not rely on any single financial measure to evaluate our business.
Adjusted EBITDA is defined as earnings (net loss) attributable to Eos adjusted for interest expense, income tax, depreciation and amortization, non-cash stock-based compensation expense, change in fair value of debt and derivatives, debt extinguishment, and other non-cash or non-recurring items as determined by management which it does not believe to be indicative of its underlying business trends. Adjusted EPS is defined as GAAP net loss per common share as adjusted for non-cash stock-based compensation expense change in fair value of debt and derivatives and debt extinguishment per common share.
EOS ENERGY ENTERPRISES, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS AND COMPREHENSIVE LOSS (In thousands, except share and per share amounts)
For the Years Ended December 31,
2024
2023
Revenue
$
15,606
$
16,378
Cost of goods sold
98,867
89,798
Gross profit (loss)
(83,261
)
(73,420
)
Operating expenses
Research and development expenses
22,758
18,708
Selling, general and administrative expenses
60,047
53,650
Loss from write-down of property, plant and equipment
9,133
7,159
Total operating expenses
91,938
79,517
Operating loss
(175,199
)
(152,937
)
Other (expense) income
Interest expense, net
(8,718
)
(18,770
)
Interest expense – related parties
(19,499
)
(37,466
)
Change in fair value of debt – related party
33,823
—
Change in fair value of warrants
(171,226
)
(24,980
)
Change in fair value of derivatives – related parties
(405,388
)
9,983
Gain (loss) on debt extinguishment
68,478
(3,510
)
Other expense
(8,120
)
(1,795
)
Loss before income taxes
$
(685,849
)
$
(229,475
)
Income tax expense
21
31
Net loss attributable to shareholders
$
(685,870
)
$
(229,506
)
Accretion of Preferred Stock – related party
(278,330
)
—
Net loss attributable to common shareholders
$
(964,200
)
$
(229,506
)
Other comprehensive (loss) income attributable to common shareholders
Change in fair value of debt – credit risk – related party
(43,490
)
—
Foreign currency translation adjustment
(13
)
1
Comprehensive loss attributable to common shareholders
$
(1,007,703
)
$
(229,505
)
Basic and diluted loss per share attributable to common shareholders
Basic
$
(4.55
)
$
(1.81
)
Diluted
$
(4.55
)
$
(1.81
)
Weighted average shares of common stock
Basic
212,039,775
126,967,756
Diluted
212,039,775
126,967,756
EOS ENERGY ENTERPRISES, INC. CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET (In thousands)
December 31,
2024
2023
Balance sheet data
Cash and cash equivalents
$
74,292
$
69,473
Other current assets
105,620
52,858
Property, plant and equipment, net
45,660
37,855
Other assets
34,746
26,306
Total assets
260,318
186,492
Total liabilities
842,085
297,292
Mezzanine equity – preferred stock
488,696
—
Total deficit
(1,070,463
)
(110,800
)
EOS ENERGY ENTERPRISES, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASHFLOWS (In thousands)
December 31,
2024
2023
Cash used in operating activities
$
(153,936
)
$
(145,018
)
Cash used in investing activities
(33,186
)
(29,461
)
Cash provided by financing activities
205,834
227,918
Effect of foreign exchange on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash
(17
)
5
Net increase in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash
18,695
53,444
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, beginning of year
84,667
31,223
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, end of year
$
103,362
$
84,667
EOS ENERGY ENTERPRISES, INC. RECONCILIATION OF NET LOSS TO EBITDA AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (In thousands)
For the three months ended December 31,
For the twelve months ended December 31,
2024
2023
2024
2023
Net loss
$
(268,124
)
$
(41,208
)
$
(685,870
)
$
(229,506
)
add: Interest expense
5,248
8,565
28,217
56,236
add: Income tax expense
4
6
21
31
add: Depreciation and amortization
2,640
2,435
7,899
9,751
EBITDA loss
(260,232
)
(30,202
)
(649,733
)
(163,488
)
add: Stock based compensation
7,840
3,934
18,780
14,057
add (deduct): Change in fair value of derivatives
244,877
(10,922
)
576,614
14,997
deduct: Change in fair value of debt
(37,099
)
—
(33,823
)
—
(deduct) add: (Gain) loss on debt extinguishment
—
—
(68,478
)
3,510
Adjusted EBITDA loss
$
(44,614
)
$
(37,190
)
$
(156,640
)
$
(130,924
)
EOS ENERGY ENTERPRISES, INC. RECONCILIATION OF NET (LOSS) INCOME TO ADJUSTED NET (LOSS) INCOME PER SHARE (In thousands, except share and per share data)
For the three months ended December 31,
For the twelve months ended December 31,
2024
2023
2024
2023
Net loss attributable to common shareholders
$
(481,516
)
$
(41,208
)
$
(964,200
)
$
(229,506
)
add: Stock based compensation
7,840
3,934
18,780
14,057
add (deduct): Change in fair value of derivatives
244,877
(10,922
)
576,614
14,997
deduct: Change in fair value of debt
(37,099
)
—
(33,823
)
—
(deduct) add: (Gain) loss on debt extinguishment
—
—
(68,478
)
3,510
Adjusted net loss attributable to common shareholders
(265,898
)
(48,196
)
(471,107
)
(196,942
)
Basic and diluted loss per share attributable to common shareholders
Basic
$
(2.20
)
$
(0.25
)
$
(4.55
)
$
(1.81
)
Diluted
$
(2.20
)
$
(0.25
)
$
(4.55
)
$
(1.81
)
Basic and diluted adjusted loss per share attributable to common shareholders
Source: United States Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)
RED OAK, Iowa – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, today announced her Small Business of the Week: Plantpeddler of Howard County. Throughout the 119th Congress, Chair Ernst plans to recognize a small business in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties.
“Shipping over 15 million plants each year, Plantpeddler has rooted themselves as the go-to small business for all horticulture needs,” said Chair Ernst. “From garden mums to begonias, Plantpeddler serves 3,200 growers domestically and abroad, leafing an impact felt far beyond Iowa.”
After graduating from Iowa State University with a degree in horticulture, Mike and Rachel Gooder purchased Cresco Greenhouse in 1980 with plans to revitalize and rebrand it. The couple modernized the infrastructure, optimized production methods, and diversified the variety of plants grown, eventually renaming their business to Plantpeddler.
In 1984, Plantpeddler established a wholesale division, providing independent and middle-market retailers with a wide range of premium crops and plants. In 2001, they continued to expand and created a Young Plants division, positioning the business as a major propagator of vegetative genetics in the floriculture industry. In 2014, John Gooder, Mike and Rachel’s son, joined the company. John pushed for advancements in automation and genetic research, ultimately becoming part-owner in 2024. This June, Plantpeddler looks forward to celebrating its 45th anniversary.
Stay tuned as Chair Ernst recognizes more Iowa small businesses across the state with her Small Business of the Week award.
lthough the deadline for disaster assistance has passed, FEMA is still in Georgia helping survivors impacted by Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene. You can visit any U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) locations listed below to meet with a FEMA representative about your application or to update your contact information. FEMA representatives are working with their SBA partners at these locations: Bulloch County Statesboro-Bulloch County Library 124 S. Main St. Statesboro, GA 30458 Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday–Friday; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday. Coffee County Satilla Regional Library 200 S Madison Ave Douglas, GA 31533 Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday. Jeff Davis County Jeff Davis County Recreation Department 83 Buford Road Hazlehurst, GA 31539 Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday–Friday; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday. Lowndes County Valdosta State University Foundation Inc. 901 North Patterson Street Valdosta, GA 31601 Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; closed Sunday. Richmond County Centro Cristiano Oasis VIP 3265 Deans Bridge Rd Augusta, GA 30906 Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday – Friday; 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Saturday; Closed Sundays Telfair County Telfair Community Service Center 91 Telfair Ave # D McRae-Helena, GA 31055 Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday – Friday; Closed Saturdays and Sundays Toombs County Center for Rural Entrepreneurship 208 E 1st St Vidalia, GA 30474 Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday – Friday; Closed Saturdays and Sundays There are additional ways to check the status of your application or update your contact information:
Online at DisasterAssistance.gov. The FEMA App for mobile devices. Call the FEMA Helpline at 800-621-3362. Survivors can also contact the Georgia Call Center Monday through Friday at 678-547-2861 for assistance with their application.
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin
March 04, 2025
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Co-Chair of the Senate Hunger Caucus and member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) today introduced the bipartisan Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act, legislation that would prevent and reduce food waste across the country. Each year, the U.S. produces and imports 237 million tons of food annually, but 31 percent of this food is never sold or eaten, while millions of Americans experience food insecurity.
Specifically, the Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act would establish a “Food Loss and Waste Reduction Certification,” and direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to create:
Criteria, which businesses and organizations would have to meet to receive the certification;
A verification process, to confirm that businesses and organizations have achieved the criteria; and
A label, which certified businesses and organizations would be authorized to use on their products, buildings, and websites.
“While millions of Americans face food insecurity, millions of tons of food waste end up in landfills every year and contribute to methane emissions that drive the climate crisis. We must address these crises for the sake of hungry families, our economy, and our environment,” said Durbin. “Today, I’m reintroducing the bipartisan Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act with Senator Grassley to move our country toward more conscious consumption and curbing food waste.”
“Too many families suffer from food insecurity. The Iowa Waste Reduction Center at the University of Northern Iowa has demonstrated the economic and environmental benefits of reducing food waste, and Congress should act to build on their impactful work. Our legislation would recognize businesses for using excess food responsibly and incentivize others to improve their practices,” said Grassley.
“Food waste continues to be a national concern for our communities, especially here in Iowa where 22 percent of all waste going to our landfills is food. We look forward to working with Senators Durbin and Grassley to support the Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act through our continued initiatives at the Iowa Waste Reduction Center,” said Mark Nook, President of the University of Northern Iowa.
Food waste has significant economic, environmental, and social impacts. More than $440 billion is spent annually to produce and dispose of food that is never consumed or sold. Sending uneaten food to landfills or incinerators is responsible for the use of more than 20 trillion liters of water, which is equivalent to the annual water use of 50 million homes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Additionally, just one-third of food waste, if saved from disposal, could feed the 47 million Americans, including 14 million children, who are suffering from food insecurity, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The “Food Loss and Waste Reduction Certification” would be similar to existing certifications, such as ENERGY STAR and the BioPreferred Program. The Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act would direct USDA to promote the certification to ensure that consumers are informed about which businesses and organizations have received it.
The Reduce Food Loss and Waste Act has support from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, World Wildlife Fund, University of Northern Iowa, Too Good To Go, Kellanova, FMI – The Food Industry Association, National Restaurant Association, and Consumer Brands Association.
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The unfolding trade war between is expected to have far-reaching consequences for people and businesses on both sides of the border. How can Canadians navigate the trade war and minimize the financial strain of the tariffs?
As experts in supply chain management, we aim to break down the impact of these tariffs and offer practical strategies for Canadians to help navigate the economic turbulence ahead.
How consumers react to trade wars
When the news of a potential trade war is first publicized, consumers tend to react by monitoring the situation until further information is available.
With a trade war breaking out, both consumers and retailers will need to adapt.
Shortages are likely to occur as new importation procedures slow the time products take to cross the border. The ensuing delays, along with higher tariff rates, will push some retailers to raise prices to cover cost increases. Others may limit purchases to discourage hoarding behaviour.
Some firms may even take advantage of the situation by raising prices on products not covered by the tariffs to pad their profits — a practice known as “greedflation,” which happened during the pandemic. Another potential consequence is “shrinkflation,” where package sizes become smaller while prices remain unchanged.
As consumers adapt by changing their shopping habits or using their stockpiled reserves, some of the shortages may be eased. However, retailers may struggle to manage their inventories as demands fluctuate — a phenomena known as the “bullwhip effect.” Navigating these shifts will require careful planning.
Challenges of buying domestic
Trump’s trade war has intensified calls to “buy Canadian” as a way to support domestic products.
However, fully replacing imports with domestic goods presents significant challenges. Many Canadian farmers and manufacturers lack the capacity to quickly scale up production to meet demand, at least in the short run.
Production costs may also be significantly higher in Canada than abroad, which is a major reason for relying on imports in the first place. Apparel manufacturing is a good example. It has a high labour component — the reason that most of it has been moved to low-cost countries in Asia.
Furthermore, trade wars create uncertainty, making farmers and manufacturers hesitant to make large-scale investments that may not pay off once the trade conflict ends. While this approach foregoes potential short-term gains for long term stability, it also exacerbates shortages and price hikes during and after the trade war.
The new normal
Unlike one-off events like hurricanes, or fluctuating disruptions such as COVID-19, the outcome of a trade war is difficult to predict. This makes it difficult to forecast what the “new normal” will be.
Certainly, some consumers who substitute domestic products for imported products may continue to do so in the long run. However, others may switch back to imported products if the tariffs are lifted and prices are lowered.
Knowing that this might happen, domestic producers may not ramp up production during a tariff war. Those who do increase production may later find themselves with excess capacity and inventory surpluses after the conflict ends.
Consumer acceptance of the price increases, adjustments to new higher cost supply chain structures, or efforts to maintain profit margins, may potentially establish a higher baseline prices in the post-trade-war economy.
Navigating the trade war
How can Canada best shield itself from the effects of the trade war? The easy answer is to become more self-reliant, but this is a costly option that requires technology, skilled labour and capital investments.
As a result, this option should only be chosen for the most necessary and essential items, like certain pharmaceuticals and food staples. Other strategies must also be considered:
Engaging in honest communication: Governments and retailers should regularly update the public on negotiations, new tariff schedules and potential price changes, reducing the guesswork that fuels panic buying and stockpiling. Transparency allows individuals to make the best purchasing decisions.
Protecting low-income consumers: Retailers should limit sales quantities of staple products during disruptions to avoid hoarding behaviour. Governments should consider tax relief and subsidies aimed at budget-constrained individuals to relieve the burden of higher tariff-related costs.
Supply chain disruptions inevitably result in higher costs and product shortages, often impacting low-income households the hardest. Even after the trade war ends, higher prices may persist as the new norm. To minimize the impact of tariffs, governments and enterprises need to adopt policies that reduce economic strain and result in fairer outcomes for all.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Tampering with a Monitoring Device/Clean Air Act, Conspiracy
Trials
United States v. Jason Lee Wagner
No. 3:22-CR-01754(Western District of Texas)
ECS Senior Litigation Counsel Todd Gleason
ECS Senior Trial Attorney Gary Donner
ECS Paralegal Chloe Harris
On February 7, 2025, a jury convicted Jason Lee Wagner of conspiracy and 12 smuggling violations (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 545, 2). Sentencing is scheduled for June 25, 2025.
Between March 2015 and December 2019, Wagner and others bought and sold endangered reptiles from individuals in Mexico. Wagner and other co-conspirator suppliers and middlemen used social media to offer reptiles for sale and to negotiate the terms of the sale and delivery with customers in the United States and Mexico. His co-conspirators also used international money transfers to provide for “crossing fees,” sales and purchases, and other expenses. They then packaged and re-packaged the reptiles for illegal crossings using USPS and other courier services to transport them between Mexico and the United States.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation.
Indictments
United States v. Roy Ladell Weaver, et al.
