Business
A&F Launches Investigation Into Ex-CEO Sexual Misconduct Claims
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) has announced that it is investigating allegations against its former CEO.
Mike Jeffries has been accused of exploiting men at international sex events that he hosted.
An investigation by the BBC revealed that an organized network used a middleman to recruit young adult males for events with Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Smith’s partner, Matthew Smith, with some alleging abuse.
Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Smith did not respond to comment requests.
Since being contacted by the BBC, A&F, which operates approximately 850 stores worldwide, including its Hollister brand, has hired an “outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation” into the allegations. It stated that it was “appalled and disgusted” by the behavior in question.
There is no evidence that the company was aware of the BBC’s discovery of allegations of sexual exploitation at sex events.
It has previously referred to Mr. Jeffries as its modern-day founder, as he transformed the Ohio-based brand from a failing heritage outfitter to a multibillion-dollar adolescent retailer during the 1990s. According to company filings at the time, he departed with a retirement package valued at approximately $25 million (£20.5 million) in 2014 due to declining sales.
According to BBC Panorama, in the months preceding Mike Jeffries’ departure, a pension fund invested in A&F brought legal proceedings alleging that the company had paid out settlements in response to allegations of “misconduct” by its then-CEO.
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) has announced that it is investigating allegations against its former CEO.
A source requesting anonymity stated that he had seen internal documents documenting payoffs for staff and contract employees complaining about Mr. Jeffries’ behavior. According to the source, the documents he reviewed did not disclose the nature of the complaints.
BBC Panorama inquired if the complaints were sexual, but A&F refused to respond.
After the BBC published its investigation into allegations of exploitation at sex events on Monday, A&F stated that it “was unaware of the sexual misconduct allegations” and that its new leadership had transformed the company into “the values-driven organisation we are today.”
Mr. Jeffries allegedly exploited men for sex at events he hosted in his New York residences and luxurious hotels around the globe, including in London, Paris, Venice, and Marrakech, according to a two-year BBC investigation.
Between 2009 and 2015, twelve men described attending or organizing events featuring sex acts for the 79-year-old fashion mogul and his 60-year-old British companion, Mr. Smith.
The eight men who attended the events stated that a man with a missing snout and a snakeskin patch recruited them. The BBC has identified him as James Jacobson.
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) has announced that it is investigating allegations against its former CEO.
Half of the men who spoke to the BBC about their recruitment claimed they were initially misled about the nature of the events or were not informed that sex was involved. Others stated that they knew the events would be sexual, but this was not precisely what they expected. Everyone was compensated.
Mr. Jacobson refuted any wrongdoing and stated that all participants entered the events “with their eyes open.”
Warning: This story contains explicit sexual content
Men who attended these occasions told the BBC Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith would engage in sexual activity with about four men – or “direct” them to have sex with each other. The men reported that personnel at the event gave them envelopes containing thousands of dollars in cash.
David Bradberry, who was 23 then, said he was introduced to Mr. Jacobson in 2010 by an agent who described him as the gatekeeper to “the owners” of A&F, but no mention of sex was made. During their meeting, he stated that Mr. Jacobson suggested that Bruce Weber, A&F’s official photographer at the time, capture his photograph.
Then, Mr. Bradberry stated, “Jim made it clear that I would not meet with Abercrombie & Fitch or Mike Jeffries unless I agreed to oral sex with him.” He described his condition as “paralysed.”
In retrospect, he acknowledges that this incident should have been a “red flag,” but he viewed Mr. Jacobson as “just a creepy old man I wouldn’t have to see again.”
Later, Mr. Bradberry accepted an invitation to a daytime event at Mr. Jeffries’ former Hamptons property on New York’s Long Island, which was sold for $29 million. He claimed to have discussed his aspirations to become an A&F model with Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Smith. Then, he claimed, Mr. Jeffries held “poppers” (a drug that can induce a strong head rush and disorientation) under his nose and later engaged in sexual activity with him.
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) has announced that it is investigating allegations against its former CEO.
Signing a nondisclosure agreement “felt like intimidation” – David Bradberry.
In 2011, Barrett Pall reported feeling pressured to attend an event in the Hamptons. When he was 22, he claimed that an older model who received a referral fee recruited him as his “replacement” for “some sort of sexual experience” with the couple. He stated that he consented because the older model had helped him financially and felt indebted to him.
Mr. Pall reported that the elder model told him, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” but suggested, “The further you go, the better,” alluding to career opportunities. He felt compelled to “perform” when he arrived at the event. Mr. Pall stated at one point that Mr. Jeffries was molesting him from behind.
“I believe this experience has broken me,” he said. “I believe that this robbed me of any remaining innocence. It affected my mental state. But with the vocabulary I possess now, I can inform you that I was taken advantage of.”
Barrett Pall stated that his experience left him feeling devastated.
In 2011, dozens of males were flown to Marrakesh for the largest event described to the BBC, which took place in a private villa at a five-star hotel. According to the BBC, Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Smith are also guests. Alex, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, explained that he was a struggling model supporting his family back home when he was recruited as a performer for the event, where he anticipated having to strip.
