Category: 3. Business

Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI and three other entities on Wednesday, alleging their involvement in an “industrial-scale, unlawful” economy to “scrape” the comments of millions of Reddit users for commercial gain.

Reddit’s lawsuit in a New York federal court takes aim at San Francisco-based Perplexity, maker of an AI chatbot and “answer engine” that competes with Google, ChatGPT and others in online search.

Also named in the lawsuit are Lithuanian data-scraping company Oxylabs UAB, a web domain called AWMProxy that Reddit describes as a “former Russian botnet,” and Texas-based startup SerpApi.

It’s the second such lawsuit from Reddit since it sued another major AI company, Anthropic, in June.

But the lawsuit filed Wednesday is different in the way that it confronts not just an AI company but the lesser-known services the AI industry relies on to acquire online writings needed to train AI chatbots.

“Scrapers bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it to clients hungry for training material. Reddit is a prime target because it’s one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversation ever created,” said Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, in a statement Wednesday.

Perplexity said it has not yet received the lawsuit but “will always fight vigorously for users’ rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge. Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest.”

Oxylabs and SerpAPI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. AWMProxy could not immediately be reached for comment.

Reddit compares the companies it is suing to “would-be bank robbers” who can’t get into the bank vault, so they break into the armored truck instead. The lawsuit alleges they are evading Reddit’s own anti-scraping measures while also ”circumventing Google’s controls and scraping Reddit content directly from Google’s search engine results.”

Lee said that because they’re unable to scrape Reddit directly, “they mask their identities, hide their locations, and disguise their web scrapers to steal Reddit content from Google Search. Perplexity is a willing customer of at least one of these scrapers, choosing to buy stolen data rather than enter into a lawful agreement with Reddit itself.”

Much like its lawsuit against Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, Reddit claims that Perplexity has accessed Reddit’s content despite being asked not to do so.

Reddit made a similar argument in its lawsuit against Anthropic. That case was initially filed in California Superior Court but was later moved to federal court and has a hearing scheduled for January.

Along with digitized books and news articles, websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit are deep troves of written materials that can help teach an AI assistant the patterns of human language.

Reddit has previously entered licensing agreements with Google, OpenAI and other companies that are paying to be able to train their AI systems on the public commentary of Reddit’s more than 100 million daily users.

The licensing deals helped the 20-year-old online platform raise money ahead of its Wall Street debut as a publicly traded company last year.

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The dispute with Brazil’s oil regulator ANP over tax regulations governing the field’s size is being mediated by the arbitration court at the International Chamber of Commerce.

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In a small defeat for Brazil, the court also decided that future compensation by the consortium can be made in other ways besides cash payments if the amount is 30% higher than the quarterly deposits made since 2019 when a federal court ruled in favor of the government.

Shell declined to comment, while Petrobras, which has a 65% stake in the consortium, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, since 2014, the consortium has asserted that Tupi actually includes the Cernambi field as well, but the government considers them as one big field, whose oil production revenue is subject to a higher tax rate.

($1 = 5.4039 reais)

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Appetite for Beyond Meat’s plant-based burgers is shaky. But traders sure seem to developed a taste for its stock.

Shares in the company have soared about 1,000% over four days – a stunning rally for a company that had seen its share price all but wiped out since it debuted on the stock exchange six years ago.

The business has been struggling with sluggish sales – and has not posted a quarterly profit in more than five years – as shoppers turn away from its meat alternatives.

The surge has reignited debate whether the activity, propelled in part by online enthusiasm among everyday investors, is a sign of an overly frothy stock market.

Momentum started to build last week, when a Reddit user helped fuel a wave of purchases, drawing comparisons to other rallies of so-called meme stocks such as GameStop and AMC.

The gains continued after Roundhill Investments on Monday added the company to the bucket of companies owned by its meme stock ETF, or exchange-traded fund. The move appeared to spark a so-called short squeeze: as the stock price surged, the many investors betting against the company were forced to buy shares to cover their losses.

The company also announced a distribution deal with Walmart on Tuesday, further boosting its shares.

“This company was essentially being thought of as going out of business not that long ago,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide.

“Getting a positive catalyst like the Walmart deal, which could be transformational with the rebound of demand and getting products in the hands of consumers – that is absolutely the trigger,” he added, referring to the stock surge since last Friday.