No. 1:25-CR-00048 (Middle District of Pennsylvania)
ECS Trial Attorney Ron Sarachan
AUSA David Williams
RCEC Patricia Miller
On February 19, 2025, a grand jury indicted Roy Ladell Weaver and his company, Pro Diesel Werks, LLC, with conspiring to impede the lawful functions of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and to violate the Clean Air Act (CAA), and substantive CAA violations (18 U.S.C. § 371; 42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(2)(C)).
Pro Diesel Werks provided vehicle repair and maintenance and performance enhancement services, including services on diesel engines and vehicle emission systems. The indictment alleges that between 2013 and March 2024, Weaver and the company, along with co-conspirators, disabled the hardware emissions control systems on the diesel vehicles of Pro Diesel Werks’ customers (a practice referred to as a “delete” or “deleting”), defeating the systems’ ability to reduce pollutant gases and particulate matter released to the atmosphere. The defendants are also alleged to have tampered with the monitoring device and method required under the CAA, that is they disabled the onboard diagnostic system on vehicles preventing the system software from monitoring the emission control system hardware deletes (a practice referred to as a “tune” or “tuning”).
The defendants charged customers between approximately $2,000 and $4,000 per vehicle to remove and disable the emission control systems on motor vehicles with diesel engines.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.
On February 7, 2025, Corey Potter pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act for illegally transporting crab from Alaska (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(a)(2)(A), 3373(d)(1)(B)). Sentencing is scheduled for May 13, 2025. Kyle Potter, his son, was previously sentenced to pay a $20,000 fine and complete a five-year term of probation. A third defendant, Justin Welch, was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and complete a three-year term of probation.
Corey Potter owns two crab catching vessels; Kyle Potter and Welch worked as vessel captains. In February and March 2024, the vessels harvested more than 7,000 pounds of Tanner and Golden king crab in Southeast Alaska. Corey Potter directed Welch and Kyle Potter to land the crab to Seattle, Washington, where they intended to sell it at a higher price than they would have in Alaska. Neither captain landed the harvested crab at a port in Alaska, and they never recorded the harvest on a fish ticket, as required under state law.
A large portion of the king crab that arrived in Seattle from Alaska had died and was unmarketable. Corey Potter knew that some of the crab aboard was infected with Bitter Crab Syndrome (BCS), a parasitic disease fatal to crustaceans. Officials were forced to destroy more than 4,000 additional pounds of Tanner crab due to the risk of BCS infection. If the defendants had properly landed the crab in Alaska, authorities could have inspected the harvest and removed the infected crab before leaving Alaska.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation.
United States v. Kendall Glenn Hacker
No. 5:25-CR-00002 (Eastern District of Kentucky)
AUSA Emily Greenfield
On February 7, 2025, Kendall Glenn Hacker pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to violating the Animal Crush statute (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 48(a)(2), (a)(3)).
Between November 2021 and June 2022, Hacker sent money through online payment applications, such as PayPal and Venmo, to Michael Macartney, an online chat group administrator. The members and participants of these groups funded, created, obtained, received, exchanged and/or distributed animal crush videos.
Homeland Security Investigations conducted the investigation.
United States v. Chamness Dirt Works, et al.
No. 3:24-CR-00430 (District of Oregon)
AUSA Bryan Chinwuba
RCEC Karla Perrin
On February 7, 2025, property management company Horseshoe Grove, LLC, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act (CAA) National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for asbestos work practice standards (42 U.S.C. §§ 7412(h),7413(c)(1)). Horseshoe Grove’s owner and operator Ryan Richter pleaded guilty to a CAA negligent endangerment violation (42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(4)). Construction and demolition company Chamness Dirt Works, Inc., pleaded guilty to violating the CAA NESHAP for asbestos, and company owner and president, Ronald Chamness, pleaded guilty to a CAA negligent endangerment violation (42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(4)). Sentencing is scheduled for April 3, 2025.
In November 2022, Horseshoe Grove acquired a property in The Dalles, Oregon, which included a mobile home park and two dilapidated apartment buildings. The previous owner provided the new buyers with an asbestos survey from December 2021, which identified more than 5,000 square feet of friable chrysotile asbestos within the two deteriorating buildings, with levels ranging from 2% to 25%. The survey also noted non-friable asbestos in various building materials, including siding and flooring, throughout the apartments. Despite these findings, Horseshoe Grove failed to implement the necessary precautions for asbestos removal.
In March 2023, Chamness Dirt Works began demolishing the two asbestos-laden structures without following proper removal procedures. Chamness did not engage a certified asbestos abatement contractor, did not wet the asbestos-containing debris, and dumped the material in a regular landfill.
Horseshoe Grove paid Chamness Dirt Works a total of $49,330 for the demolition, which did not meet the required safety standards.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.
Nos.4:25-CR-00018, 4:24-CR-00006, 00084 (District of Montana)
ECS Senior Trial Attorney Patrick Duggan
ECS Trial Attorney Sarah Brown
AUSA Jeff Starnes
ECS Paralegal Tonia Sibblies
On February 10, 2025, Hollis G. Hale pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act and the Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 1538(a)(1)(G), 3372(d)(2), 3373(d)(3)(B)). Sentencing is scheduled for June 11, 2025.
Hale conspired with Jack Schubarth to create giant hybrid sheep for captive hunting. Schubarth smuggled Marco Polo argali sheep parts from Kyrgyzstan into the United States. This protected species of sheep, native to high elevations in the Pamir region of Central Asia, is deemed the largest in the world.
In 2013, Schubarth provided genetic material to a third-party cloning facility, and, in 2016, received successfully cloned pure Marco Polo argali embryos. Schubarth raised a pure male argali clone that he named “Montana Mountain King.” In 2018, Schubarth began breeding Montana Mountain King with other species and selling the offspring throughout the U.S. To evade detection, Schubarth falsely labeled the offspring on Certificates of Veterinary Inspection and other official forms.
In June and July 2020, Hale facilitated the purchase and interstate transport of twelve hybrid Marco Polo argali sheep from Schubarth and falsely identified 43 species of sheep on a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection. Hale falsified these documents knowing these sheep are prohibited in Montana. Schubarth was sentenced in September 2024 to six months’ incarceration, followed by three years’ supervised release.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks conducted the investigation.
United States v. Zackery Brandon Barfield
No. 5:25-CR-00011 (Northern District of Florida)
ECS Senior Trial Attorney Patrick Duggan
AUSA Joseph Ravelo
On February 12, 2025, Zachary Brandon Barfield pleaded guilty to three counts of poisoning and shooting dolphins in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 1372(a)(2)(A), 1375(b); 7 U.S.C. §§ 136j(a)(2)(G), 136l(b)(2)). Sentencing is scheduled for May 21, 2025.
Barfield is a charter and commercial fishing captain operating out of Panama City, Florida. In the summer of 2022, Barfield became frustrated with dolphins eating red snapper from the lines of charter fishing clients. Between June and August 2022, Barfield and others placed a commercial methomyl insecticide inside bait fish to feed to and poison the dolphins that surfaced near his boat.
While captaining another fishing trip in December 2022, Barfield saw dolphins eating snapper from fishing lines. This time, he used a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot and kill a dolphin that surfaced near his vessel. In the summer of 2023, while on a charter fishing trip, Barfield used the same shotgun to shoot a dolphin that surfaced near the lines of clients.
The National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation with assistance from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
United States v. James H. Spencer
No. 23-CR-00015 (Western District of Virginia)
AUSA Michael Baudinet
On February 21, 2025, James Howard Spencer, the Mayor of Glen Lyn, Virginia, pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) (33 U.S.C. § 1319(c)(2)(A)). Spencer admitted to directing employees of the Town of Glen Lyn to illegally discharge raw sewage and other pollutants into the East River, a tributary of the New River, on three occasions- in the summer of 2019, December 2020, and June 2021.
The discharges occurred at a pump station located behind the Glen Lyn Post Office, which was not an authorized discharge point of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the Glen Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. The East River, a perennial stream and a tributary of the New River, is a protected waterway under the CWA.
Spencer knowingly violated multiple conditions of the NPDES permit, including discharges from unauthorized locations and failing to report the discharges to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division and the Virginia State Police conducted the investigation.
United States v. Liza Hash
No. 1:25-CR-20007 (Southern District of Florida)
AUSA Tom Watts-FitzGerald
On February 25, 2025, Liza Hash pleaded guilty to discharging oil into United States and contiguous zone waters, violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) (33 U.S.C. §§ 1319(c)(2), 1321(b)(3)). Sentencing is scheduled for May 21, 2025.
Hash was the owner and operator of the S/V Juliet, a sailing vessel used for multi-day scuba diving trips between Miami and the Bahamas. Over the course of approximately six years, Hash’s vessel carried up to 12 passengers per trip, along with the crew, between the U.S. and the Bahamas.
On June 16, 2023, U.S. Coast Guard investigators boarded the Juliet following its return from the Bahamas. After noticing an active oil sheen originating from the vessel, they conducted a safety examination.
During the inspection, they noted oily water in the bilge, and a pump connected to the vessel’s grey water tank, to facilitate illegal overboard discharges. Hash had used the vessel’s grey water tank (which is intended to hold liquid waste from the boat’s washer, dryer, sinks, and showers) to store oil-contaminated bilge water and discharge overboard.
Investigators estimate that Hash discharged approximately 26,000 gallons of oily water during the five-year period.
The United States Coast Guard conducted the investigation.
United States v. Old Dutch Mustard Company, Inc., d/b/a Pilgrim Foods Company, et al.
No. 1:25-CR-00002 (District of New Hampshire)
ECS Trial Attorney Ron Sarachan
AUSA Matthew Hunter
ECS Paralegal Tonia Sibblies
On February 24, 2025, The Old Dutch Mustard Company, d/b/a Pilgrim Foods Company (Old Dutch), and company owner and president Charles Santich, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §§ 1311(a), 1319(c)(2)(A)).
Old Dutch manufactured vinegar and mustard products, generating acidic wastewater during the process. Much of this wastewater consisted of spilled or leaked vinegar, or discarded vinegar that did not meet specifications. Old Dutch did not have a permit to discharge process wastewater. Instead, it stored the process wastewater in tanks and a trucking company hauled one or two truckloads of the wastewater off-site daily to the Rochester Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW). Old Dutch paid the trucking company for transporting each load. A second wastewater stream consisted of stormwater that became acidic after flowing through areas of the facility (especially the tank farm) where vinegar spilled. Old Dutch also paid the trucking company to haul the acidic stormwater to the POTW.
Santich decided to reduce costs by ordering workers to discharge some of the wastewater to a manmade ditch formed by an abandoned railroad bed at the top of a hill behind the facility, from which the wastewater would flow into the Souhegan River. In May 2017, Santich hired an excavation company to extend an underground pipe to the top of the hill behind the facility. He then directed an employee to repeatedly pump wastewater through the underground pipe to the abandoned railroad bed. Once the process wastewater or contaminated stormwater discharged at the top of the hill, it flowed to the river. Old Dutch did not have an NPDES or any other permit to discharge pollutants into the river.
In March 2021, Santich directed the same excavation company to install a sump at the corner of the tank farm area to collect the acidic stormwater and pump it directly up the hill through the buried pipe. Similarly, during the Fall of 2022, Santich hired the excavation company to clean out the undergrowth in the manmade ditch at the top of the hill and line it with riprap to create a better drainage ditch and facilitate the flow of wastewater to the river.
On August 2, 2023, EPA agents executed a search warrant at the Old Dutch facility and witnessed this illegal activity. Agents observed liquid that smelled like vinegar discharging from the end of the underground pipe into the riprap-lined ditch. The wastewater discharge had a pH of 3.6. The agents then conducted a dye test starting at the sump outside the corner of the tank farm area. The dye discharged from the underground pipe at the top of the hill and flowed along the riprap-lined drainage ditch and down to the river.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation, with assistance from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.
On February 26, 2025, Fabcon Precast LLC (Fabcon) pleaded guilty to willfully violating an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation (29 U.S.C. § 666(e)). The criminal charge is related to an incident where an employee was killed when a pneumatic door closed on his head.
Fabcon operates several facilities in the United States, including one in Grove City, Ohio, that manufactures precast concrete panels. At Fabcon, employees known as batch operators were responsible for the operation and cleaning of the facility’s only concrete mixer. Concrete was discharged from the bottom of the mixer through a pneumatic door. By design, the mixer had an exhaust valve that released the pneumatic energy powering the discharge door, rendering it inoperable. Some months prior to June 6, 2020, the handle that operated the valve broke off and was not replaced.
On June 6, 2020, Zachary Ledbetter, a batch operator since January 2020, was on duty when the discharge door failed to close after releasing a batch of concrete. Because the valve was broken, Ledbetter could not perform the proper procedure to make the door safe to work around. When he attempted to free the door it closed on his head, trapping him. Eventually, Ledbetter was freed and transported to a hospital where he died five days later.
The U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation.
No. 3:24-CR-00618 (Southern District of California)
ECS Assistant Chief Stephen DaPonte
On February 27, 2025, a court sentenced Vyacheslav I. Piglitsin to time served and to pay $4,355 in restitution. On March 2, 2024, Piglitsin drove over the border from Mexico with Mexican pesticides that he failed to present for inspection (19 U.S.C. §§ 1433 and 1436). Inspectors found seventy-two 1-liter bottles of “Bovitraz” in his vehicle.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division and Homeland Security Investigations conducted the investigation.
Sentencings
United States v. Michael Hart
No. 3:24-CR-00383 (Southern District of California)
ECS Assistant Chief Stephen DaPonte
Former AUSA Melanie Pierson
AUSA Mark Pletcher
On February 3, 2025, a court sentenced Michael Hart to time served followed by one year of supervised release. Hart also will pay $1,500 in restitution. Hart pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally import hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) into the United States from Mexico and sell them in violation of law (18 U.S.C. § 371). In addition, Hart admitted to conspiring to illegally import hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), namely HCFC 22, which is banned under the Clean Air Act.
Between June and December 2022, Hart purchased refrigerants in Mexico and smuggled them into the United States in his vehicle, concealed under a tarp and tools. Hart posted the refrigerants for sale on OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, and other sites, and sold them for a profit.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division, Homeland Security Investigations, and Customs and Border Protection conducted the investigation.
United States v. Thalia Zambrano
No. 3:24-CR-01552 (Southern District of California)
ECS Assistant Chief Stephen DaPonte
On February 6, 2025, a court sentenced Thalia Zambrano to time served, after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371).
On June 28, 2024, authorities apprehended Zambrano when she drove into the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry with 18 bottles of undeclared “Taktic” (Amitraz) concealed beneath a blanket on the back seat her car. Regulators in the United States canceled this pesticide due to the high concentration of amitraz.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division, Homeland Security Investigations, and Customs and Border Protection conducted the investigation.
United States v. Andrew Laughlin
No. 2:24-CR-00104 (Eastern District of California)
AUSA Kathryn Lydon
On February 10, 2025, a court sentenced Andrew Laughlin to pay a $5,000 fine, complete a two-year term of probation, and pay $4,209 in restitution into the Lacey Act Reward Fund. Laughlin pleaded guilty to one count of smuggling reptiles into the United States (18 U.S.C. § 545).
