July 12 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said its online stores had returned to normal services after a global outage disrupted shopping on its country sites.
According to outage monitoring website Downdetector, services were disrupted for nearly two hours and at the peak of the disruption, more than 38,000 user reports indicated issues with Amazon’s online stores. They occurred on Sunday evening in the United States and Monday morning for much of the rest of the world.
“Some customers may have temporarily experienced issues while shopping. We have resolved the issue, and everything is now running smoothly,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
The spokesperson declined to comment on the reason for the outage.
It was the second broad disruption since late June when users experienced a brief outage on Amazon platforms including Alexa and Prime Video before services were restored. read more
Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar, Sneha Bhowmik and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Edwina Gibbs
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WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed Amazon.com’s legal challenge to the Defense Department’s2019 decision to award a $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing project to rival Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) after the Pentagon canceled the contract.
Amazon.com had accused then-President Donald Trump, alleging that the former president exerted improper pressure on military officials to steer the contract away from Amazon. The Pentagon said on Tuesday it expected the new multi-billion dollar contract would be split between Amazon and Microsoft.
Amazon did not object to dismissing its 2019 lawsuit.
Judge Patricia E. Campbell-Smith of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed to dismiss the lawsuit at the government’s request, saying the case was now moot.
Trump publicly derided then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and repeatedly criticized the company. Amazon had sought to question Trump about his role in the contract decision.
The Pentagon hopes to have the first awards by April 2022 for its new Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC).
John Sherman, acting chief information officer for the Defense Department, said on Tuesday he expects both Microsoft and Amazon will get cloud contracts.
Microsoft said in a statement that the company was confident it will “continue to be successful as the DoD selects partners for new work.”
Amazon’s Amazon Web Services cloud unit said it agreed with the Pentagon’s decision to cancel the contract. It said the initial award was “not based on the merits of the proposals and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement.”
In April, Campbell-Smith refused to dismiss Amazon’s claims alleging the Trump administration interfered in the Pentagon’s award to Microsoft after putting it on hold indefinitely in February 2020.
The now-canceled Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract was budgeted for as much as $10 billion and was part of a broader digital modernization of the Pentagon aimed at making it more technologically agile.
Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Dan Grebler
Didi sold 317 mln ADS, more than planned 288 mln -sources
Sells ADS at $14 a piece – sources
Would give Didi $73 bln valuation on fully diluted basis
June 29 (Reuters) – Chinese ride hailing company Didi Global Inc (DIDI.N) raised $4.4 billion in its U.S IPO on Tuesday, pricing it at the top of its indicated range and increasing the number of shares sold, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Didi sold 317 million American Depository Shares (ADS), versus the planned 288 million, at $14 apiece, the people said on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.
This would give Didi a valuation of about $73 billion on a fully diluted basis. On a non-diluted basis, it will be worth $67.5 billion. The company is expected to debut on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30.
The increase in deal size came after the Didi investor order book was oversubscribed multiple times, one of the sources said.
Investors have been told to expect their orders to be scaled back once allocations are completed on Wednesday, according to a separate source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Didi did not respond to a request for comment.
The listing, which will be the biggest U.S. share sale by a Chinese company since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014, comes amid record IPO activity this year as companies rush to capture the lucrative valuations seen in the U.S. stock market.
Didi’s IPO is more conservative than its initial aim for a valuation of up to $100 billion, Reuters has previously reported. The size of the deal was cut during briefings with investors ahead of the IPO’s launch. read more
This suggests increasing investor worries about China’s potential anti-trust related crackdown and a more volatile IPO environment globally in 2021, said Douglas Kim, a London-based independent analyst, who writes on Smartkarma.
A Didi logo is seen at the headquarters of Didi Chuxing in Beijing, China November 20, 2020. REUTERS/Florence Lo/File Photo
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“But it seems like many investors like this deal, the volatile IPO environment helped to lower IPO price and valuation looks attractive,” Kim told Reuters.
