UK Court orders Anil Ambani Doesn't buy his security To Pay $100 million To Chinese Banks

LONDON — On Friday, a UK court ordered Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Group to pay $100 million to three Chinese banks pursuing a US$ 680 million loan agreement recovery.

In fact, Judge David Waksman set a six-week timeline in respect of a deposit to be paid in court pending complete trial in the case, because he concluded that he did not accept Ambani's defense that his net value was nearly zero or that his family would not help him in pushing him to take action.

"In my general conclusion, Mr. Ambani has not satisfied me of his inability to make any payment," said Judge Waksman, who criticized Ambani's defense in relation to his financial means for its lack of candor and openness.

The Reliance Group has stated that it wants to appeal the ruling, which will require the appeal process.

"Mr Ambani is reviewing the UK Court Order and will take legal advice on further appeal remedies," said Anil Ambani Spreadspeaker.

"The order relates to Mr. Ambani's alleged personal liability and will not affect the operations of Reliance Infrastructure Limited, Reliance Power Limited and Reliance Capital Limited," the Spokesman said.

On behalf of the China Development Bank and the Exim Bank of China, the Chinese Industrial and Commercial Bank Ltd. Mumbai Branch welcomed this order and declared that it remained confident in its successive proceedings.

"This is a direct debt claim to recover, in good faith, outstanding credits issued to the RCom (Reliance Communications) with Mr. Ambani's binding personal guarantee that he refused to honor," the banks stated in a statement.

"We remain trustworthy in our argument. We hope that Mr. Ambani will comply with the order of the court and look forward to a speedy trial resolution," said the release.

Another senior representative of the Reliance Group said the Chief of RCom intends to seek additional remedies in appeal, based on legal advice and is confident that he will have the chance to establish that the Chinese claim is without merit.

Previously, in a half-day hearing, the court said that the chairman of the Reliance Group, Anil Ambani, was a wealthy businessman and is not now the result of a "disastrous turn of events" on the India telecoms market.

In February 2012, the Chinese banks sought a summary verdict against Ambani in connection with an alleged personal guarantee violation on debt refinancing loans amounting to some US$ 925 million.

Ambani, 60, disputes the existence of any such guarantee power so that the High Court case in the UK is subject to the jurisdiction decided under the terms of the loan agreement.

During the hearing at the High Court of England and Wals Commercial Division in London to set the terms for the "conditional order" against the boss of Reliance Communications (RCom) granted to three Chinese banks last year, the Legal Team tried to ascertain that his net value had been nil after his liabilities were taken into account.

"Since 2012, Mr. Ambani's investment value has plummeted. In fact, the Indian telecommunications industry has been affected by the Indian government's change in policy with respect to spectrum grants," states his defense.

"Whereas Mr Ambani's investments were worth more than US$ 7 billion in 2012, they now valued US$ 89 million and his net value is zero, given his liabilities ... He was just a wealthy businessman and not now," said Robert Howe, his barrister.

The banks ' counsel challenged Ambani's statements and spoke repeatedly about his "lavish lifestyle."

"Thus, Mr Ambani says that he is financially insolvent and practically bankrupt. During the half-day trial, Justice David Waksman challenged that he had filed for bankruptcy in India.

Ambani's legal team including leading Indian lawyer Harish Salve reacted negatively and a brief reference in court to the recent implementation of the Indian Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

"The cumulative reality is that Mr. Ambani could not come near the court to pay USD 700 million," Howe said.

The banks, represented by barrister Bankim Thanks, tried to establish that Ambani, in his testimony before the court concerning his financial means was "just economic with the facts."

They also pointed out several cases in which family members of Ambani entered to bail him out, although the defense of Ambani tried to clarify that his client had no access to the properties and shares under the names of his mother Kokila, his wife Tina Ambani, and his sons Anmol and Anshul as loans.

"We seriously believe that in his hour ' s need his own mother, wife, and sons can not help to comply with the conditional order," said Thanks, who claimed that the evidence of Ambani was similar to the proverbial "glossy lipstick on the pig" in the sense that it had some "blatant" lies despite the burden of evidence in the case with him.

"Brother Mukesh of ADA (Anil Dhirajlal Ambani) is widely recognized as the richest individual in Asia, ranked as the 13th richest person in the world by Forbes, and as the 14th richest in the world by Bloomberg. It has an estimated net value of between 55 and 57 billion USD," the banks mentioned in court.

How bad Coronavirus is? We associate the most recent outbreak with other major viruses

In the current epidemic, 1,018 people – all in China except two – died and there are some 43,106 confirmed infections.

A 39-year-old man in Hong Kong has been the first confirmed death of coronavirus in the world and a 44-year-old man in the Philippines has died.

