03/10/2026

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BIZ & FINANCE SATURDAY | OCT 3, 2026

New Mexico wants Meta to pay up to US$40b in penalties

Airbus workers in Spain agree to end strikes MADRID: Airbus employees in Spain have voted in favour of a deal aimed at ending months of intermittent strike action following a dispute over pay and working conditions, unions said in a statement on Thursday. The deal includes measures to restore workers’ lost purchasing power in addition to inflation-linked wage increases, greater flexibility in holiday arrangements and the reinstatement of a 40% remote working arrangement, according to a document outlining the proposal seen by Reuters. The unions said 87% of the workforce participated in a referendum on the preliminary agreement reached with Airbus on Sept 4. Of those who voted, 20.26% opposed the proposal, while 2.98% abstained. Airbus welcomed the outcome, saying it would allow the company to “maintain a solid and competitive position in Spain”. However, the European aerospace group acknowledged that the proportion of employees who voted against the agreement showed there was still “much to do to satisfy the expectations” of its entire workforce. The industrial dispute began in July, when workers launched strike action over a range of pay and working conditions. Their grievances included wage increases that failed to keep pace with inflation, stricter workplace attendance monitoring and new requirements for office employees to spend more time working on site. An initial offer from Airbus was rejected by workers in late August, prompting them to resume strike action as the dispute over pay and working conditions continued. Further negotiations eventually led to a preliminary agreement between the company and unions on Sept 4, paving the way for a workforce vote on the proposed deal. Airbus employs around 14,500 people across eight sites in Spain, where it manufactures military transport aircraft as well as components for commercial aircraft and satellites. – Reuters

NEW MEXICO: The state of New Mexico asked a judge on Thursday to order Meta Platforms to pay between US$35 billion (RM143 billion) and US$40 billion in penalties after a jury found the company had misled consumers about the privacy of their data on Facebook in a case that came out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Attorneys for New Mexico made the request at a hearing in a lawsuit brought following revelations that the British political consulting firm, which worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app without their consent. The jury returned its verdict on Sept 25. Judge Francis Mathew, who oversaw the trial in Santa Fe, will decide how much Meta must pay in financial penalties. Attorneys for Meta and New Mexico clashed at the hearing over how much was appropriate to order, with Meta arguing that the penalties the state was seeking don’t match the conduct the state focused its case administration imposed sanctions on Iran’s rail and auto sectors and their foreign suppliers, the Treasury Department said on Thursday, widening its wartime economic campaign to isolate Tehran. The sanctions are part of the department’s “Operation Economic Outcast,“ announced Aug 24, which aims to cut Tehran’s funding for the war, missile construction, cyberattacks and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC. The move extends US economic pressure on Iran from sea to land,

the US and our partners to drain the regime’s revenue once and for all.” Thursday’s sanctions also target foreign companies in Indonesia, the UAE and Turkey that supply Iran’s auto industry. “The blockade squeezed Iran at sea, sanctions increasingly isolate it by air, and now Washington is constricting its economic arteries on land,“ said Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors. “You cannot choke an economy like this without choking the livelihoods of the people who depend on it.” – Reuters “This court should speak to Meta in the only language it understands, which is money, and the value of its stock price,” McGinn said. She said US$35 billion to US$40 billion, which represents about 20% of the possible penalties that could be awarded under state law from the verdict, would impact the stock price while complying with Meta’s right to due process under the Constitution. At the hearing on Thursday, Matt Nicholson, a lawyer for Meta, called the state’s request an “astronomical penalty that would obviously violate a host of constitutional provisions.” In court filings, Meta urged Mathew to cap the penalties at US$3.45 billion. The jury may have said it found Meta’s statements misleading, but the evidence shows that Meta does not sell user data and New Mexico did not prove that any consumer had actually been misled, the company said in court filings. The judge said he expected to issue a ruling later this month. – Reuters But the judge should order a significant payment that will impact the company, McGinn said.

o Jury finds over 43 million consumer protection violations following Facebook privacy trial

Iranian Automobile Manufacturing Company, or SAIPA. Treasury said the two companies represent more than 90% of Iran’s domestic auto market. Treasury also designated the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company, which provides passenger and freight services, the Raja Passenger Trains Company and Sherkat-E Rah Ahan-E Khamle-O Naghle, also known as the Railway Transportation Company, which it said is a top private freight line. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the action “directly targets Iran’s enablers and lays the groundwork for said the company had committed more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws, based on the number of Facebook users or New Mexico residents who were the audience for each misleading statement. Attorneys for Meta had argued at trial that the statements were cherry picked snippets, and the company had repeatedly acknowledged its handling of misinformation or privacy issues was not perfect. State law allows the judge to decide how much to fine Meta per violation, up to US$5,000. At the hearing on Thursday, Randi McGinn, a lawyer for New Mexico, said applying the full US$5,000 penalty to the number of violations would create too large of a penalty under the US Constitution’s protections on due process.

targeting sectors Tehran has leaned on since a naval blockade cut off its oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. But the expanding sanctions risk inflicting severe costs on ordinary Iranians, one analyst said. The US blockade of Iranian ports has forced Tehran to rely more on autos and rail for transporting petroleum, fertilizer, chemicals and other goods. Thursday’s sanctions target those alternatives, according to the Treasury Department. The sanctions designate Iran Khodro Company, or IKCO, and SAIPA on at trial. “Well, when the parties go to trial, they roll the dice,” said Mathew. “They have to accept the consequences of their decision to go to trial, do they not?” The lawsuit, filed in 2021, accused Meta of lying to Facebook users in the state about who had access to their data, how the company handles hate speech and misinformation posted on the platform and other internal policies. The company knew that third parties had broad access to users’ personal data, and it tolerated hate speech or other harmful content when it benefited the company’s bottom line, the state said. Jurors examined 29 statements made by the company and its leadership on those issues and found 26 of them misleading. They

US expands Iran sanctions to auto and rail sectors WASHINGTON: The Trump

Education retains its importance in the Malaysian landscape for parents, students and stakeholders. The changes are fast paced with new developments in new fields of study such as cybersecurity, data protection, augmented and virtual reality, machine learning in education, digital education and artificial Intelligence. Leading the way are universities, who are invited to showcase their latest programmes, curriculum and content in our Education Focus for 2026.

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