Raphael Stevens

In this articleBAER-CHA pedestrian walks past the Julius Baer Group Ltd. headquarters office in Zurich, Switzerland.Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesLarge Swiss bank Julius Baer & Co. on Thursday received a deferred prosecution agreement from federal prosecutors and agreed to pay a criminal fine and forfeiture of about $80 million for money laundering conspiracy charges related to bribes involving the international soccer governing body FIFA.The deal means that Julius Baer will not face trial or criminal punishment in the case if the bank abides by the terms of the agreement for the next 42 months.The agreement, the latest in a series of FIFA-related criminal cases, was announced in Brooklyn, New York, federal court during an arraignment hearing for the bank, which was formally charged with money laundering conspiracy. The crime related to a scheme that involved sports marketing companies bribing officials at FIFA and other soccer federations to get broadcast rights for games.A total of $36.37 million was laundered through Julius Baer as part of that scheme, which agreed to pay that amount in forfeiture, with the rest of its payments covering the criminal fine.Julius Baer is Switzerland’s third-largest bank. According to a Reuters report last November, the bank had been cooperating with the DOJ’s probe of alleged money laundering and corruption involving FIFA officials and affiliates.The U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday that Julius Baer admitted known that the accounts of certain clients “were associated with international soccer, which was generally understood to involve high corruption risks.””Nevertheless, a [bank] executive directed the opening of these accounts be fast tracked in the hope that these clients would provide lucrative business,” the DOJ said in a press release.A bank official, appearing during the virtual proceeding, pleaded not guilty to the case, and told U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen the bank was agreeing to the deferred prosecution deal.The terms of that deal include the admission by the bank that the criminal allegations against it are true and accurate, and that they can be used against Julius Baer in other proceedings.”Today’s resolution sends a strong message to all banks and other financial institutions that if they knowingly misuse our financial system to hide their clients’ criminal proceeds or to promote a corrupt scheme, they will be held to account,” said Nicholas McQuaid, the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s criminal division. “From the time of the first FIFA-related indictment, the department has promised to hold accountable the financial institutions involved in this global criminal scheme. We are delivering on that promise,” McQuaid said.The DOJ said that from February 2013 through May 2015, the bank through a former client relationship manager named Jorge Luis Arzuaga, conspired with sports marketing executives who included Alejandro Burzaco, the controlling executive of Argentina-based Torneos y Competencias S.A. to launder the bribes through the United States to soccer officials for broadcast rights.The bank “conspired to execute these illegal transactions through accounts at the Bank to conceal the true nature of the payments and promote the fraud,” the DOJ said in its press release.The release noted, “Burzaco pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and other offenses in November 2015.””Burzaco and co-conspirators agreed to pay approximately $30 million to the senior vice president of FIFA, who was also the president of the Asociación del Fútbol Argentina, for his support in the award of regional broadcasting rights to the 2018, 2022, 2026 and 2030 editions of the World Cup,” the DOJ said. Burzaco’s company also agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to bribe officials in the South American football federation CONMEBOL, all of whom were also FIFA officials, “for the rights to the Copa América tournament (including the 2015, 2019 and 2023 editions of the tournament and the 2016 Copa América Centenario, a commemorative centennial edition of the tournament played at stadiums across the United States),” the DOJ said.Julius Baer in November took a provision of nearly $80 million on its books to cover what the bank expected to pay in fines after agreeing in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice to the deferred prosecution deal.That same month, Arzuaga, who had worked in the bank’s Montevideo, Uruguay, and Zurich offices, was sentenced to three years of supervised release in his own criminal case, after pleading guilty to conspiracy several years earlier.In March, Swiss regulators announced they would lift an acquisition ban they had imposed on Julius Baer related to the bank’s failures to prevent money laundering by its clients. More