Alex, a straight man in his twenties at the time, claimed he auditioned for Mr. Jacobson, who praised his dancing but demanded he “finish the job” by engaging in oral sex with him. “I had debt, and I wanted to support my family,” Alex explained. “I completed the task while feeling disgusted.”
Alex flew to Marrakesh for the event a few weeks later, believing that “the hardest part had been completed.” However, moments into his performance, Mr. Jeffries allegedly attempted to kiss him. “I attempted to participate without offending him. “I was extremely uneasy,” Alex stated.
Eventually, he said he hid in a back room and fell unconscious. Alex stated that he awoke with a prophylactic in his stomach and feared that the champagne he was given earlier had been tampered with.
“After putting the pieces together, I believe there is a strong possibility that I was drugged and assaulted. “I will likely never know for certain what happened,” he said.
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) has announced that it is investigating allegations against its former CEO.
A civil attorney who reviewed the BBC’s evidence recommended that US prosecutors investigate whether what these “brave men” describe could constitute sex trafficking. Under US law, sex trafficking includes using force, fraud, or coercion to induce an adult to travel to another state or country in exchange for sexual services.
Brad Edwards stated, “There may have been evidence of coercion for some of the men, while others may not have felt the coercive tactics.”
He added that Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Smith could contend that the men were consenting adults and that the fact that some of them had engaged in commercial sex in the past was “a factor”; however, he stated that past actions were “really irrelevant” when determining whether a particular commercial sex act was the result of force, fraud, or coercion.
“Given the stories of these courageous men who have come forward, I believe it is vital that federal prosecutors investigate this case,” Mr. Edwards said, adding that prosecutors faced a “very high” burden of proof.
Over several weeks, the BBC made repeated attempts via letter, email, and phone to contact Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Smith, inviting them to respond to a detailed list of allegations and ensuring that they were fully aware of the allegations against them. There has been no response.
Mr. Jacobson, the 70-year-old intermediary, stated his attorney in which he took offense at the suggestion of “any coercive, deceptive, or forceful behavior on my part” and stated that he had “no knowledge of such conduct by others.”
He stated that he did not recall promising modeling opportunities. “Every encounter I had was entirely voluntary and never coercive,” he said. Everyone I’ve interacted with who attended these events did so with wide-open eyes.
SOURCE – (BBC)
Business
Meta Fires Employees For Spending Food Allowances On Personal Items Like Acne Pads And Wine Glasses
Meta dismissed over two dozen employees from its Los Angeles office for misusing company meal credits to purchase items such as laundry detergent, wine glasses, and acne treatment pads, according to a company source.
Many of the social media giant’s corporate buildings have elaborate dining services that give meals to staff as a reward. Meta’s two-year-old workplace near New York City’s Penn Station, for example, has an expensive food court-style cafeteria with multiple booths that are all free for employees.
However, for employees in smaller locations without food services, the company provides meal coupons — $20 for breakfast and $25 for lunch and dinner — so they can have food delivered to the office while on the job.
Meta Fires Employees For Spending Food Allowances On Personal Items Like Acne Pads And Wine Glasses
The meal vouchers are intended for employees to eat while working at the office, which can involve lengthy hours spread throughout multiple meals of the day, as is common in the computer industry.
According to the source, an internal inquiry discovered that several Los Angeles-based employees utilized meal monies to purchase items other than food or to have meals delivered to their homes.
Meta’s median total yearly salary for individual employees (excluding CEO Mark Zuckerberg) is $379,050, according to a regulatory filing released earlier this year.
The firings, which occurred last week, were originally reported by the Financial Times.
The firings came after Meta said on Thursday that it was laying off employees across the company as part of a number of unrelated restructurings.
“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton stated. “This includes relocating certain teams and assigning some individuals to alternative positions. When a role is terminated, we work diligently to locate other opportunities for impacted personnel.”
Meta declined to say how many staff were laid off.
Meta Fires Employees For Spending Food Allowances On Personal Items Like Acne Pads And Wine Glasses
Jane Manchun Wong, a well-known security researcher who predicted new social media features such as a Facebook resume feature and a tool on the platform formerly known as Twitter that allowed users to hide replies to their tweets, was among those laid off before being hired by Meta in June 2023 to work on the Instagram and Threads teams.
Last year, Meta laid off around 20,000 employees in successive rounds of cuts in an effort to reverse a year of revenue declines and stagnant user growth, which Zuckerberg dubbed the company’s “year of efficiency.” The company’s shares (META) have up roughly 80% since this time last year.
SOURCE | CNN
Netflix said on Thursday that its membership growth slowed substantially over the summer, indicating that the massive benefits from the video-streaming service’s crackdown on freeloading consumers are cooling off.
Netflix added 5.1 million customers over the July-September period, a 42% decrease from the same period previous year. Nonetheless, the company’s revenue and earnings increased faster than analysts expected, according to FactSet Research.