Didi’s IPO was covered early on the first day of the book-build last week and the investor books were closed on Monday, a day ahead of schedule. read more .
An over-allotment option, or greenshoe, exists where another 43.2 million shares can be sold to increase the deal size.
DIDI HISTORY
Didi was co-founded in 2012 by former Alibaba employee Will Wei Cheng, who currently serves as the chief executive officer. Cheng was joined by Jean Qing Liu, a former Goldman Sachs banker and the current president of the ride-sharing company.
The company counts SoftBank (9984.T), Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) and Tencent (0700.HK) as its main backers.
Didi is also known for successfully pushing Uber out of the Chinese market after the U.S. company lost a price war and ended up selling its China operations to Didi for a stake. Liu Zhen, the head of Uber China at the time, is Didi’s Liu’s cousin.
Like most ride-hailing companies, Didi had historically been unprofitable, until it reported a profit of $30 million in the first quarter of this year.
The company reported a loss of $1.6 billion last year and an 8% drop in revenue to $21.63 billion, according to a regulatory filing, as business slid during the pandemic.
Its shares are due to start trading under the “DIDI” symbol.
Reporting by Echo Wang in New York and Anirban Sen in Bengaluru and Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis, Bill Berkrot and Himani Sarkar
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LUCKNOW, India, June 29 (Reuters) – Police in India have registered three new cases against Twitter Inc(TWTR.N) for allegedly hurting sentiments and promoting child pornography, marking an escalation in the row between the U.S. firm and Indian authorities.
Police in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have named Twitter India chief Manish Maheshwari in complaints afterthe politically sensitive regions were depicted outside a map of India on its careers website.
Late on Tuesday, police in the capital New Delhi said in a statement they have registered a case against Twitter for “availability of child sexual abuse and child pornographic material” on its platform.
Twitter did not comment on cases related to India’s map. On the New Delhi case, Twitter said it has a zero tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation.
The police cases come as Twitter faces a public relations nightmare and a backlash from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s federal government that has in recent weeks repeatedly criticized it for not complying with a new set of IT rules.
The tussle, coupled with discontent over the regulatory scrutiny of other U.S. tech firms like WhatsApp and Amazon, has upset the business environment in a key growth markets, so much so that some companies are rethinking expansion plans. read more
The latest complaints against Twitter were triggered following an uproar on social media after a map on Twitter’s careers page showed Jammu and Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, as well as the Buddhist enclave of Ladakh, outside India. As of Tuesday, the map was no longer visible on its site.
The Twitter logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
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“This has hurt my sentiments and those of the people of India,” Praveen Bhati, a leader of a hardline Hindu group Bajrang Dal in Uttar Pradesh, said in the complaint which was reviewed by Reuters. He also called it an act of treason.
The child pornography case in New Delhi was registered after India’s National Commission for Protection of Child Rights wrote to police saying it had received a complaint about online threats against a minor girl, and found pornographic material on Twitter, according to a letter written by the rights group to police.
“Investigation has been taken up,” the Delhi police statement said.
The cases are set to amplify Twitter’s troubles in India. Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has criticised Twitter for its failure to abide by the IT rules in recent weeks, which came into effect in May. read more
Companies such as Twitter must now appoint a chief compliance officer, a grievance officer and another executive to liaise with law enforcement and the government on legal requests. LinkedIn job postings show the three positions are open at Twitter.
Non-compliance with those rules means Twitter may no longer enjoy the legal privilege in India that allowed it to not be held liable for user-generated content, lawyers and government sources say. Activists however defend Twitter, saying only courts can arrive at that decision.
Twitter India chief Maheshwari is battling another police case where he has been summoned to answer allegations that include inciting “hate and enmity” between Hindu and Muslim communities in relation to a video that went viral on its platform. A state court last week said no “coercive action” should be taken against Maheshwari in the case. read more
Reporting by Saurabh Sharma and Sankalp Phartiyal; Additional reporting by Abhirup Roy; Editing by Aditya Kalra, Edwina Gibbs and Nick Macfie
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