In 2017, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents identified Laughlin as part of a nationwide investigation into the smuggling of turtles from the United States to an individual in Hong Kong (Individual A). Individual A met and maintained contact with certain wildlife-smuggling associates via Facebook. Investigators identified Laughlin as a suspect in the wildlife smuggling ring from Individual A’s Facebook contacts and communications with covert agents. In addition to corresponding on Facebook, Laughlin also sent text messages to Individual A and co-conspirators.
Between March and April 2018, Laughlin acted as a “middleman” in an international amphibian smuggling ring. During a conversation with an undercover agent, Laughlin said that he participated in the ring in order to acquire hard-to-find newts. He shipped or received at least four packages of amphibians, including packages to or from individuals located in Hong Kong and Sweden. The packages were falsely labeled as items including a “toy car,” “rubber toys,” or “a ceramic art piece.” The boxes actually contained live animals, including eastern box turtles, spotted turtles, and a variety of newt species.
A search warrant executed at the defendant’s residence uncovered 80 live newts of various species. Some of them tested positive for a virulent fungus which originated in Asia and has spread throughout the illegal pet trade. The restitution covered expenses incurred to store and test the animals.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation.
Photo of newts seized from Laughlin’s residence; photo included in case press release at time of guilty plea
Nos. 1:22-CR-00131, 00132 (Eastern District of California)
AUSA Karen Escobar
On February 10, 2025, a court sentenced Jose Angel Beltran-Chaidez to 24 months incarceration, followed by two years of supervised release. Beltran-Chaidez pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute heroin in this multi-defendant case involving drugs and animal welfare violations (21 U.S.C. §§ 841 (a)(1), (b)(1)(A)).
Between March and April 2021, Jorge Calderon-Campos (who calls himself “Americano”) supplied 26 pounds of methamphetamine to co-defendants Mark Garcia and Alberto Gomez-Santiago, and an additional 60 pounds to Francisco Javier Torres Mora. Between January and April 2022, Calderon-Campos also possessed roosters he used to participate in an animal fighting venture.
During a search of his residence on April 26, 2022, law enforcement officers found numerous hens and roosters, various cockfighting implements (including razors and spurs) and six cockfighting trophies, including several with plates inscribed with “Team Amkno” (shorthand for “Team Americano”). At Calderon-Campos’s “stash house,” law enforcement officers found 14 hens and 77 roosters, cockfighting leashes, a cockfighting trophy, and a variety of syringes and pill bottles containing substances related to cockfighting supplements.
Jorge Calderon-Campos was sentenced in November 2024 to eight years and one month of incarceration. Calderon-Campos pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and heroin and to violating the Animal Welfare Act (21 U.S.C. §§ 841 (a)(1), (b)(1)(A)); 7 U.S.C. § 2156(b); 18 U.S.C. § 49(a)).
On August 26, 2024, a court sentenced Antonio Beltran-Chaidez to 46 months’ incarceration, followed by 24 months’ supervised release, after he pleaded guilty to possessing heroin with the intent to distribute (21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)).
In January 2024, co-defendant Gomez-Santiago was sentenced to four years and nine months incarceration, followed by 60 months supervised release. Mora was sentenced to four years and nine months incarceration. Horacio Ortega-Martinez, another associate of Calderon-Campos, was sentenced in April 2023 to 18 months incarceration, followed by 36 months supervised release, after pleading guilty to possessing gamecocks for an animal fighting venture (7 U.S.C § 2156 (b)).
Co-defendant Garcia pleaded guilty and was sentenced on March 3, 2025, to 24 months’ incarceration, followed by two years of supervised release. Byron Adilio Alfaro-Sandoval is scheduled for status conference June 18, 2025.
Homeland Security Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted the investigation, with assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Kern County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force, the California Highway Patrol, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, the Kern County Probation Department, and the Bakersfield Police Department.
On February 11, 2025, a court sentenced Christopher Lee Carroll to serve nine years of incarceration and to pay $3 million in restitution. A jury convicted Carroll in August 2024 of three counts of bank fraud, three counts of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act (CAA), 13 violations of the CAA, and two counts of threatening a witness (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 2, 1014, 1512 (b)(3), 1344; 42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(2)(C)).
Carroll and his business partner, George Reed, owned a time share exit company called Square One Group LLC. In April of 2020, they submitted a false and fraudulent application for a $1.2 million Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. The loan application falsely stated that the spouses of Reed and Carroll owned the company to conceal Carroll’s status as a paroled felon, which would have precluded his company from receiving PPP funds. Carroll also used his wife’s name to avoid any potential liability for the fraud.
The PPP loan was supposed to help save businesses and jobs, but Carroll did not use the money to pay dozens of employees who were out of work or keep paying for health insurance for 17 of those employees. Instead, he used it to start a trucking company, Whiskey Dix Big Truck Repair LLC. Carroll and Reed then applied for loan forgiveness, falsely claiming that they’d spent the money on payroll and other permitted expenses. Additionally, Reed and Carroll later sought a second loan of more than $1.6 million, taking a total of $660,000 in “owner draws” from the company after the loan was approved.
From May 2020 through December 2021, Carroll and Whiskey Dix violated the CAA by unlawfully removing the emissions control systems from more than 30 diesel-fueled trucks. In January 2022, Carroll tried to pressure two employees to take responsibility for the emissions tampering. When one of the employees said he was going to talk to federal investigators, Carroll threatened to stop paying for the employee’s attorney.
The court sentenced Whiskey Dix to complete a three-year term of probation after the jury convicted the company on 16 CAA violations. Reed pleaded guilty to bank fraud in September of 2022 and was sentenced January 23, 2025, to time served, and five years of supervised release. Reed was held jointly liable for $3 million in restitution.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.
On February 13, 2025, a court sentenced Jeffrey Radtke to 21 months’ incarceration, followed by three years of supervised release. Radtke pleaded guilty to conspiracy to create and distribute animal crush videos (18 U.S.C.§§ 371, 48(a)(2), (a)(3)).
Between June 2021 and August 2022, Radtke sent more than 40 payments (ranging from $1 through $300) he received from co-conspirators to pay videographers in Indonesia and other locations outside of the United States to create videos depicting the torture and deaths of juvenile macaque monkeys.
During the execution of a search warrant in April 2023, law enforcement found more than 2,600 videos and 2,700 images depicting animal crushing on Radtke’s computer.
Homeland Security Investigations conducted the investigation.
United States v. Jonathan Achtemeier
No. 3:24-CR-05072 (Western District of Washington)
AUSA Seth Wilkinson
AUSA Lauren Staniar
SAUSA Karla Perrin
On February 14, 2025, a court sentenced Jonathan Achtemeier to pay a $25,000 fine and serve four months’ incarceration, followed by one year of supervised release. Achtemeier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act (CAA) for his role in tampering with required monitoring devices on diesel trucks (18 U.S.C. § 371).
Between 2019 and 2022, Achtemeier modified the software on hundreds of trucks nationwide to prevent the monitoring devices from detecting the removal of emissions controls. Achtemeier conspired with mechanics and truck fleet operators, instructing them on how to remove or disable anti-pollution hardware on diesel trucks, a process known as “deleting.” Achtemeier tampered with the monitoring device on his clients’ trucks by connecting laptops to the trucks’ onboard computers and remotely “tuning” the vehicles’ computers, which rendered required monitoring devices inaccurate. This allowed the trucks to run without functioning emissions control systems and resulted in the trucks emitting significantly more pollution than legally allowed.
Achtemeier charged as much at $4,500 per truck for work that often took him two hours or less. He advertised his services on social media nationwide, doing business as Voided Warranty Tuning or Optimized Ag. Between 2019 and 2022 his company took in more than $4.3 million in gross profits.
The Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.
Assistance from ECS Senior Counsel Elinor Colbourn
On February 18, 2025, a court sentenced Andres Alejandro Sanchez to complete a three-year term of probation to include six months’ home detention. Sanchez pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act for illegally importing a spider monkey into the United States (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(a)(1), 3373(d)(2)).
On October 7, 2024, Sanchez travelled from Mexico to Laredo, Texas, and failed to declare a spider monkey he had in his vehicle to Customs and Border Protection officers as he attempted to cross the border.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation.
Case photo of baby spider monkey rescued by authorities
United State v. Jose Carrillo
No. 8:23-CR-00222 (Middle District of Florida)
ECS Senior Trial Attorney Matt Morris
AUSA Erin Favorit
ECS Paralegal Jonah Fruchtman
On February 18, 2025, a court sentenced Jose Carrillo to 84 months’ incarceration, followed by three years of supervised release. Carrillo pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Animal Welfare Act and knowingly possessing a firearm after a felony conviction (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 922(g)(1) and 924(d)).
On June 7, 2023, authorities executed a search warrant at Carrillo’s residence, seizing a total of 10 pit bull-type dogs. Several of the dogs exhibited scarring consistent with dogfighting. Authorities also discovered a .22 caliber rifle, a bloodstained wooden dogfighting “pit,” syringes, veterinary medications, a skin stapler, break sticks used to separate fighting dogs, and other suspected dogfighting paraphernalia.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation with assistance from the following agencies: Homeland Security Investigations; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Marshal Service; and the Pasco County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office.
Photo of dogs from Carillo’s home included in press release, link below.
Nos. 2:23-CR-00600, 2:24-CR-00890 (District of Arizona)
AUSA Glenn McCormick
On February 18, 2025, a court sentenced Eric T. Scionti to 47 months’ incarceration, followed by three years of supervised release. Scionti pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon and Animal Crushing in two separate cases (18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(8), 48(a)(1)).
In December 2022, federal authorities received an anonymous tip that Scionti, a convicted felon, possessed a number of handguns, as well as grenades and bullet-proof body armor. On January 18, 2023, agents executed a search warrant, seizing six firearms and 1,826 rounds of ammunition from areas of a residence controlled by the defendant. Scionti has multiple Arizona state felony convictions and was prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms or ammunition.
While researching the defendant’s online activities, agents found video evidence depicting Scionti torturing pigeons. Agents executed a subsequent search warrant on September 29, 2023, for records and information associated with Scionti’s email account. During that search, agents seized approximately 168 videos and 89 digital photographs depicting Scionti torturing and mutilating live pigeons.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigations in these cases.
On February 19, 2025, a court sentenced Manuel Domingos Pita to 48 months’ incarceration and to pay more than $55 million in restitution. Also, Pita will forfeit real estate and cash/bank accounts. Pita pleaded guilty to a wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a willful violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act for causing the death of an employee (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1343; 29 U.S.C. § 666(e)).
Pita created and operated several shell construction companies, including one named Domingos 54 Construction, Inc. Pita used Domingos 54 to provide workers, including undocumented aliens, with construction jobs. However, Pita failed to secure the required workers compensation insurance coverage for these employees by falsifying the number of workers for which he sought coverage in worker’s compensation insurance applications. In addition, Pita failed to pay any federal employment taxes on the wages that these workers earned during the course of the scheme between 2018 and 2022.
Pita failed to disclose the number of workers he had. Had he properly disclosed the number of workers, he would have paid an additional $22.7 million+ in premiums. Additionally, Pita failed to pay to the IRS over $33.7 million in federal employment taxes on those workers’ wages.
Between February and July 2019, investigators with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued six citations to Domingos 54 for failure to provide fall protection to workers. Even after being cited for these violations, Pita continued to ignore OSHA requirements. In March 2020, Pita assigned a worker and three other carpenters to install sheeting on the roof of a residential home in windy conditions without providing the required fall-protection gear or ensuring its use. As a result, one of the workers was blown off the roof and died from his injuries.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Florida Department of Financial Services’ Bureau of Insurance Fraud-Criminal Investigations, and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation.
Nos. 3:24-CR-00101, 00116 (Northern District of Florida)
ECS Deputy Chief Joe Poux
ECS Paralegal Jonah Fruchtman
On February 20, 2025, a court sentenced Fernando Cruz Rubio to time served. Rubio pleaded guilty to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS) for failing to maintain an oil record book (ORB) (33 U.S.C. § 1908(a)).
Rubio worked as a chief engineer on the M/V Suhar, a Panamanian-flagged ocean-going bulk carrier that routinely hauled cement from Tampico, Mexico, to Pensacola, Florida. The ship was managed by Gremex Shipping S.A. de C.V., which was responsible for the ship’s day-to-day operations, including hiring all crew, and ensuring compliance with all environmental and international regulations.
The Coast Guard inspected the ship when it arrived in Pensacola on August 25, 2023. Inspectors determined that the vessel’s crew regularly discharged untreated oily bilge water overboard, bypassing onboard pollution control equipment, and falsified the ship’s ORB to conceal these discharges. On various trips, between March 2021 through August 25, 2023, Rubio, as the Suhar’s chief engineer, failed to accurately maintain the ORB and did not record overboard bilge water discharges.
Gremex was sentenced in October 2024 to pay a $1.75 million fine, serve a four-year term of probation, and implement an environmental compliance plan. The shipping corporation also pleaded guilty to violating APPS.
The U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service conducted the investigation.
United States v. Clancy Logistics, Inc., et al.
No. 3:24-CR-00344 (District of Oregon)
AUSA Andrew Ho
RCEC Gwendolyn Russell
On February 25, 2025, a court sentenced to Clancy Logistics, Inc., and owner Timothy C. Clancy, to each complete three-year terms of probation. They were also ordered to pay a fine of $101,510.00, jointly and severally. The defendants pleaded guilty to a felony count of tampering with a Clean Air Act monitoring device (42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(2)(C)).
Between October 2019 and July 2023, Timothy C. Clancy tampered with the onboard diagnostic systems (OBDs) and caused others to tamper with the OBDs, of at least 13 Class 8 diesel semi-trailer trucks owned or operated by his companies, Clancy Transport, Inc., and Clancy Logistics, Inc. The defendants’ actions prevented the OBDs from detecting malfunctions caused by the deletion of the vehicles’ emission control systems, in violation of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. § 7413(c)(2)(C)).
As part of this process, Clancy directed his employees to disable and remove the emissions hardware from his companies’ vehicles. This involved removing exhaust systems and their corresponding emissions control components from the vehicles, hollowing out the functioning portion of the devices so that only the casing remained, and re-installing the casing to create the appearance that the emissions controls were intact. The vehicles’ OBDs were then tuned so that they could no longer detect the removal of the control equipment.
Clancy and his companies tampered with the OBDs on their diesel semi-trailer trucks so that they could operate the vehicles with real or perceived increased performance and fuel efficiency and reduce or eliminate the cost and burden associated with maintaining the vehicles. As a result, a greater volume of pollutants was emitted from the vehicles.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.
No. 5:24-CR-00028 (Western District of North Carolina)
AUSA Katherine T. Armstrong
On February 27, 2025, a court sentenced Robert G. Gambill to pay a $9,500 fine and to forfeit a rifle, scope, and ammunition for killing a bald eagle in violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (16 U.S.C. § 668(a)). As required under provisions of the Act, $2,500 of the fine will be apportioned equally between two witnesses who reported the shooting.
