FTC Ready to Move on Google

FTC Ready to Move on Google

Anonymous sources at the Federal Trade Commission say they are almost ready to issue subpoenas for company records concerning anti-trust regulation and monopolizing concerns for Google’s online search engine ranking and whether or not their ranking algorithms produce amount to anti-competitive measures. Google has long been under investigation by the FTC and Justice Bureau, mainly to assess certain acquisitions and to determine whether buying out companies like DoubleClick, AdMob and ITA Software amounted to monopolistic activity. But the current investigation would have much more far-reachign consequences, as the FTC looks into Google’s main activity: search engine rankings. The European Commission currently has an investigation pending of Google’s search result rankings concerning whether or not it ranks its own owned services higher than other brands and services.

A Greek Default and Derivative Consequences

A Greek Default and Derivative Consequences

As the Greek euro-crisis continues to develop to the point where a default is looking more and more likely to be a serious option on the table, concern over the opaqueness of the derivatives market and the effects of a potential “hidden A.I.G” are causing some analysts to push for a “voluntary” solution. It is uncertain exactly, or even roughly, how much of the debt is insured by derivatives holders, and how concentrated those contracts are. The more concentrated the derivatives contracts are, the more unlikely that the companies holding them will be able to pay out the billions of dollars that would be required of them during a Greek default in order to cover their losses. While regulators have a wide range of estimates how exactly how much of the Greek debt is tied up in derivatives contracts, ranging from $5 billion in net exposure and $78.7 in gross exposure, it remains clear that a Greek default would have far-reaching effects.