In two dozen other countries, approximately 470 cases have been reported.

Despite criticism from China and the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Australia placed similar restrictions.

Similar to many other illnesses are the symptoms of cough and fever, as well as pneumonia in severe cases.

This week the World Health Organization director-general said that the organization is still unable to anticipate where the outbreak is headed, but that it acknowledges that there is still an opportunity to prevent it.

SARS

You may have found that coronavirus was very much associated with SARS and, for good reason, that in reality SARS was a coronavirus.  

Confused? Confused? Don't be. Don't be. In fact, coronavirus is a family of viruses with common cold.

This current coronavirus outbreak was temporarily referred to as "2019-nCoV," but that doesn't roll out the tongue as easily.

A global outbreak between November 2002 and July 2003 was caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The new coronavirus was very close. Importantly, it was less infectious, but also fatal.

However, the death toll of coronavirus has now exceeded SARS, which killed just 774 people.

Nonetheless, it is difficult for the Chinese authorities to compare the number of deaths after the same period during the SRAS epidemic – a lesson they seem to have learnt this time around.

Since 2004, no new cases of SARS have been confirmed.

Ebola

Although SARS symptoms and coronavirus can be linked with influenza, ebola symptoms certainly can not.

The infection seriously affects the ability of the blood to coagulate and contributes to fatal, uncontrolled bleeding.

As you can see from the map above, it is far more lethal than coronavirus, and almost 50 percent of the cases were fatal during the West Africa epidemic from 2014-16.

Only a concerted global effort led by the WHO stopped the virus spread across Africa, although isolated cases like Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey slipped through the net.

Spanish Influenza

It is important to go back to 1918 and bring all of these into perspective.

Not only was mankind faced with the most deadly war in history by far, but an influenza epidemic spread around the world killing around 5% of the world's total population – around 50 m.

In isolated islands in the Pacific and Arctic, there was hardly a corner of the world unnoticed.  

What was especially disturbing about this strain of the influenza was that it was extremely deadly for those who were 20-40 years old in normal healthy times.

Healthcare was obviously more vulnerable a hundred years ago and the WHO did not manage a solution, but scientists really don't know why it was so catastrophic.

Statista chart provided.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the total Spanish influenza deaths were nearly 500 million.

Increasing benefits of corporate innovation from government research.

To some extent, innovation has always relied on government support. But a recent study shows that public funding could be even more efficient than it seems.

"Quick a third of US patents rely on work specifically supported by the government," said Dennis A. Yao, Lawrence E. Fouraker, Business Administration Professor and co-head of the Harvard Business School Strategy Group.

Remember that Uncle Sam's R&D (R&D) spending rose 5 fold from less than $20 billion in over $100 billion a year between the 1950s and the 1980s, equal to business R&D expenses.

IF MORE INVENTIONS ARE BUILDING ON FEDERAL GRANTS, IT SUGGESTS THAT SUPPORT IS BECOMING MORE IMPORTANT TO RESEARCH GENERALLY.

Since then, business spending has continued to grow, although government funding has decreased. In 2016, companies accounted for 69 percent of all R&D spending, while according to the Congressional Research Service, the US government provided just 22.5 percent. The remaining 10 percent referred to higher education, non-profit organizations, and non-federal governments.

"The obvious question is: ' What is the government's role in promoting innovation in this changing environment?" Yao says. Yao says.

According to new research by Yao and several colleagues, its function remains important. Given the relatively small budget, the government funds innovations that really matter to the US economy.

The research, published in the journal Science in June, was headed by the University of California, Berkeley, engineering and business professor Lee Fleming and included Professor Hillary Greene of Law, University of Connecticut and Berkeley Guan-Cheng Li as well as Matt Marx, Professor of Strategy of Boston University.

Who’s funding patents?

The researchers have used new patent data from the US Patent and Trademark Office, which recently started to include patent filer recognitions in their database, to learn how government funding fuels innovation. These admissions generally cite sources of funding that helped researchers to identify patents sponsored by government agencies such as the National Science Foundation or the National Health Institutes (NIH).

"It was previously possible to determine what patents came directly from government research laboratories," says Yao. "Now we can see which patents also originated indirectly from support from the government." These include patents supported by federal grants and patents based on previous patents or publications funded, directly or indirectly, by the Government. By examining the database of all patents filed since 1926, the team determined that the percentage of patents involving government support increased steadily. While government R&D expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product has declined since the mid-1980s, the percentage of government-supported patients increased from 12% in 1980 to high 30% by 2011, down from then to 28%.

"When more inventions build on federal grants, it suggests that research support is becoming increasingly important," says Yao.