On June 5, 2024, Gambill set his firearm on a fencepost and targeted, shot, and killed a bald eagle that was perched in a tree near a bridge in Sparta, North Carolina. After killing the eagle, Gambill drove away from the scene, abandoning the carcass on the bank of the New River. Two witnesses recovered the carcass and turned it over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The U.S. FWS forensic laboratory determined that injuries suffered by the bald eagle were consistent with a gunshot wound from a high-powered rifle.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement conducted the investigation, with assistance from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the Alleghany County Sheriff’s Office.
On February 28, 2025, a court sentenced Willie Russell to 24 months’ incarceration, followed by three years’ supervised release, after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and exhibiting dogs in an animal fighting venture (7 U.S.C. § 2156(a)(1); 18 U.S.C. § 371). Russell is the fourteenth and final defendant to plead guilty in this federal dog fighting case. The other co-defendants are: Tamichael Elijah; Marvin Pulley, III; Brandon Baker; Christopher Travis Beaumont; Herman Buggs, Jr.; Terrance Davis; Timothy Freeman; Terelle Ganzy; Gary Hopkins; Cornelious Johnson; Rodrecus Kimble; Donnametric Miller; Willie Russell; and, Fredricus White.
On April 24, 2022, the defendants converged on a property in Donalsonville, Georgia, where they held a large-scale dog fighting event. They brought a total of 24 pit bull-type dogs to fight in a series of matches over that weekend. Law enforcement personnel who disrupted the event found numerous dogs inside crates in cars on the property.
The participants used their cars to store dogs who had already fought, as well as those awaiting their turn in the fighting pit. Some dogs were kept on chains on the property. Law enforcement rescued a total of 27 dogs, including a badly injured dog that later perished from its injuries. Dogs in the cars also bore recent injuries and scars.
All defendants but Freeman pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy to violate the animal fighting prohibition of the federal Animal Welfare Act. Defendants Beaumont and Miller also pleaded guilty to sponsoring or exhibiting (i.e., handling) a dog in a dog fight. Defendants Baker, Davis, Ganzy, Johnson, Pulley, and White further pleaded guilty to possessing and transporting a dog for purposes of using the dog in an animal fighting venture. Freeman pleaded guilty to spectating at an animal fight. Defendants Miller and Pulley also pleaded guilty to unlawfully possession of a firearm by a person with a prior felony conviction.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the Inspector General; and the Seminole County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Office conducted the investigation, with assistance from the Bay County, Florda, Sheriff’s Office.
New Plymouth, New Zealand – 5 March 2025: Family-owned equipment hire company, Kennards Hire, is expanding its footprint into New Plymouth, opening its first branch in the Taranaki region with the strategic acquisition of Kiwi Hire Group.
Following recent openings in Napier and Taupō, the move into New Plymouth marks Kennards Hire’s 31st branch in New Zealand, reinforcing the company’s ongoing commitment to building local communities and industries across the country.
The origins of Kiwi Hire Group go back to 2016 when the Potter family first started building up the business. Over the years, it grew into a trusted name in the Taranaki region, providing specialist gear to local businesses, construction professionals, and DIY customers.
Previously owned and operated by Brad and Christine Potter, the husband-and-wife team will now continue to manage the new Kennards Hire branch. The Potter duo was also delighted to have the majority of the Kiwi Hire Group decide to join the Kennards Hire family in this new chapter.
Brad Potter, Branch Manager of Kennards Hire New Plymouth, said: “Through this acquisition, our goal is to ensure that our customers, and staff, continue to be well looked after. Kennards Hire is a family-owned business with the same aligned values as Kiwi Hire Group – and this has made all the difference.
“Beyond that family connection, our combined expertise and an expanded range of quality equipment will allow us to provide the best possible service to the community for many more years.”
Speaking about the acquisition, Tom Kimber, General Manager of Kennards Hire New Zealand, said: “Following recent branch openings in Taupō and Napier, this new location establishes a key foothold on the west coast of the North Island. Its strategic positioning enhances connectivity between major regional centres, including Taupō, South Waikato, Palmerston North, and Whanganui, enabling us to better support local businesses and communities.
“What makes this expansion even more special is the strong family connection between our businesses. Like Kennards Hire, Kiwi Hire Group is a family-run company built on a foundation of trust, expertise, and customer-first service. We’re proud to continue their legacy and bring our shared values to the New Plymouth community.”
In partnership with KidsCan, Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading charity dedicated to helping children affected by poverty, Kennards Hire New Plymouth will be actively supporting the local community, including partnerships with 11 schools in the region through the KidsCan School Buddy Programme.
Talking to this community engagement, Brad Potter said: “Kiwi Hire Group has always championed our local community, and now, as part of the Kennards Hire family, those values will live on – whether through sponsoring local events like Americarna or supporting schools through the KidsCan partnership. We are immensely proud to contribute to this commitment.”
Christine Potter, Assistant Branch Manager of Kennards Hire New Plymouth, also added: “Becoming part of the Kennards Hire family marks an exciting new chapter in our journey. It will enable us to share our expertise, strengthen the team, broaden our offerings to the local community, and above all, continue delivering outstanding service to our customers.”
The new branch will offer a wide range of high-quality equipment hire products and services as well as access to specialty branches in the region, all made easier through Kennards Hire’s online booking platform.
About Kennards Hire – New Zealand Kennards Hire is a family-owned and operated company that has been in the hire industry for more than 75 years, with over 215 sites and branches across New Zealand and Australia. Since 1948, its diverse product range extends from general hire equipment for the home renovator and professional tradesperson to specialist equipment and heavy machinery used on some of the largest civil infrastructure and commercial construction projects in two countries. Eden Park Icon Partner, Forsyth Barr Stadium Partner, proud member of the Family Business Association, Member of Hire Industry Association New Zealand, major supporter of KidsCan and Springboard Community Works. Kennardshire.co.nz
Kennards Hire New Plymouth is now open at open at 643 Devon Rd,
About the KidsCan School Buddy Programme:
KidsCan is supported by Kennards Hire and the Kennards Hire Foundation.
Kennards Hire has been running the KidsCan School Buddy Programme since 2014, to help enhance learning environments by offering essential equipment, expert guidance, and volunteer support. Today, up to 367 KidsCan-affiliated schools across the country benefit from this Programme.
To find out more about the valuable work that KidsCan does, visit their website: https://www.kidscan.org.nz/
India’s circular economy to generate a market value of over $2 trillion and create close to 10 million jobs by 2050 – Union Minister Shri Bhupender Yadav Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA)
Delegates visits Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Albert Hall, and Patrika Gate
Posted On: 04 MAR 2025 6:39PM by PIB Delhi
India’s circular economy could generate a market value of over $2 trillion and create close to 10 million jobs by 2050. Expressing this view, while speaking at the 12th Regional 3R and Circular Economy Forum in Asia and the Pacific, Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Shri Bhupender Yadav said, the ‘circular economy’ may be about to drive one of the biggest transformations in business since the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. Through a radical departure from the traditional ‘take, make, waste’ production and consumption models, the circular economy could provide a potential $4.5 trillion in additional economic output by 2030 world over.
Addressed the 12th Regional 3R and Circular Economy Forum in Asia and the Pacific, in Jaipur today.
Stated that PM Shri @narendramodi ji’s call for building a ‘waste to wealth’ circular economy ensures the driver for adopting circular economy isn’t scarcity – it’s opportunity.… pic.twitter.com/LkDd8RCcp1
Shri Yadav also informed the forum about India’s candidacy for organising the World Circular Economy Forum in the year 2026.Every year, World Circular Economy Forum is organised and in this year, 2025 it is being organized in Sao Paulo, Brazil. India has expressed the willingness to host World Circular Economy Forum 2026.
Emphasising on the steps taken, the Minister said, India remains committed to addressing plastic waste challenges and their associated ecological impacts. The Plastic Waste Management Rules (2016) have led to significant measures targeting municipal, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. India has banned certain categories of single-use plastics through notification in 2022. In alignment with the Mission ‘LiFE’ initiative, MoEFCC has notified the Eco-Mark Rules to encourage demand for environmentally friendly products while promoting energy efficiency and circular economy principles.
He further said, Circular Economy Action Plans for 10 waste categories have been finalized, for which regulatory and implementation framework is under progress. India has already notified various waste management and extended producer responsibility rules in certain sectors, such as the Plastic Waste Management Rules, e-Waste Management Rules, Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, and Metals Recycling Policy, among others.
Paid a visit to the exhibition on the sidelines of the 12th Regional 3R and Circular Economy Forum in Asia and the Pacific, in Jaipur today.
Thrilled to witness the innovation at display, ready to drive the waste to wealth economy as we move towards realising the vision of… pic.twitter.com/XQFdhNAeq8
Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri Srinivas Kathikala, and Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan, Shri Sudhansh Pant jointly chaired a significant session today, focusing on advancing waste management and circular economy initiatives. The session saw the launch of several key reports, best practices and the signing of important agreements aimed at strengthening India’s waste management ecosystem.
Launch of SBM Waste to Wealth PMS Portal
A major highlight of the session was the launch of the SBM Waste to Wealth PMS Portal, an innovative online platform developed under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). The portal is designed to enhance project monitoring, streamline data management, and facilitate resource sharing, thereby supporting the mission’s broader objective of transforming waste into valuable resources. This initiative aligns with the government’s commitment to sustainable urban development and effective solid waste management.
Release of IFC Document Reference Guide
The session also marked the release of the IFC Document Reference Guide: Business Models and Economic Assistance for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Projects. This guide provides comprehensive insights into various business models for MSW processing, including waste-to-electricity, biomethanation, and bioremediation. The document serves as a crucial resource for municipalities and private players looking to implement effective and economically viable waste management projects.
MoU Between CSIR and MoHUA
In a significant step toward fostering scientific collaboration in waste management, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). This partnership will facilitate research-driven solutions and innovative technologies to enhance urban waste management practices across India.
Release of ‘India’s Circular Sutra’
The event also saw the release of ‘India’s Circular Sutra: A Compendium of Best Practices in 3R & Circular Economy’. This compendium documents successful case studies and innovative approaches in the Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle (3R) framework, providing valuable insights for urban local bodies and stakeholders looking to implement circular economy solutions.
These initiatives mark a significant step forward in India’s efforts to promote sustainable waste management, encourage innovation, and drive the transition toward a circular economy.
CEEW Report on Solid Waste Management in Million-Plus Cities
The Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) presented its latest study, which offers a detailed outlook on solid waste management (SWM) practices in cities with populations exceeding one million. The report highlights sustainable waste management strategies, circular economy principles, and decentralized solutions that can be tailored to meet the unique challenges of India’s rapidly urbanizing regions.
Technical and Heritage Visit of Delegates
The delegates undertook a technical site visit to key waste management and sanitation facilities in Jaipur, including the Waste to Energy Plant and Sanitary Landfill Site at Langariyawas and the Dehlawas Sewage Treatment Plant. These visits provided firsthand insights into innovative waste processing techniques, energy recovery from waste, and efficient sewage treatment mechanisms.
In addition to the technical visits, the delegates also explored Jaipur’s rich cultural heritage, visiting iconic landmarks such as Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Albert Hall, and Patrika Gate. These heritage visits offered a glimpse into the city’s architectural grandeur and historical significance, providing a holistic experience that blended urban infrastructure advancements with Rajasthan’s vibrant cultural legacy.
PM Shri Narendra Modi addresses Post Budget Webinar on Manufacturing, Exports and Nuclear Energy Stakeholders discuss export ecosystem and e-commerce growth at the Webinar
Export Promotion Mission (EPM), a proposed ₹2,250 crore initiative, to boost India’s exports: Experts
Posted On: 04 MAR 2025 6:22PM by PIB Delhi
As part of the Post-Budget Webinar on the Union Budget 2025-26, organized by NITI Aayog, various outreach sessions on Theme 3 comprising of discussions on the topics – Manufacturing, Exports and Nuclear Energy Missions, were successfully held on March 4, 2025. The Exports session, led by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry in consultation with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), brought together key stakeholders, including industry leaders, exporters, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, to deliberate on strategies to enhance India’s export capabilities and fortify the country’s global trade position.
At the outset, Prime Minister of India addressed the participants of the Webinar. He highlighted the reforms undertaken by the Government to create an enabling and nurturing ecosystem for promoting Manufacturing and Exports in the country. He highlighted the transformative approach of the Union Budget 2025-26 which is in line with the reform-oriented agenda undertaken of the Government. He encouraged the participants to come forward with fresh and innovative ideas and contribute to policy formulation and implementation on the themes of Manufacturing, Exports, and Nuclear Energy with a view to promote India’s Exports to the world. His ideas were appreciated by all the stakeholders and shaped the subsequent discussion on various themes.
Subsequently, the Breakout session on Exports was moderated by Shri Sanjay Nayyar, President ASSOCHAM, with an esteemed panel comprising of Shri Rajesh Nambiar, President, NASSCOM, Shri Ajay Sahai, Director General, Federation of Indian Export Organization (FIEO), Shri Pankaj Mohindroo, President, Indian Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA), Shri Kalyan Basu, Managing Director, MonetaGo, Ms. Jyoti Vij, Director General, FICCI, and Ms. Nivruti Rai, CEO, Invest India. Their insights and expertise contributed to meaningful discussions on fostering a conducive ecosystem for exports and driving economic growth through policy interventions and digital innovation.
During the deliberations, several key initiatives were discussed as potential pathways to strengthening India’s exports. Among them was the Export Promotion Mission (EPM), a proposed ₹2,250 crore initiative aimed at boosting India’s exports, particularly for MSMEs, by providing financial incentives, market access support, and compliance facilitation. Participants emphasized that a partnership-driven, whole-of-government approach is needed to address market access issues and facilitate the growth of new and e-commerce exporters.
Additional strategic policy recommendations included expanding Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) coverage to high-risk markets, enhancing collateral-free export credit through EXIM Bank, and providing incentives for MSMEs to adopt sustainability standards and global certifications. Industry experts also stressed the need to strengthen the Driving International Holistic Market Access Initiative (DISHA) to offer sector-specific MSME support.
Participants also highlighted the importance of Export Readiness Programs to train MSMEs in e-commerce, digital marketing, and international trade regulations. The expansion of the E-Commerce Niryat Credit Card Scheme was another key area of discussion to bolster cross-border digital trade.
Another major point of discussion was BharatTradeNet (BTN), envisioned as a pioneering Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) initiative designed to create a seamless, electronic and paperless trade ecosystem for international trade and trade finance. Institutionalizing BharatTradeNet as India’s Digital Public Infrastructure for Trade, integrating it with Aadhaar, DigiLocker, UPI, and other digital platforms, and aligning it with financial institutions for seamless trade finance approvals were also considered integral to simplifying export operations. Strengthening State/District Export Cells, expanding Buyer-Seller Meet (BSM) Programs, and developing a Central Trade Registry and Interoperability Framework for BharatTradeNet were seen as critical steps toward increasing efficiency in trade facilitation. Stakeholders suggested that by aligning with global trade facilitation standards, BTN could help streamline trade documentation, enhance trade financing, and deepen export credit accessibility. It was also suggested that one of the ways to prioritise implementation of BTN would be, by establishing a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).
