Qualcomm Impacted by $272m EU Antitrust Fine

The fine is related to Qualcomm's historical pricing (from 2009 to 2011) of 3G modem chips and comes at the end of a four-year long investigation by the EU.

The fine was announced by the EU's Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. She was previously a member of the Folketing (Danish Parliament) known as Folketinget in Danish ("people's thing") which governs Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Antitrust laws govern the distribution of economic power and are aimed to ensure fair competition.
Price fixing activities generally come under antitrust law.

Amazon Contributes to $575m Investment in Deliveroo

Amazon has invested heavily in Deliveroo, having scrapped its own online food delivery service. Deliveroo will use the money for international expansion. Its model is not to employ riders directly but pay them per delivery.

Avengers: Endgame Boosts Disney Share Price to $140

Disney's share price rose to $140 following news of the success of Avengers: Endgame, its latest release in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

To date, the top 10 Marvel films have brought in  more than $1bn each on average, supporting Disney's decision to acquire Marvel in 2009 for $4bn. Marvel was founded in 1986 as a subsidiary of Cadence Industries (it was subsequently taken over several times, and was described as a "mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property" by Greensboro-born American businessman,  Ron Perelman, who won $1.5bn from Morgan Stanley in legal claims, a decision which was later reversed).

After Marvel, Disney later acquired Lucasfilm (2012) from founder George Lucas for $4bn (citing "substantial pent-up demand" for Star Wars movies, and 21st Century Fox (2019) (which owns in turn Star India, and majority owns Hulu, a low-cost streaming media subscription service and Fox Deportes, formerly Fox Sports en Espanol).

Disney Plus, a new streaming service, is also set to be launched late 2019, featuring the entire Star Wars series plus a range of Disney-owned content.

ABC Television alumnus Robert ("Bob") Iger has been CEO of Disney for over a decade, succeeding Michael Eisner in 2005, having been five years in the COO position.

Bob went to Ithaca College in New York (Tompkins County).

Bob earned a whopping $65m for being CEO in 2018. He also joined the Board of Directors of Apple in 2011 (chaired by American businessman and former CEO and later Chairman of Genentech, Arthur Levinson).