Yao and his collaborators have reviewed previous patent applications to see how prior developments had affected future technologies. Among patents granted to companies in 2010, those which, on average over the next 5 years, benefitted by federal largesse, directly or indirectly, were cited 6.33 times, compared to 4.42 patent citations that received no government aid.

Even if scholars compared discoveries involving similar technologies, the results were reported around the same time or had similar inventors. In these cases, 3.39 more citations were earned for government-funded inventions than those without, on average.

"This result indicates that patents funded by the government are more important, which reinforces the concept of government-funded innovation as an economic driver," Yao said.

Who benefits from government funding?

Companies that filed the vast majority of the patients studied by Yao and colleagues obtained most from state money, not from lone inventors or academic institutions. In reality, companies were dependent on government-funded research and relied on federally funded grants for nearly 35% of all patents they filed.

While the paper does not specifically analyze why government-funded patents are so relevant, Yao speculates that government institutions tend to fund broader science initiatives, compared to companies, that lead to more new discoveries.

Government funding is paying off

Taken as a whole, the paper gives the government a strong reason to continue – if not increase – its level of investment in science research.

"In political contexts, research funding is often an objective in the context of cuts," said Yao, noting that voters are more likely than long-term benefits of research spending, whose results may be years away, to feel the immediate consequences of shrinking human services. "Voters don't get so upset with such cuts." Science can not predict what will happen if US government drastically slashes expenditures. Yet the analysis indicates that government funding, dollar by dollar, at least for now fuel imagination more effectively than non-government expenditure.

"The data certainly suggests that the government's current rate of research funding is paying off," says Yao. "Perhaps we could benefit even more if we invested more."

Thank You.

What is the status of Real state market in Gcc these Days?

The discovery of petroleum wells and hydrocarbon prices has stimulated the property market in the GCC region just like many other economic sectors.

GCC countries were encouraged to move forward with their urbanization schemes, which include improving immovable reality and quality of infrastructure. There have been major changes in many places, such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Riyadh and Bahrain, and even certain of these have become the world's leading proprietary markets.

In addition to the oil revenues, many additional factors led to improving market performance including tourism, activities such as Expo 2020 and the 2022 World Cup, and an increase in population.

Oil drop

The decrease in oil prices had a significant impact on property markets in the GCC region due to their governments ' total reliance on petroleum income to complete their development plans.

Saudi Arabia first announced a budget deficit of 98 billion dollars in years. Kuwait also had a deficit of $27.8 billion.

Experts and market analysts have estimated GCC states ' total budget deficiency this year to reach $122 billion, a rate unprecedented in the region's history.

In fact, the situation on the market was better due to the economic diversification policies adopted in the GCC and recently passed legislation aimed at reducing market speculation and reducing the bubble effect, despite the pessimistic views of market analysts and consultants.

Bahrain

Like other GCC states, Bahrain's budget depends on oil revenues. The discovery of oil fields in Bahrain is an important turning point in the economic history of the Kingdom.

Bahrain began a decade ago, focusing more on the immovable sector as a major source of income for the country, alongside the petroleum industry.

The Government of the Kingdom allowed foreign investors to buy properties in certain parts of the Kingdom. This decision boomed both market demand and supply rates.

More foreign investors entered the property market in Bahrain, while foreign developers also joined major immobilization projects.

The recent growth of the State property market allowed it to survive the economic upheaval that struck the region, with last year's total value of 1 billion dinars in property deals stable.

The markets stayed stable too. Stable rents and sales prices have encouraged more investors to enter the Bahrain market to benefit from their high rental and investment returns.

Saudi Arabia Companies

The Saudi real estate market is believed to survive the economic impact among market analysts and observers.

Most analysts believe that there is no connection between oil and property prices because the industry has experienced the rising demand trend as a result of the growing population.

The government's policies are also expected to reduce the impact of the recession on property such as the White Land Tax, which should improve property development across the Kingdom.

UAE

The UAE has been the least affected by the oil change among other GCC states since, unlike its rivals, the Emirates government announced no budget deficits this year.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi experienced minor volatility in sales and rent prices, with the price of luxury apartments in Dubai, for example, falling by 10%. The demand rate remains stable in most areas, however, as more projects are delivered and investors still have high expectations about the future of the market.

Thank You.

How danger is Facebook for you. No one knows the truth! Really?

Facebook says 400 million users have it. But are they well-protected from unwanted ads, scammers and prying eyes?

Not according to CSO (Chief Security Officer) founder Joan Goodchild online.

She says that your anonymity is much more likely to be violated than you know when you sign on to the social network site because of technical gaffes or the company’s marketing practices.

The fire on Facebook was shot last week when 15 data protection and consumer protection groups filed a petition to the Federal Trade Commission requiring the site to circumvent anonymity settings for private purposes, among other issues, in the hopes of making personal information available to users. Several Facebook users find their private conversations on their contact list open to everyone— a major security breach that many people doubt how secure the network is.