A structured plan under the National Framework for GCCs was also discussed to expand Global Capability Centres (GCCs) beyond Tier-1 cities by re-orienting regulations, taxation policies, and infrastructure. Based on the discussion, the following recommendations were made by the panellists for the dispersal of GCCs into emerging GCC cities: reducing compliance burden and ease of doing business, building a quality talent pool and talent pipeline, GCCs partnerships in R&D with academia, a national framework on GCC and dedicated policy interventions, the GIFT city model for emerging Tier 2 cities, tax incentives for GCCs in SEZ in Tier 2 cities, a national policy to streamline incentives for GCCs such as incentivizing employment generation, R&D activities, and skilling, transfer pricing rationalization, improving physical and digital infrastructure in emerging Tier-2 hubs for GCC, partnership with National Mission e.g. AI and Quantum, and marketing and branding of GCCs in India and emerging Tier 2 cities.
The session concluded with a final address by Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Shri Jitin Prasada, who highlighted the government’s unwavering commitment to creating a globally competitive export ecosystem and ensuring the seamless integration of Indian enterprises into global value chains.
The Breakout Session on Exports successfully provided a forward-looking actionable roadmap, capturing key insights and recommendations from industry experts, policymakers, and entrepreneurs. These discussions will play a crucial role in shaping future policies for strengthening India’s exports through policy reforms, infrastructure development, and digital transformation. The key takeaways from the session shall be implemented by the respective departments.
Question for written answer E-000812/2025 to the Commission Rule 144 Marco Falcone (PPE), Fulvio Martusciello (PPE)
In a letter to Vice-President Ribera, Commission President von der Leyen called for a new approach to competition policy to enable European businesses and consumers to reap the full benefits of competition while protecting them from speculative price increases.
In recent years, Visa and Mastercard have consolidated their dominant position in the payment card market. The ECB has also stressed that card payments have acquired a market share of 64% in the eurozone and that 13 Member States have no local competitor to these companies. This has led to a significant increase in the commissions charged by international networks to payment providers (estimated to have increased by EUR 1.5 billion from 2016 to 2021).
These rising costs are making life difficult for European businesses and directly affecting consumers since part of the rise in fees is ultimately passed on to them in the prices of goods and services, thus reducing their disposable income. Consumers have sounded the alarm about the economic impact of these increases and are calling for urgent action.
In the light of this, can the Commission answer the following questions:
1.Does it intend to conduct an in-depth market survey to identify any unjustified increases in prices in Europe?
2.What specific measures will it take to respond to this pressing problem?
Today, the North Dakota Department of Commerce is launching the Relocation Opportunity for Outstanding Talent Grant Program (ROOT) to help businesses attract and retain skilled workers by offering relocation incentives.
“North Dakota employers are facing critical workforce shortages, and the ROOT program is designed to bridge that gap,” Commerce Workforce Director Katie Ralston Howe said. “By supporting relocation efforts, we’re ensuring businesses can grow while strengthening our communities.”
Through the program, employers must provide a one-to-one match in relocation incentives, such as hiring bonuses, licensing fees, or moving expenses. Funding is available until all allocated funds are distributed, and funds will be disbursed after the employee has relocated and completed their first pay period. Businesses must retain employees for at least one year, and if an employee leaves voluntarily before that period, the employer may be responsible for a prorated reimbursement.
Applications will be reviewed in the order received, with priority given to businesses demonstrating critical vacancies, relocation feasibility, and the ability to provide matching funds.
Employers can apply at https://ndgov.link/ROOTgrant.
Headline: Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina Shares Recovery Progress, Launches Public Dashboard
Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina Shares Recovery Progress, Launches Public Dashboard lsaito
Raleigh, NC
Today, the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC) shared progress on Helene recovery and launched a public dashboard at WNCRecovery.nc.gov. The newly released website features updates, resources, and information detailing progress of Helene recovery efforts, including rebuilding safe housing, restoring infrastructure, and revitalizing the economy.
“My commitment to the people of North Carolina is this: I will bring urgency, focus, transparency, and accountability to everything my administration does as we work to rebuild,” said Governor Josh Stein. “This new resource will allow us to provide regular updates on our progress along with information and resources for our neighbors in western North Carolina.”
Since January, GROW NC has worked across state agencies and with local, state, federal, and nonprofit partners to accelerate recovery in western North Carolina. Much more is left to be done but below is an overview of recovery progress.
Temporary housing programs are serving 5,720 households, ensuring they have safe, warm shelter.
4,753,466 cubic yards of right-of-way debris has been removed from WNC roadways.
84% of impacted public roads in western North Carolina are fully reopened. Nearly 1,300 roads have been reopened since the beginning of the storm.
Interstate 40 reopened to traffic on Saturday, March 1st for the first time since Hurricane Helene swelled the Pigeon River and scoured large swaths of eastbound lanes last September. The N.C. Department of Transportation and contract crews have stabilized the remaining westbound lanes and prepared them to provide one lane of traffic in each direction.
The WNC Small Business Initiative has funded 989 loans for small business owners impacted by Helene to bolster economic recovery. The program is expected to award more than 600 additional grants to small business owners across western North Carolina in the coming weeks.
Half of all state parks and cultural sites impacted by the storm have fully reopened, and all but three are open for visitors in some capacity.
“There is still so much work to do to help western North Carolina recover,” said Matt Calabria, Director of GROW NC. “Our team is committed to working quickly to ensure a robust recovery for the region, while providing complete transparency along the way.”
Governor Stein continues to advocate for additional resources from the state and federal government to support recovery efforts. In February, Governor Stein requested an additional $19 billion in federal funds to support home rebuilding, restore critical infrastructure, keep businesses open, shore up local governments, and reduce impacts from future natural disasters. He continues to work with the legislature to secure state funding to address immediate needs in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, following his request for $1.07 billion.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime Alerts (c)
CLEVELAND – A federal grand jury returned a 32-count superseding indictment charging Zubair Mehmet Abdur Razzaq Al Zubair, 42, recently of Bratenahl, Ohio, his brother Muzzammil Muhammad Al Zubair, 31, recently of Pepper Pike, Ohio, and their associate Michael Leon Smedley, 56, of Cleveland, with multiple fraud, tax fraud, money laundering, and public corruption schemes. The initial 22-count indictment was issued Jan. 24, 2024.
All three defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, and Hobbs Act conspiracy. The Al Zubair brothers were both charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy, four counts of money laundering, theft of government funds, and aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return. Zubair Al Zubair was also charged with harboring a fugitive and willful failure to file a tax return.
According to court documents, from June 2020 through August 2023, the Al Zubair brothers allegedly employed several deceptive strategies to obtain money and property from victims. Their schemes involved investment fraud, a Small Business Administration COVID-19 relief Emergency Income Disaster Loan, cryptocurrency mining, and commercial and residential real estate transactions.
One scheme was international in scope and involved military munitions. After the Al Zubair brothers found a buyer who was looking to purchase military-grade weapons, they made contact with individuals in Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and New York about finding sources to supply the munitions their buyer was seeking. The true intent was not the actual sale of the munitions, but rather to convince the purchaser to transfer a commission to the brothers for arranging the transaction.
The Al Zubair brothers’ ill-gotten proceeds allowed them to acquire a trove of jewelry, luxury timepieces and vehicles, as well as more than 80 firearms. Zubair Al Zubair also leased a high-end residential property in Bratenahl, Ohio, before being evicted in August 2023.
The superseding indictment alleges that the two made exorbitant claims about their extraordinary wealth and government connections. Zubair Al Zubair said he was a member of the royal family of the United Arab Emirates through his marriage to a princess. His brother, Muzzammil, claimed to be a hedge fund manager. According to the superseding indictment, he was not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission or as a broker with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and his only education on hedge funds came from watching YouTube videos. Using the illusion of being extremely educated, successful, and well-connected, the brothers befriended a public official employed with the city of East Cleveland to help them to carry out their elaborate and deceptive plots.
As the chief of staff and executive assistant to the mayor of East Cleveland, Smedley allegedly used his position to help navigate red-tape bureaucracy and obtain specific outcomes for the Al Zubair brothers in return for things of value including checks, food and meals at high-end restaurants, and offers of future employment. For example, Smedley secured official letters on city letterhead to sway administrative and judicial proceedings, helped obtain appointment of Zubair Al Zubair as an International Economic Advisor to the city, obtained city business cards in Zubair Al Zubair’s name, and even provided the brothers with City of East Cleveland Police Badges.
An indictment is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. The defendants are entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
If convicted, each defendant’s sentence will be determined by the court after review of actors unique to this case. These include each defendant’s prior criminal record, if any, role in the offense, and the characteristics of the violation. In all cases, the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum, and in most cases, it will be less than the maximum.
This case is being investigated by the FBI Cleveland Division and the IRS−Criminal Investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew W. Shepherd and Om Kakani for the Northern District of Ohio.
Jefferson City — Today, Governor Mike Kehoe announced three appointments to various boards and filled two county office vacancies.
Scott Albers, of Country Club, was appointed to the Missouri Western State University Board of Governors.
Mr. Albers is the president of Public Refrigerated Warehousing at Nor-Am Cold Storage and has served in leadership roles at the company since 2009. Active in the community, he serves on the board of the Global Cold Chain Alliance and previously held roles with the Greater St. Joseph United Way and the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce. Albers earned a Bachelor of Arts in Finance from the University of Northern Iowa and a Master of Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Business.
Kathy Lambertz, of Harrisonville, was appointed as the Cass County Clerk.
Ms. Lambertz currently serves as the chief deputy clerk in the Cass County Clerk’s Office, a position she has held since 2019. She previously served as Cass County clerk from 1999 to 2012 and worked as a senior appraiser in the assessor’s office from 2012 to 2019. With more than 30 years of experience in county government, she is also active in civic organizations, serving on the University of Missouri Extension Board and as an active member of the Harrisonville Kiwanis Club.
William “Blaine” Luetkemeyer, of St. Elizabeth, was appointed to the University of Missouri Board of Curators.
A retired U.S. Congressman, Mr. Luetkemeyer represented Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District from 2013 to 2025 and the 9th Congressional District from 2009 to 2013. During his tenure in Congress, he played a key role on the House Financial Services Committee, chaired multiple subcommittees, and helped secure $20 million for the NextGen MU Research Reactor at the University of Missouri. Before serving in Congress, Luetkemeyer was a Missouri State Representative, and as the Director of the Missouri Division of Tourism. Mr. Luetkemeyer has decades of experience as a small businessman, having worked as a community banker and bank examiner. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Business Administration from Lincoln University. In recognition of his contributions to higher education, Mr. Luetkemeyer received the Henry S. Geyer Award from the Mizzou Alumni Association in 2023.
Todd Michalski, of St. Joseph, was appointed to the Missouri Western State University Board of Governors.
Mr. Michalski is the senior vice president of sales and marketing at Gray Manufacturing Company, Inc. He serves as a board member for the Missouri Western State University Foundation and the Automotive Lift Institute. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and minor in Marketing and Management from Missouri Western State University.
Dave Schatz, of Sullivan, was appointed as the Franklin County Presiding Commissioner.
Mr. Schatz is the vice president of Schatz Underground and the former president of Schatz Construction. He previously served as Missouri Senate President Pro Tem and was a State Senator from 2015 to 2022 and a State Representative from 2011 to 2014. A longtime business owner and community leader, Schatz remains active in local government, education initiatives, and community service throughout Franklin County.
Source: Government of Ireland – Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation
4th March 2025
The Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke and Minister of State for Small Businesses and Retail, Alan Dillon attended the inaugural plenary meeting of the Employment Law Review Group (ELRG).
Professor Michael Doherty, Chair of the ELRG welcomed the members before both Minister Burke and Minister Dillon addressed the ELRG.
Minister Burke congratulated members on their appointments and spoke about what the Government wishes to achieve to support workers and conditions
The Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke said:
“The Government has a strong record on strengthening workers’ rights. The ELRG will be a valuable resource in conducting ongoing assessments of employment law to ensure our legal framework is fit for purpose and adapts to changes in the evolving contemporary workplace.”
Minister Dillon thanked the members for their commitment to the important role in reviewing and monitoring Ireland’s employment and redundancy laws to ensure they serve their intended function.
Minister of State for Small Businesses and Retail, Alan Dillon said:
“It is very important that the work of the Group balance carefully the need to ensure legislation remains fit for purpose while not placing an undue or additional burden on business, in particular small and medium enterprises.”
The ELRG will work in accordance with the work programme, which will be determined by the Minister after consultation with the Group. During the inaugural plenary, the ELRG discussed items for this work programme as part of this consultation. The relevant legislative enactments which may be considered in the work programme are listed in the appendix below.
Following the meeting, the full membership of the Employment Law Review Group has been announced. The full membership of the group and their nominating bodies, as appointed by the Minister is as follows:
1.
Michael Doherty (Chair)
Nominated by Minister for ETE
2.
Cathy Smith
Nominated by Minister for ETE
3.
Kevin Duffy
Nominated by Minister for ETE
4.
Claire Bruton
Nominated by Minister for ETE
5.
Desmond Ryan
Nominated by Minister for ETE
6.
Anne Lyne
Nominated by Minister for ETE
7.
Deirdre Malone
Nominated by Minister for ETE
8.
Dónal Hamilton
Law Society of Ireland
9.
Mary Paula Guinness
Employment Bar Association
10.
Gavin Smith
Restructuring and Insolvency Ireland
11.
Nichola Harkin
Ibec
12.
Rachael Ryan
ICTU
13.
John Barry
ISME
14.
Áine Maher
DETE
15.
Orlaith Mannion
Department of Social Protection
16.
Jane Ann Duffy
Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
17.
Gwendolen Morgan
Workplace Relations Commission
18.
Lorraine Williams
Chief State Solicitor’s Office
19.
Deirdre O’Kane
Office of the Attorney General
20.
Jim Finn
Courts Service
21.
Appointment Pending
Labour Court
The ELRG’s function is to monitor, review, and advise on all aspects of employment and redundancy law, with a specific focus on promoting good workplace relations in the State, simplifying the operation of employment and redundancy law in the State, and ensuring that the State’s suite of employment rights and redundancy legislation remains relevant and fit for purpose and is updated to reflect international developments.
The ELRG’s focus is expert, technical, and legal rather than representative of stakeholders’ interests. Members will engage with the work programme of the ELRG and contribute to ELRG reports.
