The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has declined an effort by Apple Inc to skip a shareholder proposal asking the iPhone maker to provide greater transparency in its efforts to keep forced labour out of its supply chain.

A group of shareholders earlier this year asked Apple's board to prepare a report on how the company protects workers in its supply chain from forced labour. The request for information covered the extent to which Apple has identified suppliers and sub-suppliers that are a risk for forced labour, and how many suppliers Apple has taken action against.

Amazon has filed a writ petition against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Delhi High Court seeking clarification on "unnecessary" summons issued to its employees and questioning the scope of its investigation in alleged FEMA violation in the Future Group deal.

In a plea filed before the Delhi High Court, Amazon accused ED of conducting a "fish and roving enquiry" against it.

Sebi on Wednesday imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 crore on Karvy Computershare (presently known as KFin Technologies) for redeeming its units in Taurus Mutual Fund on the basis of privileged information, pertaining to Ballarpur Industries default, available to it as RTA.

By redeeming all units in Taurus Liquid Fund and Taurus Ultra Short Term Bond Fund in February 2017, Karvy Computershare made unlawful gain of about Rs 1.2 crore, Sebi said in an order.

Bharat FIH, a subsidiary of Foxconn group, has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for its initial public offering (IPO). The Rs 5,004-crore IPO comprises a fresh issue of Rs 2,502 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs 2,502 crore. The offer for sale is by its promoter, Wonderful Stars.

Wonderful Stars and FIH Mobile are its promoters, its prospectus stated. Wonderful Stars, together with its nominees, holds 99.97 per cent of the company’s shares.

Private equity (PE) major Advent International has acquired a majority stake in Encora, a global digital engineering services company with innovation labs in India and the US, for $1.5 billion. As part of the agreement, Warburg Pincus, the existing majority shareholder of Encora, has sold its stake and now retains a minority shareholding.

We are thrilled to enter into this partnership with Advent as we continue to scale our differentiated software engineering service offerings, said Venu Raghavan, chief executive officer (CEO), Encora.

Indian telecom companies (telcos) are set to see a 40 per cent boost in their operating profits next fiscal, which will give them some room to invest in rolling out their 5G services. Operating profit is expected to surge to Rs 1 trillion from Rs 72,000 crore in the next fiscal, on the back of higher tariffs, better ARPU, and the government’s deferred payment option.

The recent 20-25 per cent tariff hikes announced by telcos and ongoing customer upgrades, led by continuous rise in data consumption will improve average revenue per user/month (ARPU) by 20 per cent to Rs 160-165 next fiscal year from Rs 135 in the previous fiscal year.

Shares of Minda Industries hit a record high of Rs 1,179, on rallying 7 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday’s intra-day trade on healthy outlook. The stock of auto ancillary company was quoting higher for the fifth straight trading day, gaining 18 per cent during the period. Thus far in the calendar year 2021, the stock has zoomed 196 per cent, as compared to 18.9 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.

In past 11 trading days, the stock has surged 37 per cent, after the company announced a fresh round of capex and investment spends.

The price of 10 gram of gold decreased by Rs 230 on Wednesday, with 24 carat gold trading at Rs 48,410 and 22 carat at Rs 47,410.

The price of 1 kg of silver decreased by Rs 500 and the precious metal is selling at Rs 61,400.

The Reliance General Insurance Company said on Tuesday that it will soon come out with nine sandbox products to meet evolving consumer needs.

The company has already received approval for the same from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

This announcement is in line with the company's long-term goal of re-innovating and redefining the insurance sector to cater to the fast-transforming customer expectations in the digital age.

Online recruitment firm Monster.com, a Quess company, announced that it has raised Rs 137.5 crore in a funding round led by prominent industry leaders – Akash Bhanshali (Volrado Venture Partners) and Mohandas Pai (Meridian Investments) with participation from Quess.

Post the funding round, the company is valued at close to $100 million. The current close has been done at Rs 112.5 crore with an option built-in to expand the round to Rs 137.5 crore.

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