⚡️Chanda Kochhar gets bail, Goldman Sachs lays off thousands

⚖️ Legal

Bombay High Court grants bail to Chanda Kochhar and her husband. Embroiled in the ₹3,250-crore Videocon loan fraud case, former ICICI Bank chief Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar were released on bail. While granting the interim relief, the court ruled that the arrest was not in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure. Lawyers have clarified that the release was merely procedural and does not affect the case itself.

Google challenges the ~$162M competition fine before the Supreme Court. The fine was levied by the Competition Commission of India on the basis that the tech giant was abusing its dominant market position through Android to protect its own apps like Chrome and YouTube. Last week, the NCLAT refused to grant a stay on the order. Google has now moved the Supreme Court and is likely to seek an urgent hearing since it must comply with the CCI’s order by January 19.

💻 Tech

Apple starts hiring for its first retail store in India. Apple is preparing to open its flagship stores in the country as soon as this quarter. The company listed vacancies for 12 job functions on its career page which could imply hundreds of openings. Separately, Apple exported $2.5B+ iPhones from India between April and December last year, nearly twice the number in 2021. Moves like these are indicative of a push away from China.

Amazon will cut ~1,000 jobs in India as a part of its global layoffs. According to sources, nearly 1,000 of the 18,000+ job cuts at the ecommerce company will happen in India. Amazon has 1 lakh employees in India, which means that the decision will impact ~1% of the staff. Roles across tech, HR, and Prime are expected to be affected.

Industry group representing Google, Meta, and other tech companies calls India’s proposed digital competition law “absolutist and regressive”. Late last year, a parliamentary panel recommended enactment of a digital competition act to regulate anticompetitive practices by large tech companies. Asia Internet Coalition, an influential industry group, warned that such a law may hurt digital innovation and impose “disproportionate costs” on South Asian consumers. With more regulatory changes in the pipeline, the conflict between the government and Big Tech is likely to intensify in 2023.

🤑 Finance

Low-value digital rupee transactions might be made anonymous. About 16,000 users have made payments worth ~₹64 lakh since the launch of the digital rupee on 1 December 2022. A challenge for widespread adoption is lack of anonymity: users may be apprehensive about trying e₹‎ due to concerns about being tracked. As per a source, the government may allow retail users to delete the transaction footprint of low-value e₹ payments. This will bring necessary anonymity into the system, similar to cash transactions which require PAN disclosure only for payments worth ₹50,000+.

Tata Consultancy Services posts a ~19% growth in revenue and ~11% jump in profit from the previous year. TCS’ Q3 revenue grew from ₹48,885 crore in December 2021 to ₹58,229 crore in December 2022. Profits increased from ₹9,806 crore to ₹10,883 crore in the same period, which was below an estimate profit of ₹11,046 crore.

🦄 Startups

Fintech startup KreditBee raised $200M in its Series D funding. The round values the Bengaluru-based company at ~$680M, as per a source. The startup has raised ~$400M so far. It operates an online platform that provides personal loans worth up to ₹3 lakh to borrowers in partnership with banks and NBFCs.

🌎 International

Goldman Sachs will cut up to 3,200 jobs this week. Slowdowns in different business lines, a costly expansion into consumer banking, and economic uncertainty are prompting the firm to embark on one of its biggest round of layoffs ever. The cuts are expected to begin mid-week. Bonuses, which are usually given later in January, are expected to drop by ~40%.

Seattle Public Schools sue TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and other social media companies for causing a youth mental health crisis. The lawsuit alleges companies running these platforms have “successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth” for profit and seeks the maximum possible penalties permitted by law. The district also claims that it has suffered significant financial and operational harm from social media addiction among students.

A new round of layoffs shows that tech companies are prioritizing protecting bottom-lines over growth. 18,000+ at Amazon, 10% at Salesforce, 11% at Vimeo, 20% at Snap: the tech sector has been ruthless with job cuts. According to Layoffs.fyi, tech companies laid off 1,50,000+ employees in 2022. This is a dramatic change in tone for an industry that was one of the most aggressive to expand till recently.

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