ENDS
APPENDIX – List of Relevant Employment and Redundancy Enactments
Part 1 – Acts of the Oireachtas
Payment of Wages Act 1991
Adoptive Leave Act 1995
Protection of Young Persons (Employment) Act 1996
Transnational Information and Consultation of Employees Act 1996
Organisation of Working Time Act 1997
Parental Leave Act 1998
National Minimum Wage Act 2000
Carer’s Leave Act 2001
Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001
Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003
Maternity Protection Acts 1994 and 2004
Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts 1973 to 2005
Employees (Provision of Information and Consultation) Act 2006
Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2007
Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2011
Protection of Employees (Employers’ Insolvency) Acts 1984 to 2012
Protection of Employees (Temporary Agency Work) Act 2012
Redundancy Payments Acts 1967 to 2014
Protection of Employment Acts 1977 to 2014
Terms of Employment (Information) Acts 1994 to 2014
Paternity Leave and Benefit Act 2016
Parent’s Leave and Benefit Act 2019
Sick Leave Act 2022
Part 2 – Provisions of Acts of Oireachtas
Part IV of the Industrial Relations Act 1946
Section 4 (1) of the Protections for Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998
Section 8A (5) of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act 2001
Section 50 of the Competition Act 2002
Section 60 (3) of the Employment Permits Act 2024
Section 8 of the Industrial Relations (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2004
Section 55M (1) of the Health Act 2004
Section 27 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005
Section 87 of the Consumer Protection Act 2007
Section 26 (1) of the Chemicals Act 2008
Section 62 (1) of the Charities Act 2009
Section 223 (3) of the National Asset Management Agency Act 2009
Section 38 of the Inland Fisheries Act 2010
Section 20 (1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2011
Section 67 (5) of the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011
Section 35 of the Further Education and Training Act 2013
Section 41 (1) of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013
Section 12 (1) of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014
Part 2 of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015
Part 3 of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023
Section 6(3) of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014
Part 3 – Statutory Instruments
European Communities (Parental Leave) Regulations 2000 (S.I. No. 231 of 2000)
European Communities (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2000 (S.I. No. 488 of 2000)
European Communities (Protection of Employees on Transfer of Undertakings) Regulations 2003 (S.I. No. 131 of 2003)
European Communities (Organisation of Working Time) (Activities of Doctors in Training) Regulations 2004 (S.I. No. 494 of 2004)
Organisation of Working Time (Inclusion of Transport Activities) Regulations 2004 (S.I. No. 817 of 2004)
Organisation of Working Time (Inclusion of Offshore Work) Regulations 2004 (S.I. No. 819 of 2004)
European Communities (Organisation of Working Time) (Mobile Staff in Civil Aviation) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 507 of 2006)
European Communities (European Public Limited – Liability Company) (Employee Involvement) Regulations 2006 (S.I. No. 623 of 2006)
European Communities (European Cooperative Society) (Employee Involvement) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 259 of 2007)
European Union (Cross-Border Conversions, Mergers and Divisions) Regulations 2023 (S.I. No. 233 of 2023)
European Communities (Working Conditions of Mobile Workers engaged in Interoperable Cross-border Services in the Railway Sector) Regulations 2009 (S.I. No. 377 of 2009)
European Communities (Road Transport) (Organisation of Working Time of Persons Performing Mobile Road Transport Activities) Regulations 2012 (S.I. No. 36 of 2012)
European Union (Posting of Workers) Regulations 2016 (S.I. No. 412 of 2016)
(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that the Connecticut Department of Labor (CTDOL) has brought together several programs and services to assist Connecticut residents who have been fired or put on unpaid administrative leave from their jobs with the federal government.
“The federal government may have decided that they don’t want these skilled workers, but we want them to know that we value their public service and that Connecticut employers can use their skills,” Governor Lamont said. “Right now, Connecticut has more than 70,000 jobs available, and the Connecticut Department of Labor can help connect jobseekers to new employment, or even help them begin an entirely new career if that’s what they want to do.”
Information specifically designed for federal workers and contractors is available on the CTDOL homepage atportal.ct.gov/dol. It covers the steps federal workers need to take to file for unemployment benefits, how to get answers to unemployment questions, and how to find career services. At the most recent count, there were approximately 18,800 federal employees working in Connecticut.
“This continues to be a very difficult time for federal workers, and CTDOL staff and partners are here to help,” Connecticut Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo said. “Filing for unemployment benefits is complex – it’s a federal system that requires workers to have specific separation documentation in order to file. In some cases, workers may have been notified of their dismissal in a non-standard way and need assistance. In other cases, workers may have severance and need career counseling and job search assistance. No matter the circumstance, CTDOL resources are available.”
CTDOL departments – including the Rapid Response team, Business Engagement Unit, and Consumer Contact Center – have been engaged in initiatives to help laid-off workers get back into the job market quickly. In the coming months, the agency is expecting to host a job fair specifically geared towards federal workers and has five general job fairs taking place in March.Job fairsare always free for all jobseekers. All employers and jobs are vetted by CTDOL.
Job placement and career services are also provided to all Connecticut residents at no cost through theAmerican Job Centers. Services include resume writing, career workshops, job search assistance, and help for veterans transitioning to the civilian workforce. In person and virtual appointments are available.
Unemployment is an eligibility program. Each unemployment application is verified and will be approved depending upon the filer’s work and salary history, place of residence, and other factors. Workers who accepted severance packages or other salary continuation payments are advised not to file until those payments end.
CTDOL reminds jobseekers to befraud aware. The agency does not use text, nor will it reach out by phone or email unprompted or ask for unemployment account details. Everyone is strongly advised to not give personal or unemployment account information out unless certain they are speaking to a CTDOL representative. TheConsumer Contact Centercan verify if the agency is trying to connect to someone. Additionally, jobseekers are advised to be wary of any employer attempting to charge them to submit a job application or for other employment services.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey
Bill Text (PDF)
Washington (March 4, 2025) – Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) today reintroduced the bipartisan Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), which would update online data privacy rules for the 21st century and ensure children and teenagers are protected online. Senator Markey first introduced this legislation to update his original COPPA law in 2011 as a member of the House of Representatives and has introduced the bipartisan legislation in every Congress since.
“We need strong modern legislation that keeps pace with the ever-evolving digital landscape and creates a safer online environment by addressing the youth mental health crisis and protecting the personal information of our kids,” said Senator Markey. “Congress must finally pass my Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act to extend these protections to teenagers, block targeted advertising to kids and teens, and give parents of young people an eraser button to protect them from predatory data collection practices.”
“Every kid has an iPad or smartphone. They’re going to use the internet. Parents should be confident they can do it safely,” said Dr. Cassidy. “COPPA 2.0 is the tool that will give parents the peace of mind they need and keep their children’s personal information secure.”
The legislation is also cosponsored by Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Shelly-Moore Capito (R-W.V.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Angus King (I-Maine), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).
Specifically, the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act would:
Ban targeted advertising to children and teens;
Create an “Eraser Button” by requiring companies to permit users to delete personal information collected from a child or teen;
Establish data minimization rules to prohibit the excessive collection of children and teens’ data;
Revise COPPA’s “actual knowledge” standard to close the loophole that allows platforms to ignore kids and teens on their site; and
Build on COPPA by prohibiting internet companies from collecting personal information from users who are 13 to 16 years old without their consent.
The legislation is endorsed by AASA – the School Superintendents Association, ACCESS Lab – Washington University in St. Louis, Alaska Eating Disorders Alliance, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychological Association, Association of Educational Service Agencies, Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, Carolina Resource Center for Eating Disorders, Center for Change, Center for Digital Democracy, Center for Humane Technology, Centerstone, CHILD USA, Children’s Justice Fund, Common Sense Media, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, Defending the Early Years, Design It For Us, Early Childhood Work Group, Screen Time Action Network, Eating Disorder Foundation, Eating Disorders Coalition, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Fairplay, Farrington Specialty Centers, Foolproof, IFEDD – The International Federation of Eating Disorder Dietitians, Inseparable, International Society for Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses, Issue One, Lines for Life, Marsh Law Firm PPLC, Mentari, MO Eating Disorders Council, Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association, Inc. (MEDA), National Association for Pupil Transportation, National Association of School Nurses, National Federation of Families, National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), National Rural Education Association, Network for Public Education, P.E.A.C.E (Peace Educators Allied for Children Everywhere), Parents Who Fight, Phone Free Schools Movement, Public Interest Privacy Center (PIPC), Postpartum Support International, Prosperity Eating Disorders and Wellness, Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), Public Citizen, PEDC, REGO Payment Architectures, Sandy Hook Promise, Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders, Student Data Privacy Project, University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy & Health, Western Youth Services, Yellowstone Human Trafficking Task Force, and Young People’s Alliance.
“The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, reintroduced by Senators Markey and Cassidy and other Senate co-sponsors, is more urgent than ever. Children’s surveillance has only intensified across social media, gaming, and virtual spaces, where companies harvest data to track, profile, and manipulate young users. COPPA 2.0 will ban targeted ads to those under 16, curbing the exploitation, manipulation, and discrimination of children for profit. By extending protections to teens and requiring a simple ‘eraser button’ to delete personal data, this legislation takes a critical step in restoring privacy rights in an increasingly invasive digital world,” said Katharina Kopp, Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
“Common Sense Media believes Congress must update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act to strengthen safeguards for young children and extend vital protections to teenagers. Common Sense applauds Senators Markey and Cassidy for their unwavering commitment to this critical cause. With strong bi-partisan support having carried this legislation through the Senate last year, we are optimistic about securing passage in both chambers this year – America’s families deserve no less. This bill would take decisive action by prohibiting targeted advertising to young users, requiring platforms to acknowledge and protect children on their sites, and prevent companies from exploiting youth vulnerabilities for profit. This time has come for Congress to finally pass this essential legislation,” said James P. Steyer, Founder and CEO of Common Sense Media.
“The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act is an essential step toward addressing youth mental health and online safety. By expanding critical privacy protections to teens for the first time, banning targeted advertising, and closing loopholes that allow platforms to ignore the presence of underage users, COPPA 2.0 will disrupt the business model that capitalizes on our kids’ attention at the expense of their physical and mental wellbeing. Last year, the Senate demonstrated the importance of this landmark legislation by passing it in a historic 91-3 vote. We applaud Senators Markey and Cassidy for reintroducing it so that Congress can finish the job and pass privacy protections for all youth in the 119th Congress,” said Haley Hinkle, Policy Counsel at Fairplay.
“National PTA is committed to making sure that safeguards are in place to ensure the safety and well-being of children and youth online,” said Yvonne Johnson, President of the National Parent Teacher Association, the nation’s oldest and largest child advocacy association. “That’s why we’ve strongly advocated for COPPA 2.0, which would provide a long-overdue and desperately needed update of federal law to better protect the personal information of children online and ban targeted advertising toward children and teens. Our association applauds Senators Markey and Cassidy for reintroducing this critical legislation.”
“Design It For Us strongly supports Senators Markey and Cassidy reintroducing COPPA 2.0 to better protect the privacy of young people online. As a coalition of young advocates, we are all too familiar with Big Tech’s toxic business model that collects massive amounts of data on young people and uses it to target them with ads and content. Young people deserve the critical protections COPPA 2.0 has to offer, including privacy tools and an eraser button to delete personal information,” said Zamaan Qureshi, Co-Chair of Design It For Us.
“Social media companies generate astronomical profits off our nation’s young people by turning platforms into a playground for advertisers. They are literally selling access to our children with targeted ads designed to prey on kids’ vulnerabilities. A child as young as 13 struggling with an eating disorder will be targeted with a constant stream of deceptive ads for the next miracle diet pill. In what other setting would we ever allow that? Parents across the country are calling for common-sense age restrictions on targeted ads on social media. COPPA 2.0 is a much-needed answer to their call,” said Dr. S. Bryn Austin, Board Member at Eating Disorders Coalition and Director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders.
“The Public Interest Privacy Center (PIPC) is proud to support the re-introduction of COPPA 2.0. COPPA 2.0 increases the age of individuals entitled to foundational privacy protections online from children under 13 to teens under 17. In today’s digital world, prioritizing the privacy and safety of children and teens online should no longer be optional. COPPA 2.0 will help to make this a reality,” said Amelia Vance, President of Public Interest Privacy Center.
“AASA is proud to support the re-introduction of COPPA 2.0. This legislation is more important than ever, as it will fill the gap left by the Federal Trade Commission declining to codify long-standing guidance allowing schools to consent to edtech in their recent update to the COPPA Rule. COPPA 2.0 finds the right balance between increasing protections for children and teen privacy online while still allowing schools to provide appropriate, technology-enhanced educational opportunities for all students,” said Dr. David R. Schuler, Executive Director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association.
“Public school educators and parents want kids to learn and thrive in safe, engaging and welcoming schools. However, Big Tech’s dismal failure to erect basic safeguards around its predatory social media products has resulted in a growing plague of loneliness, anxiety and depression. We must pass commonsense regulations and laws to protect children from these dangers, just as we did with lead paint and seatbelts, and as Congress almost did last year before Meta’s last minute opposition lobbying. Sen. Ed Markey’s bill, COPPA 2.0, would protect our kids by modernizing and strengthening privacy laws to reflect the online world they live in now. And it would stop Big Tech’s invasive data practices that track and traumatize kids for profit,” said Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
“For too long, Big Tech has evaded accountability by exploiting young users with manipulative design features and harvesting their data to fuel addictive algorithms. As long as these companies profit from hooking children and exploiting their sensitive data, they will continue to prioritize profits at-all-cost over democracy. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act 2.0 shifts this paradigm by introducing critical protections, including data minimization requirements, a ban on targeted advertising to children and teens, and the closure of loopholes that allow platforms to ignore young users on their sites. Congress now has a crucial opportunity to stand with millions of Americans — parents, young people, and advocates — demanding common-sense safeguards for kids online,” said Alix Fraser, Vice President of Technology Reform at Issue One.
“In the absence of a strong federal comprehensive privacy law, it’s critical that we at least protect the most vulnerable people online — kids and teens. Senator Markey and Cassidy’s Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) does this by placing critical limits on the amount of data that can be collected from young users online to what is necessary for the product or service requested by the child or teen. EPIC is proud to support COPPA 2.0,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, Deputy Director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
“The Young People’s Alliance supports Senator Markey and Senator Cassidy as they reintroduce COPPA 2.0, a critical step in curbing Big Tech’s exploitative revenue model. Data privacy cuts predatory platforms off at the source, limiting their ability to track, manipulate, and profit off kids. This, alongside banning targeted ads and allowing minors to delete their data will give young people more control over their online experiences, which we are extremely grateful to see,” said Ava Smithing, Advocacy Director at the Young People’s Alliance.
“The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) is an important piece of legislation to protect young people from harmful and exploitative advertising online. We strongly support this bipartisan bill and applaud the legislators who are working to see that it passes. Kids are not just tiny adults – their young minds are incredibly vulnerable to the content they’re exposed to on social media. This can lead to terrible and tragic outcomes like violence, self-harm, and suicide. As trusted adults, we must do all we can to protect our youth from these kinds of dangerous marketing practices and online materials,” said Mark Barden, Co-Founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund and father of Daniel, who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
In December 2024, Senator Markey blasted the decision not to include COPPA 2.0 in the continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14, 2025. In September 2024, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed COPPA 2.0 by a voice vote. In July 2024, the U.S. Senate passed the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which included COPPA 2.0, by a 91-3 vote. In July 2023, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee unanimously passed COPPA 2.0.
Source: United States Senator for Texas John Cornyn
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) released the following statement after former Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon was confirmed as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education:
“Linda McMahon and I collaborated closely during the pandemic to support Texas’ small businesses, and I know in this new capacity she will work with President Trump to ensure every student in Texas and across the country has access to a quality education free of radical woke policies. I was glad to support her confirmation and look forward to working with her.”
Source: United States Senator for New Jersey Cory Booker
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ahead of President Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress tonight, Senate Democrats are launching a new social media video push highlighting President Trump’s broken promise to lower prices.