DEAN TREML | AFP | Getty ImagesThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday that it plans to delay next year’s Oscars ceremony by a month to March 27, 2022. The show was originally set to take place on Feb. 27, 2022.In order to be eligible for the awards, films must be released between March and December of this year. This narrows the eligibility window for films to 10 months, unlike the usual 12 months of eligibility.This comes after the academy was forced to delay its 2021 awards show from February to April due to the coronavirus pandemic. The academy had also delayed the window of eligibility for this year’s award show to Feb. 28. That decision allowed movies such as “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” and “Judas and the Black Messiah” to be considered for this year’s awards.The academy’s board voted on Wednesday to approve an exception made for this year’s award season regarding movie eligibility to apply for the 2022 awards as well. This decision will allow films that were supposed to be released in theaters, but were instead released for on-demand home viewing because of coronavirus-related theater closures to be eligible for an Academy Award.Under normal circumstances, the academy requires films to run in a commercial theater in one of six qualifying cities three times a day for at least seven consecutive days. One of the screenings is required to be between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m on each of those days. The cities are Los Angeles, New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Miami and Atlanta.This exception also includes drive-in theaters, where the film must be shown at least once a day for seven consecutive days.The film is not required to be available on the Academy Screening Room’s member-only streaming site as per usual rules. But, it must follow all other eligibility requirements in the academy’s rule book.The nominees for next year’s show will be announced on Feb. 8, 2022.During this year’s Oscars, the top prize went to “Nomadland.” Its director, Chloe Zhao and leading actress, Frances McDormand, also took home trophies. But ratings for the show, which aired on ABC, fell to all-time lows. By delaying the show until late March, the ceremony will avoid other top audience draws like the Winter Olympics and the National Football League’s Super Bowl, which both take place in early to mid-February 2022.Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032. More

A healthcare worker administers a dose of a Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to a child at a pediatrician’s office in Bingham Farms, Michigan, U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021.Emily Elconin | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesA heart inflammation condition in adolescents and young adults who received Covid-19 vaccines appears to be very rare and it remains unclear if the issue is actually related to the shots, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine regulator, Dr. Peter Marks, said Thursday.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine safety group said last week it was looking into a condition called myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle, in a “relatively few” people who received Covid vaccinations.Myocarditis can affect one’s heart muscle and heart electrical system, “reducing its ability to pump and causing rapid or abnormal heart rhythms,” according to the Mayo Clinic.The cases were predominantly in adolescents and young adults and usually occurred within four days after getting the shot, according to the CDC. The condition was seen more often in men and most cases appear to be mild, the agency said, though officials are following up with the patients.”We still don’t know whether this is truly related to the vaccine,” Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said during a virtual Q&A event with the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project.The CDC is coordinating its investigation with the FDA, which recently authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adolescents ages 12 to 15. The vaccine has been available for Americans 16 and up since December. Vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are available to those 18 and older.Health experts say finding rare side effects once a vaccine or drug is administered to the general population is common and if myocarditis turns out to be related to the Covid vaccine, the risk is negligible when compared with the risks of being infected with Covid-19.Marks, who has been at the FDA for nearly a decade, added Thursday that the “handful” of cases reported have been “very mild, lasting a day or two” and usually happened after a second dose.”My kids are a little older, but I wouldn’t hesitate to vaccinate my children, just because this is a pretty rare finding and we really don’t know yet if it’s truly related” to the vaccines, he said. More