On Saturday morning’s “Early Show,” Goodchild discussed five risks that Facebook users often do, without being aware of:

1. Your information is being shared with third parties
2. Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign
3. Facebook ads may contain malware
4. Your real friends unknowingly make you vulnerable
5. Scammers are creating fake profiles

Below is an edited interview transcript.

Is Facebook a secure platform to communicate with your friends?

Here’s the thing: Facebook is one of the world’s most famous sites. Security holes are regularly found. It’s not as safe as people think as they sign in every day.

There are certainly growing pains. Facebook is a young company and has been around a couple of years. It still figures this out. You’re so young, you’re still trying to figure out how you will make money. It is difficult to compare this to others; we never had this phenomenon before in the way [ so many ] people communicate — just e-mails come closer.

The crime threat is real. The Internet Crime Complaint Center reports that in 2009 victims of Internet related crimes lost $559 million. That was 110% more than last year. When you are not careful about using Facebook, if you share data with a dangerous person you think is actually “a friend,” you look at the potential for identity theft or even an attack. Recently, one British police agency has reported that the number of crimes it has responded with Facebook in the last year has increased 346percent. These are real threats.

Lately, a week doesn’t seem to have passed without some reports about a Facebook security issue. TechCrunch discovered a security hole earlier this week that enabled users to read the private chats of their friends. Facebook has fixed it since then, but who knows how long it had been? It might have been like that for years, others suggest.

Investigators from the VeriSign iDefense group found out last month that a programmer sold Facebook usernames and passwords to a website for anonymous hackers. It was estimated that he had about 1.5 million accounts-and traded between $25 and $45.

And the website is continuously being targeted by hackers who want to harass or obtain data from these 400 million users or run such scams. Yes, there is a lot of criticism in the Facebook security community. That the most irritating thing is that the company rarely asks inquiries.

Do people really have privacy on Facebook?

No. There are various ways in which third parties can view the data. For example, you may not know that you play the popular games on Facebook, like FarmVille or taking those popular quizzes-each time, you require an application that provides third-party details about that you you have never subscribed to to be downloaded to your profile.

Does Facebook share info about users with third parties through things such as Open Graph?

Open Graph is a new Facebook project that it introduced at its F8 conference last month. It is essentially a way to share the information in your profile with a range of third parties, such as advertisers, so that they get a better idea of their interests and what you are talking about, so that Facebook, as shown, can “make it a more personal experience.”

The theory behind Open Graph–even if it has not implemented it–is its whole business model, isn’t it?

That’s the business model — Facebook wants you to share as much information as possible so that it can make money by sharing it with advertisers.

Isn’t it in Facebook’s best interest to get you to share as much info as possible?

That is absolutely true. The goal of Facebook is to get you to contribute as much information as possible so that it can be shared with advertisers. The more information you share, the more deals you can make for advertisers.

Isn’t there also a security problem every time it redesigns the site?

Each time Facebook redesigns the site [ usually ] a few times a year, it returns the anonymity of your account to a default, which essentially makes all of the knowledge public. You, the customer, have the responsibility to check the security settings to decide what you want and what you don’t want.

Facebook will not [ necessarily ] notify you of the changes and automatically update your privacy settings. You will find out through friends many times. Facebook does not alert you of these updates, it simply informs you that the website has been updated.

Can your real friends on Facebook also can make you vulnerable?

Yes. Clearly. Your protection is only as strong as the health of your mate. If someone in your friends ‘ network has a weak password and their profile has been hacked, they can, for example, actually give you ransomware.

There is a common fraud called a 419 scam, where somebody hacks your profile and sends messages with your buddies asking for money, saying, “Yeah, I’ve been in London, I got mugged, wire my money, please.” People believe that their good friend wants help— and eventually wear money to Nigeria.

A lot of Web sites we use display banner ads, but do we have to be wary of them on Facebook?

Absolutely: Facebook couldn’t view all its advertising. It has not done an excellent job of ensuring which advertisements are secure and not safe. As a consequence, when you search around a day that includes malicious code, you can get an ad in your profile. Yes, last month a ransomware ad asked people to download virus software that was a bug.

Is too big a network of friends dangerous?

You meet people with a lot of followers – Facebook’s 500, 1,000 friends? What is the likelihood that they’re all real? In 2008, a study concluded that 40% of all Facebook profiles were false. They were generated by bots or impostors.

If you have 500 friends, there is undoubtedly a percentage of people you really don’t know and you share lots of information with them, such as when you are on vacation, the pictures of your family, the names of their children. Do you really want that information to people you don’t even know?