In August 2024 and numerous times on the campaign trail, President Trump promised to “immediately bring prices down, starting on day one” of his presidency. Instead, prices are up and American families are facing more rapidly rising costs: January’s Consumer Price Index report showed inflation accelerating to 3 percent on an annualized basis. Costs of everything are going up — food, fuel, housing, and other essentials. Egg prices have skyrocketed, if they’re even available.
“Every day, Americans are feeling the consequences of Trump’s empty promises to lower costs, because they feel the consequences of his inaction every day. Families know all too well that the prices of essentials like gas, groceries, and housing are going up, not down, and the problem is getting worse, not better,” said Senator Cory Booker, Chair of the Senate Democrats’ Strategic Communications Committee, which organized the action on social media.
“Donald Trump promised to ‘immediately bring prices down, starting on day one’ of his presidency. But he’s failed to do so, and has also failed to take meaningful action. Instead, he pardoned January 6th rioters, has let Elon Musk take a chainsaw to essential government programs and threaten Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and more, and is now working with Republicans in Congress to pave the way for tax cuts for billionaires. Trump is set to address Congress tonight, but Americans want actions that bring them relief, not more empty words.”
This morning, dozens of Senate Democrats simultaneously posted a video fact-checking Trump’s broken promise to lower prices “on day one” across their social media platforms. The video begins with footage of Trump at a press conference last year promising to “immediately bring prices down, starting on day one” of his presidency — a promise he echoed numerous times leading up to the November election. The video then cuts to Democratic Senators setting the record straight.
One example of the video can be viewed at the link below; followed by a transcript.
LINK TO BOOKER VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT OF BOOKER VIDEO:
Donald Trump: When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One.
Sen. Cory Booker: Shit that ain’t true, that’s what you just saw.
Since Day One of Donald Trump’s presidency, prices are up, not down.
Inflation is getting worse, not better.
Prices of groceries, gas, housing, rent, eggs– they’re all getting more expensive.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has done nothing to lower costs for you.
Instead, he’s done things like pardon violent criminals who beat police officers on January 6th.
He’s letting Elon Musk take a chainsaw to vital government programs for Americans and giving him access to Americans’ most sensitive data– social security numbers, tax returns, health care records and more.
In the most ham-handed fashion, he’s fired thousands of essential government workers. People literally who are working to make government more efficient and more accountable.
He’s frozen federal funding for vital programs, like cancer research, veteran services, education programs, payments to family farmers, and so much more.
Why?
Because Trump and Musk are cutting critical services for you in order to make room for more tax cuts for billionaires like them, while still leaving you to deal with rising costs, a housing crisis, and healthcare that’s getting more expensive and not less.
The Republican plan is simple: you lose, and billionaires win.
And that’s the truth.
Headline: AI-powered sales journeys: Personalization for exceptional customer experiences
Personalized customer engagement is no longer just an advantage; it’s an expectation. Sales teams are increasingly tasked with delivering real-time, tailored interactions across multiple touchpoints, all while managing a growing number of prospects and customers. The challenge is maintaining that high level of personalization without overwhelming the team or losing the quality of engagement.
We see that many businesses encounter significant challenges when attempting to scale personalized interactions to meet the needs of a diverse and growing customer base. Traditional methods that worked well with smaller datasets and pipelines simply can’t keep up with the demands of a modern, fast-paced sales environment. Companies are looking for better ways to manage and orchestrate customer journeys to deliver relevant, personalized experiences at every stage.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales
Elevate your customer experiences by personalizing them at scale.
The complexity of personalizing at scale
Using outdated CRM systems or doing things manually often means sales teams have to send out generic messages that don’t really connect with individual customers. This makes the engagement feel off, and opportunities slip through the cracks.
The main issue here is that most systems don’t provide real-time insights into what customers are doing. Without up-to-date data, sales teams end up reacting to customer actions instead of anticipating them. As the number of leads grows, it’s nearly impossible to maintain the kind of deep engagement needed to really connect with customers at every stage.
Orchestrating seamless customer journeys with Microsoft AI-driven insights
AI helps companies take a proactive approach to personalizing customer journeys. By analyzing customer behaviors in real-time and delivering actionable recommendations, AI gives sales teams the insights they need to anticipate customer needs and offer solutions before prospects even ask for them.
Beyond insights, AI orchestrates the entire customer journey, helping to ensure that interactions across channels are cohesive and relevant. Whether a prospect first interacts with a brand through email, social media, or a sales meeting, AI helps to ensure that their journey is connected, personalized, and moves them further down the funnel.
Dynamics 365 optimizes every step of the customer journey
Let’s explore how AI-powered insights optimize key stages of the sales journey, enabling sales teams to focus on high-value tasks while still delivering tailored customer experiences.
Enhancing customer interactions with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Effective customer interactions are built on understanding the customer’s history, preferences, and current pain points. However, gathering that information can be tedious and fragmented when done manually, leading to inconsistent and incomplete preparation.
With AI-generated opportunity summaries, sales teams can walk into every meeting fully prepared. Real-time insights about the customer’s journey—including previous interactions, product interests, and engagement history—help to ensure that each interaction is tailored to the customer’s needs. Instead of scrambling to piece together information, sales teams can focus on building relationships and delivering value from the outset.
Investec is a great example here. By using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, they have been able to improve their client relationships while saving about 200 hours a year. This allows them to redirect efforts from routine tasks towards providing a personalized customer experience.
Streamlining post-sale engagement and follow-ups
Maintaining customer satisfaction post-sale is critical for retention, but many organizations struggle with post-sale engagement. Inconsistent follow-ups or delayed CRM system updates lead to disengaged customers and missed upsell opportunities.
AI-powered systems automate the process, ensuring timely follow-ups and engagement reminders. For example, sales reps can receive real-time notifications when a customer interaction is needed—whether it’s a check-in call, a product recommendation, or a renewal reminder. This automation helps to ensure that no opportunity falls through the cracks, supporting teams to strengthen customer relationships and increase long-term value.
Just look at the work that Lynk & Co is doing to transform car usage by offering flexible options for customers to buy, borrow, or subscribe to vehicles. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 customizable tools, they were able to quickly build an infrastructure that could create unique processes and drive highly personalized experiences.
Creating a cohesive, multi-channel experience
We know that customers engage across multiple channels—email, phone, social media, webinars, and more. Managing these touchpoints individually often results in a fragmented customer journey. Customers can feel disconnected from the brand if interactions on different platforms don’t align.
AI-powered tools help orchestrate seamless interactions across channels, ensuring that customers receive consistent messaging regardless of how they choose to engage. Whether it’s a follow-up after a demo, a personalized offer via SMS, or an email post-webinar, AI helps to ensure that the message is both relevant and timely. Sales teams can manage more channels without sacrificing personalization, improving the customer experience and keeping prospects engaged.
An interesting story here is Zurich Insurance Group. To optimize processes and handle increasing customer data, they chose Microsoft solutions, including Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, to help them find new ways to reach customers and shape customer journeys. As a result, they’ve been able to increase their lead quality by over 40%.
AI’s role in optimizing customer journeys
By continuously analyzing real-time customer behavior, AI provides sales teams with recommendations on what to do next—whether that’s sending a follow-up email, scheduling a demo, or offering a personalized discount.
For sales leaders, this means moving beyond surface-level engagement to deep, data-driven interactions that anticipate customer needs. Rather than reacting to each customer interaction as it happens, AI supports proactive strategies that keep prospects moving smoothly through the sales funnel.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Copilot: Delivering personalization at scale
The challenges of scaling personalization can be daunting, but solutions like Dynamics 365 and Copilot allow businesses to turn customer data into actionable strategies, delivering relevant, personalized interactions from the first touchpoint to post-sale follow-up.
With Dynamics 365 and Copilot, organizations are experiencing the following benefits: 1
15% increase in revenue per customer journey.
75% time savings on customer journey development.
50% reduction in physical marketing spend.
Here’s how Dynamics 365 addresses the key challenges of scaling personalized engagement:
Natural language data exploration. Sales teams can instantly access customer insights by asking questions in simple language, such as “Which customers are nearing their renewal date?”. This streamlines data access and empowers quick, targeted action.1
Segment creation with Query Assist. Easily create customer segments by describing desired traits, helping sales teams target high-value groups with precision.2
AI-assisted journey creation. Define customer journey goals in plain language, and Copilot builds personalized journeys across channels, boosting engagement and conversions.3
Content generation and refinement. Quickly draft messages or emails with Copilot, using tone and key point inputs to tailor content. This speeds up customer response and helps to ensure alignment with brand goals.4
AI can scale personalized customer engagement
When talking to customers, it is recommended that businesses consider personalizing engagement across their large pipelines. This can indeed be a major challenge, but with AI-powered tools like Dynamics 365 and Copilot, sales teams can effortlessly maintain meaningful, personalized interactions at every stage of the customer journey. By turning data into actionable insights, AI empowers companies to create proactive and tailored experiences that drive both loyalty and growth. Using AI allows you to scale engagement without sacrificing the personal touch, making it a valuable investment for enhancing customer relationships.
Access the resources below to get started on your AI journey today. You can also stay connected on LinkedIn with more information about innovation and AI transformation.
Learn more about how to personalize at scale with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Sources:
1 “Dialog with Data.” Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Documentation. Microsoft, Inc., 2024.
Corporate Vice President, Business Applications, Commercial Solution Area
Jonathan Hunt is Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Business Applications. In this role, Hunt’s focus is on helping Microsoft’s customers and partners successfully navigate their digital transformation by harnessing the power of technology to understand their data, their customers, and their systems – and to achieve more within an ethical, inclusive, and secure framework. Hunt has spent 20+ years helping organizations scale through technology, process, and change management. Prior to joining Microsoft, he led Go-to-Market Strategy & Operations for Databricks and spent 11 years at Salesforce, most recently serving as COO, North America. Hunt has a wealth of knowledge and experience in optimizing and scaling Go-to-Market models, building high-performing teams and strategic partnerships, and driving business growth, both regionally and globally. Hunt lives in the San Francisco Bay area and enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and three children. He is an aspiring runner and cyclist and enjoys seeking adventures in the backcountry when time permits.
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime News
OXFORD, MS – A Columbus man was sentenced today to 18 months in prison for fraudulently obtaining a $200,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Ramirez Ivy, of Columbus, Mississippi conspired with Lakeith Faulkner, Norman Beckwood and others to each receive $200,000 from the Small Business Administration (SBA) based on a fraudulent loan application. The loan applications contained fictitious documents and claimed business revenue that did not exist.
In September 2024, after a three-day trial before U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills, the jury found Ivy and Smith guilty on all counts.
Judge Mills sentenced Ivy to 18 months to be followed by five years supervised release and ordered him to pay $200,000 in restitution to the SBA.
On January 23, 2025, Felicia L. Smith, Ivy’s co-defendant at the September trial, was sentenced serve six months imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release. Smith was ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution to the SBA.
On December 7, 2022, Faulkner, a former SBA employee, entered a plea of guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. On May 24, 2023, U.S. District Judge Debra M. Brown sentenced Faulkner to serve sixty-two (62) months imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release. Faulkner was also ordered to pay $10,620,452.26 in restitution to the SBA.
On January 17, 2023, Beckwood entered a plea of guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock sentenced Beckwood to serve 62 months imprisonment followed by five years of supervised release. In addition to prison time, Faulkner was ordered to pay $10,620,452.26 in restitution to the SBA. In connection with his guilty plea, Beckwood also forfeited $700,147.74, a 2018 Mercedez Benz C Class and a 2020 Mercedes Benz G63.
Thirty (30) other individual borrowers have also been charged in connection with the same scheme.
“Ramirez Ivy was a law enforcement officer when he deceptively obtained funds that were intended to provide emergency financial relief to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he absolutely knew better than to engage in this type of fraud,” said U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner. “Today’s sentence should reinforce the fact that the prosecutorial and law enforcement partnership on display in this case will continue until the stolen money is recovered and the perpetrators have been brought to justice.”
“Abusing a federal program designed to assist Americans in a time of need has, and will continue to be, aggressively investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. What makes this crime even more egregious is that Mr. Ivy was a police officer in a position of public trust,” stated Assistant Inspector General Gary Smith for Investigations for the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. “This sentencing demonstrates our commitment to investigating and bringing to justice anyone who victimizes the American taxpayer. I want to thank TIGTA’s Special Agents, our law enforcement partners and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for their unwavering dedication to this goal.”
“Today’s sentencing of former police officer, Ramirez Ivy, demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to investigating those who defraud the federal government, no matter their position within the community,” remarked Special Agent in Charge Robert Eikhoff for the FBI Jackson Division. “The FBI, alongside our partners, will continue to investigate and hold individuals accountable, like Mr. Ivy, who commit fraudulent crimes against the U.S. Government.”
“The abuse of programs designed to assist small businesses is unacceptable. This sentencing underscore the SBA Office of Inspector General’s unwavering commitment to holding fraudsters accountable and ensuring justice is served,” said Sophia Curtis Acting Special Agent in Charge of the SBA OIG’s Central Region.
This scheme was initially uncovered during a civil investigation, led by the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Harland Webster.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Clayton A. Dabbs, Parker S. King and Samuel D. Wright of the Northern District of Mississippi are prosecuting the criminal case.
The case was investigated by the FBI, the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
COFACE SA: Disclosure of trading in own shares (excluding the liquidity agreement) made on February 24, 2025 to February 28, 2025
Paris, 4 March 2025 – 17.45
Pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 of 16 April 2014 on market abuse1
The main features of the 2024-2025 Share Buyback Program have been published on the Company’s website (http://www.coface.com/Investors/Disclosure-requirements, under “Own share transactions”) and are also described in the 2023 Universal Registration Document.
Q1-2025 results: 5 May 2025 (after market close) Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting: 14 May 2025 H1-2025 results: 31 July 2025 (after market close) 9M-2025 results: 3 November 2025 (after market close)
FINANCIAL INFORMATION This press release, as well as COFACE SA’s integral regulatory information, can be found on the Group’s website: http://www.coface.com/Investors
For regulated information on Alternative Performance Measures (APM), please refer to our Interim Financial Report for H1-2024 and our 2023 Universal Registration Document (see part 3.7 “Key financial performance indicators”).
Regulated documents posted by COFACE SA have been secured and authenticated with the blockchain technology by Wiztrust. You can check the authenticity on the websitewww.wiztrust.com.
COFACE: FOR TRADE As a global leading player in trade credit risk management for more than 75 years, Coface helps companies grow and navigate in an uncertain and volatile environment. Whatever their size, location or sector, Coface provides 100,000 clients across some 200 markets. with a full range of solutions: Trade Credit Insurance, Business Information, Debt Collection, Single Risk insurance, Surety Bonds, Factoring. Every day, Coface leverages its unique expertise and cutting-edge technology to make trade happen, in both domestic and export markets. In 2024, Coface employed ~5,236 people and registered a turnover of €1.84 billion.
COFACE SA is listed in Compartment A of Euronext Paris ISIN: FR0010667147 / Ticker: COFA
1 Also in pursuant to Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 of 8 March 2016 (and updates); Article L.225-209 and seq. of the French Commercial Code; Article L.221-3, Article L.241-1 and seq. of the General Regulation of the French Market Authority (AMF); AMF Recommendation DOC-2017-04 Guide for issuers on their own shares transactions and for stabilization measures.