Netflix had 282.7 million global customers as of September 30, far surpassing any other streaming provider.
The Los Gatos, California, corporation earned $2.36 billion, or $5.40 per share, a 41% increase over the same period last year. Revenue increased 15% from a year ago to $9.82 billion. Netflix management estimated that revenue would climb at the same 15% year-over-year rate during the October-December period, which was somewhat better than analysts had anticipated.
Netflix’s Subscriber Growth Is Slowing, But Its Profit And Stock Price Are Still Surging
The robust financial performance in the previous quarter, combined with the bullish prognosis, overshadowed any concerns about slowing subscriber growth. Netflix’s stock price increased by about 4% in extended trading following the release of the statistics, adding to the company’s more than 40% gain this year.
Subscriber increases in the previous quarter were the lowest recorded in any three-month period since the beginning of last year. That drop-off shows Netflix is entering a new phase after benefiting from a prohibition on the once-common practice of sharing account passwords, which allowed an estimated 100 million users to watch its popular service for free.
The crackdown, prompted by a rare loss of subscribers following the pandemic in 2022, helped Netflix add 57 million subscribers from June 2022 to this June — an average of more than 7 million per quarter — while many of its industry rivals struggled as households cut back on discretionary spending.
“That’s why accelerating growth via advertising becomes paramount to Netflix’s go-forward strategy,” Proulx told the crowd.
Netflix’s Subscriber Growth Is Slowing, But Its Profit And Stock Price Are Still Surging
As part of its evolution, Netflix has been increasingly supplementing its lineup of scripted TV shows and movies with live programming, such as a Labor Day spectacle featuring renowned glutton Joey Chestnut setting a world record for eating hot dogs in a showdown with his longtime rival Takeru Kobayashi.
Netflix will try to draw more viewers this quarter with a fight on Nov. 15 between former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, a YouTube celebrity turned boxer, as well as two National Football League games on Christmas Day.
SOURCE | AP
(VOR News) – Chip stocks in the TSMC United States were already higher than they had been historically before trading started on Thursday.
Based in North Asia, the technical powerhouse TSMC made a prediction and a declaration of good sales, which generated investor expectations and finally resulted in this acquisition. Both of these comments clearly had a direct bearing on this surge.
The biggest contract chipmaker in the world, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., has raised its annual revenue growth projection and said that sales of artificial intelligence chips will account for a mid-teen percentage of the company’s whole revenue for the whole year.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. supplies this material. < From the outset, this information came from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC provided this material at the start of the procedure.
Regarding the demand for CPUs used to run artificial intelligence applications, a reasonable projection was developed. It was so since this was the reason this happened.
Thus, the projection presented by the most important producer of advanced artificial intelligence chips TSMC strengthened the faith that investors have in the future possibilities of chipmakers. This was the state of affairs that resulted from the projection’s making.
The market values of chipmakers have skyrocketed over the past two years directly as a result of Big Tech’s chip expenditure increasing. The direct reason behind chipmakers’ market value increase is this one. The last two years have seen this increase take place.
The continuation of pre-market developments is expected to lead to a market value of TSMC higher than one trillion dollars. The value of the company’s traded on the United States stock exchange shares rose by seven percent. This benefit was evident.
Share prices of both NVIDIA, a TSMC customer and industry leader in artificial intelligence chip technology, and AMD, a smaller rival, rose by more than two percent. The leading company in computer chip technology is NVIDIA.
In the field of artificial intelligence chip technology, NVIDIA rules the market most of all. Memory chip distributor Micron, Broadcom, a maker of networking chips, and semiconductor producer Qualcomm for smartphones all reported increases ranging from 1.5% to 3%.
Leading the way in the networking chip space is Broadcom.
The manufacturer of TSMC networking chips in the domain is Broadcom.
Broadcom is a semiconductor manufacturer for use in wireless networking. Another sign that things were headed in the right direction was the chipmaker Intel’s steady increasing tendency, which was showing through a lot of problems. Intel wants to challenge TSMC in the field of advanced contract manufacturing by building more chip factories.
The company’s whole plan calls for it. Maintaining a competitive edge over its competitors is Intel’s core aim, hence this particular strategy is part of that whole one. Analysts hold that this project will last for a good length of time before it is eventually completed.
Following ASML, a major player in the chipmaking equipment market, Tuesday’s predictions were drastically lowered, so TSMC’s projection gave some relief to investors. In this sense, TSMC’s prognosis was quite beneficial. This led to investors fearing a resurgence in demand for chips not used in the manufacturing of artificial intelligence slower than expected.
Investors saw great relief in the TSMC prediction. On Wednesday, the day TSMC made their recommendations available, they made them available to the whole public.
The pick-and-shovel trade that is now under way on Wall Street is driving billions of dollars into companies in the semiconductor sector by investors.
This has caused the shares of TSMC listed in the United States to skyrocket by more than 80% so far this year, while the shares of NVIDIA have climbed by more than twice their previous value. These two rises have happened starting at the beginning of the year
SOURCE: AFN
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