In this articleDISEmma Stone stars as Cruella de Vil in Disney’s “Cruella.”DisneyThe critics are as split on “Cruella” as the main character’s iconic black-and-white hair.For some, the campy, fashion-fueled manic fever dream of a film is a delight. For others, it’s a tangled, loud mess that doesn’t quite justify the cost of a movie ticket or the $30 Disney+ Premiere Access fee.”Cruella” follows the life of Estella, a curious, rambunctious and creative young girl who doesn’t quite fit into the world. Her mother warns her not to let the “Cruella” side of her personality get the better of her, but it lurks and arrives in full-force a decade later.After a tragedy leaves Estella orphaned and alone on the streets of London, the young girl teams up with two other street urchins, Jasper and Horace, to survive in the world by pickpocketing and small-time thieving.A decade later, the trio is still working together, but Estella’s dream of becoming a fashion designer hasn’t waned. She is played by a fiercely committed Emma Stone, who embodies the “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” villain, mimicking her iconic chuckle and crazed driving with glee.Through a twist of fate, Estella lands a job working for a legendary designer known as the Baroness, who is played with horrible delight by Emma Thompson. The two characters clash, leading Estella to embrace her Cruella side and transition into a ruthless competitor to the Baroness.As of Thursday afternoon, “Cruella” holds a 72% Fresh rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes from 156 reviews.Here’s what critics thought of “Cruella” ahead of its debut in theaters and on Disney+ Premiere Access on Friday:Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times”Imagine ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ on steroids, set in ’70s London, with Anne Hathaway’s character vengeful rather than sweet. Sounds kind of great, right?” Moira Macdonald wrote in her review of “Cruella” for The Seattle Times.Macdonald praised the film for its wild imagination and the chemistry between Stone and Thompson, who spend the majority of the film at odds with each other.She called Stone’s “dark-syrup” British accent “slightly feral and wickedly smart,” a foil to the Baroness’ drawl and withering retorts.”‘Cruella’ is an absolute kick, and if you’ve been looking for a reason to go back to movie theaters, here it is,” Macdonald wrote.Read the full review from Seattle Times.Emma Stone stars in Disney’s “Cruella.”DisneyA.O. Scott, The New York Times”‘Cruella’ is a tame revenge story among a slate of recent tales of retribution that include ‘Joker,’ and “Promising Young Woman.””Cruella’s transgressive energies are kept within the bounds of social acceptability and the PG-13 rating,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review of the film for The New York Times. “Her motive is revenge, and her methods include fraud, theft and deceit, but the closest she comes to evil is occasional selfish insensitivity to her friends. She isn’t a monster. She’s an artist, and her theatrically outrageous misbehavior is a sign of her uncompromising creativity.”Scott noted that the film is “easy enough to watch but hard to care much about.”Read the full review from The New York Times.Katie Rife, AV ClubSet in the ’70s, “Cruella” leans heavily into the punk world, drawing inspiration from the period for its fashion and music. For some, the musical cues, which includes “Sympathy for the Devil,” were a little too on the nose, but others found the playlist of era-accurate songs to be a fitting tribute to the time period.”There are 37 pop tunes sprinkled throughout ‘Cruella,’ culminating with the most obvious song you can think of for a character whose last name is de Vil and for whom we feel sympathy,” said Katie Rife in her review of the film for AV Club.”The soundtrack includes the likes of The Zombies, Nancy Sinatra, David Bowie, The Clash, ELO, Rose Royce, Blondie, Doris Day, Suzi Quatro, Nina Simone, and Deep Purple, all tastefully chosen but not especially revelatory,” she wrote. “Many of these songs have been used in other films, for one, and few are deep enough cuts to prompt much excitement from adult music lovers.”Read the full review from AV Club.Emma Stone stars as Cruella de Vil in Disney’s “Cruella.”DisneyRichard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times”We’re not even halfway through the Disney villain origins story ‘Cruella’ when this much is clear: If this movie DOESN’T win Academy Awards for best makeup and hairstyling and best costume design, I can’t wait to see what tops it,” wrote Richard Roeper in his review of the film for the Chicago Sun-Times.Roeper is one of many movie reviewers that discussed the film’s exquisite costuming in his evaluation of Disney’s latest live-action remake. He called the film a “visual feast.””Reynolds Woodcock from ‘The Phantom Thread’ would pass out from the sheer overwhelming number of scenes involving fashion design, discussion of fashion design, more fashion design — and pop-up fashion events taking place during traditional fashion events,” he wrote. “This is a VERY fashionable film.”Read the full review from the Chicago Sun Times.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes. More