COFACE SA: Disclosure of total number of voting rights and number of shares in the capital as at 28 February 2025
Paris, 4 March 2025 – 17.45
Total Number of Shares Capital
Theoretical Number of Voting Rights1
Number of Real Voting Rights2
150,179,792
150,179,792
149,677,830
(1) including own shares (2) excluding own shares
Regulated documents posted by COFACE SA have been secured and authenticated with the blockchain technology by Wiztrust. You can check the authenticity on the websitewww.wiztrust.com.
About Coface
COFACE SA is a société anonyme (joint-stock corporation), with a Board of Directors (Conseil d’Administration) incorporated under the laws of France, and is governed by the provisions of the French Commercial Code. The Company is registered with the Nanterre Trade and Companies Register (Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés) under the number 432 413 599. The Company’s registered office is at 1 Place Costes et Bellonte, 92270 Bois Colombes, France.
At the date of 31 December 2024, the Company’s share capital amounts to €300,359,584, divided into 150,179,792 shares, all of the same class, and all of which are fully paid up and subscribed.
WASHINGTON, March 04, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A group of influential economists, entrepreneurs, and academics announced today the formation of the Private Economic Council, an organization that will advocate for small businesses and taxpayers in consultation with the Trump administration and Congress. These are high-profile supporters who will use their respective platforms as influencers to help President Trump and the GOP majority deliver for the American people.
“This is a pivotal moment in American history, and the decisions our leaders make in the coming months and years will influence the lives of the American people for generations,” said renowned economist Steve Moore. “For the first time in our lives, we have a chance to enact meaningful spending cuts, permanently reduce taxes for working Americans, and take the federal government’s thumb off the scale of our economy.”
Members of the Private Economic Council will work together to advocate for policies that expand economic freedom, incentivize growth, and reduce the burden of government on workers and business owners alike. In addition to weighing in on hot-button topics, they will propose additional policy innovations designed to advance their shared goals of economic freedom and prosperity.
“There is a genuine appetite for change in Washington right now, but we need to move quickly and decisively before this window of opportunity closes,” said Julio Gonzalez, founder and CEO of Engineered Tax Services.
“I’m pleased to be a part of this group,” said Barry Habib, a longtime entrepreneur who currently serves as CEO of MBS Highway. “We will work hard to make improvements and increase economic growth.”
“I’m proud to be a S.O.B. (son of a butcher). Only in America can sons of butchers become successful,” said Wayne Allyn Root. “This is the land of opportunity — but only because of capitalism, limited government, and low taxation and regulation. I am honored to join this prestigious group to help keep it that way.”
“Corporations spend millions of dollars on lobbyists to make sure elected officials are aware of their interests; we’re going to make sure Congress knows just as much about the interests of the workers and small business owners who are the real engine of our economy,” said Papa John’s founder John Schnatter.
About the Private Economic Council
Steve Mooreis a Senior Visiting Fellow in Economics at The Heritage Foundation. He is the founder and former president of the Club for Growth, and a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. He served as a senior economic advisor to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, helping create the blueprints for the policies that unleashed a historic era of prosperity, including the Trump tax cuts.
Dave Bratis a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia who won his first term in office after defeating sitting House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the primary election. He currently serves as Dean of the Liberty University School of Business.
Barry Habibis an award-winning economist and entrepreneur who is widely credited with saving the mortgage industry from margin calls by persuading the Federal Reserve to avoid actions that could have created severe instability during the COVID pandemic in 2020. He has been a longtime contributor to both Fox News and CNBC.
Julio Gonzalezis the founder and CEO of Engineered Tax Services, the country’s largest specialty tax engineering firm. Julio helps small and mid-sized businesses take advantage of the same tax loopholes used by major corporations, and is a tireless advocate for small businesses.
Wayne Allyn Root is a CEO, businessman, best-selling author, and national conservative TV and radio host who has interviewed President Trump 16 times. He is also a nationally syndicated columnist who helped originate and popularize some of President Trump’s most popular campaign promises, such as “No Tax on Social Security benefits” and “No taxes on overtime.” Root was the 2008 Libertarian Vice-Presidential nominee.
John Schnatteris the founder of Papa John’s International, which he started in a broom closet and grew into one of the largest pizza chains in the world. He is a prolific philanthropist and outspoken advocate for entrepreneurs.
Source: United States Senator for Kentucky Mitch McConnell
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) submitted the following op-ed to The Washington Post, printed in today’s edition, on the dangers of a clean, full-year Continuing Resolution (CR) at the Fiscal Year 2024 level:
Every time Congress faces a government funding deadline, Washington reminds itself — eventually — that shutdowns are worth avoiding. This is a familiar, and all-too-frequent, conversation.
What’s not familiar is the prospect of going an entire year without passing new appropriations — and the new programs and capabilities they comprise — for the national defense. Never in recent history has Washington forced the U.S. military to spend a full year applying yesterday’s budget to tomorrow’s challenges.
Today, we’re closer than ever to making ignoble history on this front. And we owe it to our men and women in uniform, and to taxpayers, to be honest about the consequences.
Consumer goods aren’t the only things that have grown more expensive in recent years. In times of high inflation, governance without updated appropriations means diminished Pentagon buying power. Forcing the U.S. military to equip itself for next year’s threats at this year’s prices with last year’s dollars is a recipe for disaster.
Even as fresh eyes comb the Pentagon for new efficiencies and cost-savings, effective military acquisitions continue to require multiyear runways. A truly clean, full-year, continuing resolution at the level set for FY2024 would mean no new starts on critical programs the military needs to adapt to a rapidly changing battlefield, such as directed-energy drone and missile defenses. No new starts this year means fewer new capabilities in warfighters’ hands two, five and 10 years from now.
To be clear, we’re not approaching this cliff — we’re careening over it. The fiscal year is almost half over. By March 14, the failure to pass full-year defense appropriations last fall will have cost taxpayers $17 billion in defense buying power. In other words, contending with current inflation and new requirements with old funding levels has already meant an effective shortfall of $103 million per day.
Consigning the rest of the fiscal year to this austere reality would only compound the damage.
Extending the 2024 budget through the end of FY2025 would mean the Defense Department would lack the funds to make payroll for 2 million service members — especially after accounting for the additional 10 percent junior enlisted pay raise authorized last year. Making up this shortfall will almost certainly involve siphoning funds the services have budgeted for other critical missions and capabilities.
Spending the entire year under the FY2024 funding level will mean no money or authorization for 168 new programs — many of which are required to outcompete China in space and cyberspace. In the race to project power and deter aggression across the Indo-Pacific, it would put U.S. forces and our regional allies even further behind.
Specifically, it would mean stopping the ongoing construction and refueling of up to 26 Navy warships. It would delay three new destroyers, up to 10 new Virginia-class submarines and four new Columbia-class submarines (which sustain a critical leg of the nuclear triad).
The costs of deterring war pale in comparison to the costs of fighting one. If Congress is unwilling to make deterrent investments today, then discussion about the urgency of looming threats — particularly the “pacing threat” of China — carries little weight.
Last year, on a bipartisan basis, Senate appropriators recommended we pass funding that would have exceeded President Joe Biden’s meager defense budget request by nearly $20 billion. That recommendation fell on deaf ears with the Senate’s Democratic majority. Now, we face the prospect of a clean continuing resolution that would spend roughly $8 billion less than Biden’s request.
No senator or member of Congress can claim ignorance of the ways that outdated funds harm national security. Senior officials at the White House and Pentagon, for their part, are not absolved from their obligation to ensure full-year appropriations for the military. This administration took office with a mandate to restore peace through strength.
Surely, no American who is concerned about threats abroad thinks that cutting billions from the military is the way to face them.
Tying one hand behind our backs is no one’s idea of restoring the warrior ethos. It is alarming that we don’t hear anything from the Pentagon’s senior-most civilian leaders about the need to raise the defense budget’s topline — or the looming, self-inflicted harm to readiness and lethality that would come from failing to pass new, full-year defense appropriations for the first time in memory.
China certainly isn’t hamstrung by these kinds of challenges. And U.S. allies, including those with far more expansive social welfare systems, continue to make tough choices to make their militaries even more capable. In fact, the rate at which European NATO allies are increasing defense spending far outpaces our own. Since 2022, they have committed more than $185 billion to buying U.S.-made weapons and defense systems.
Meeting that demand, while modernizing U.S. forces at the same time, requires robust full-year appropriations. We cannot rebuild our military without bigger topline investments in defense.
Mitch McConnell, a Republican, represents Kentucky in the U.S. Senate.
The 50 American individuals and couples who gave or pledged the most to charity in 2024 committed US$16.2 billion to foundations, universities, hospitals and more. That total was 33% above an inflation-adjusted $12.2 billion in 2023, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s latest annual tally of these donations. Media mogul and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg led the list, followed by Netflix co-founder and chairman Reed Hastings, along with his wife, Patty Quillin. Businessman Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, pledged the third most in 2024.
Neither MacKenzie Scott nor Elon Musk, both of whom announced donations large enough to land them on this list, provided enough information for the Chronicle to include them. Musk didn’t name the nonprofits to which he gave stock, and Scott declined to confirm how much money she put into the donor-advised funds through which she gives. Known as DAFs, these funds are savings accounts reserved for charitable giving.
The Conversation U.S. asked David Campbell, Lindsey McDougle and Susan Appe, three philanthropy scholars, to assess the significance of these gifts and to consider what they indicate about the state of charitable giving in the United States.
What trends stand out overall?
Appe: I think it’s good to see that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, an Iranian-American entrepreneur born in France, with his wife Pam, are among the top 12 donors. Omidyar is the only foreign-born philanthropist on this list who reported giving to democracy promotion in the U.S. through his Democracy Fund. The Omidyars also funded the AI Collaborative, a group that promotes artificial intelligence governance based on democratic values, and their Omidyar Network, an organization promoting responsible technology.
Omidyar is one of seven immigrants among 2024’s top U.S. donors. The others are Herta Amir, who was born in what was then Czechoslovakia; Sergey Brin, a Russian immigrant; the Pagidipati family, which came from India; K. Lisa Yang, who was born in Singapore; Michele Kang, who immigrated from South Korea; and Joe Wen, a Taiwanese immigrant.
In 2024, as in most years, many of these wealthy donors supported prestigious universities and large hospitals and stowed millions in their own foundations and donor-advised funds. Although it’s impossible to predict exactly what their foundations and DAFs will support in the future, history suggests that they’re unlikely to focus on addressing systemic issues such as economic inequality.
McDougle: It doesn’t appear that any of these top 50 donors are Black or Latino. This lack of representation is undoubtedly a reflection of broader societal disparities and may influence how individuals from these groups perceive their own potential as philanthropists.
Philanthropic capacity often correlates with wealth accumulation, and significant gaps in wealth between racial groups are likely to have a direct influence on who we see in the Philanthropy 50. Black families, for instance, possess just 15% of the wealth of white families, while Hispanic families have only about 22%. These wealth disparities likely prevent many Black and Latino Americans from having the wealth necessary to engage in large-scale philanthropy.
This reality highlights the need for the nation’s leading philanthropists to fund initiatives that focus on addressing systemic barriers to economic equality. MacKenzie Scott has been doing this through the millions of dollars she has donated to support racial equity and economic mobility.
Addressing these disparities also involves changing the narrative around who is considered a philanthropist. As I have argued before, underrepresented groups may not always see themselves as philanthropists, partly due to limited resources and the historical portrayal of philanthropy as the domain of the wealthy. But by redefining philanthropy to include a broader spectrum of giving, philanthropy can play a pivotal role in leveling the playing field and creating more opportunities for all.
What surprises you about the biggest donors?
Appe: The absence of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Google co-founder Larry Page and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also stands out due to the presence of many other tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, on this list.
Campbell: In addition to Elon Musk, a South African immigrant, not making this list for the second year in a row – even though he is the richest person in the world – Jeff Bezos isn’t listed either. Few private citizens have sought to change American society more than they have – Musk most recently through his role in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and Bezos through actions he takes as the owner of The Washington Post and the founder of Amazon, among other initiatives.
I believe that it is worth asking why neither of these men, who rank among the wealthiest Americans, made the list this year. While Musk gave too little information to make the list, his previous giving choices raise questions about his commitment to philanthropy as a way to advance the public good. In 2022 and 2023, for example, his foundation gave away less money than required by law and supported organizations that benefit him and his interests, such as schools attended by his children.
Do you have concerns about the big gifts these donors provide?
McDougle: The nonprofits receiving these large donations can end up in a precarious situation if that funding suddenly stops. When nonprofits rely too heavily on a few wealthy donors, they may be forced to make abrupt decisions like cutting crucial programs or laying off staff. Obviously, this underscores a core problem with overdependence on these types of major gifts: They can leave nonprofits in a bind and unable to sustain their operations without continued long-term support.
This is particularly problematic if it affects a nonprofit’s ability to engage in long-term planning. As such, when focusing on the giving of the super rich, it is important to consider not just the immediate benefits of their generosity but also the potential instability it can create for the recipients if their gift is not managed strategically.
Campbell: The total given by America’s top donors in 2024 was the sixth-highest in the past decade, after adjusting for inflation. I’d expected to see a larger amount, given that 2024 was the second straight year of stock market gains of 20% or more.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, the top donors gave nearly twice as much to charity as they did this past year; and they gave close to $8 billion more than that in 2021. Why haven’t the wealthiest Americans sustained that level?
Giant gifts to universities, museums and hospitals are surely making a meaningful difference in America and the world. But I wonder why these donors tend not to focus on the challenges facing those who have the least.
To be sure, some of these philanthropists use the foundations they or their relatives control to help meet the basic needs of Americans struggling to get by and address issues such as poverty, disease prevention and criminal justice reform. Melinda French Gates, Warren Buffett, and John and Laura Arnold all directed much of their giving in 2024 to those kinds of foundations.
What do you expect or hope to see in 2025 and beyond?
Top philanthropists have been slow to react so far. However, the MacArthur Foundation just announced plans to increase its giving over the next two years. MacArthur president John Palfrey said this is a response to what he called a “major crisis” brought on by the Trump administration’s spending cuts. I will observe whether other foundations or some of the wealthiest Americans follow suit.
Still, philanthropy cannot fill all these gaps. The $60 billion in foreign aid cuts represent a sliver of the trillions the Trump administration wants to slice from the federal budget. If it succeeds, donors will have countless other priorities.
Campbell: Events that took place during the first Trump administration, like the murder of George Floyd, the erosion of democratic norms and the separation of immigrant families, led philanthropists to embrace giving that addressed these issues, notably diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In the early days of the second Trump administration, prominent donors like Mark Zuckerberg have enthusiastically backtracked on their own DEI policies. I am now watching how other donors position themselves relative to the Trump administration’s objectives – as cheerleaders, combatants or something in between.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Arnold Ventures have provided funding for The Conversation U.S. in the past. The Gates foundation currently provides funding for The Conversation internationally.
David Campbell receives grants from the Learning by Giving Foundation and the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation to support the experiential philanthropy course he teaches at Binghamton University. He also serves as the chair of the Klee Foundation board.
Lindsey McDougle and Susan Appe do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.