But Mr Hackett cautioned that the Walmart deal to expand distribution “doesn’t necessarily fix all the issues”.

“You’re really trading on emotions and technicals, versus fundamentals,” Mr Hackett said.

The company remains on shaky ground. Its share price, at just over $4 on Wednesday afternoon trading in New York, remains well below its all-time high of more than $230 in 2019.

The Beyond Meat meme stock surge comes against a backdrop of jitters about an overvalued stock market.

At the forefront are concerns about a possible bubble emerging in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Those worries have intensified as analysts struggle to see how the vast sums of money the biggest players are throwing at one another all fit together.

JP Morgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon echoed the concerns this month. He told the BBC he was “far more worried than others” about a serious market correction, which he said could come in the next six months to two years.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has also noted possible market manipulation tied to meme stocks, warning of the risks to everyday investors.

Some have responded with calls for tighter rules around short selling and social media-fuelled trading. But there is little sign such proposals are gaining traction.

Reframing Nature as Infrastructure

Keynote speaker Erik Berglöf, Chief Economist at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), outlined how the bank is integrating nature into development finance. From wetlands in Mongolia to mangrove protection in Brazil, the approach includes natural capital valuation, policy-based financing, and public-private partnerships.

“Nature is not a side concern—it is part of the operating system of our infrastructure,” Berglöf said.

AIIB’s policy-based financing model allows direct lending to governments to support climate and nature policies. A $1 billion loan to Brazil, for example, includes frameworks for mangrove management and climate-resilient health systems, illustrating how planetary health can be built into infrastructure finance. In China, AIIB’s Nature Finance Accelerator mobilises private investment through taxonomy-based project classification and carbon credit markets.

AIIB’s pilot project in Mongolia shows how ecosystem service valuation can expand the scope of infrastructure investments—from flood management to pollination, carbon sequestration, and recreation—prompting local authorities to scale up restoration efforts. This evidence-based approach positions nature as an asset rather than a cost.

Banks and Investors Demand Measurable Nature Impact

Representing European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Adonai Herrera Martínez highlighted the dual goals of financial returns and measurable environmental impact. He emphasised the critical role of IUCN in advocacy, guidance, and verification—helping financial institutions define metrics, develop methodologies, and link investments to actual improvements in the state of nature.

Energy Sector Scaling Up Renewables Responsibly

Patricia Claverie from TotalEnergies spoke about the urgency of scaling renewable energy at unprecedented speed while mitigating ecological impacts. Using IUCN’s guidance during the repowering of a wind farm on Réunion Island, the company was able to redesign the project with fewer turbines, lower impact, and a stronger biodiversity action plan.

Karen Westley of Ipieca underscored the power of industry collaboration: through Ipieca’s global network, lessons learned from IUCN partnerships can be shared across 60% of the oil and gas sector, amplifying systemic change.

Beyond Safeguards: Incentives and Long-Term Gains

Speakers stressed the need to move beyond compliance toward incentivised, long-term conservation gains. This includes biodiversity credits, embedding nature into licensing and tendering, and developing financial mechanisms that sustain ecological benefits beyond the operational life of projects.

Radical Partnerships for a Nature-Positive Future

Closing the session, Stewart Maginnis, Deputy Director General of IUCN, called for radical partnerships that place biodiversity conservation at the heart of the global energy transition.

“Mainstreaming biodiversity in energy systems isn’t optional. It’s how we ensure a just and sustainable future.”

Follow-up actions identified during the event include developing simple, robust nature finance methodologies with IUCN; ensuring long-term conservation gains beyond project lifecycles; and creating economic incentives to reward nature-positive infrastructure investments.

The session showcased how aligning finance, energy, and conservation can help build resilient economies and ecosystems—treating nature not as an afterthought, but as essential infrastructure. 

Toulouse, France, 22 October 2025 – Airbus’ 2025 Cargo Global Market Forecast (GMF) shows the worldwide fleet of dedicated freighter aircraft rising to 3,420 in the next 20 years, equivalent to a 45% increase. This will be made up of 815 existing freighters and 2,605 additional ones. Of these additional 2,605 freighters, 1,530 will be replacements and 1,075 will be for growth. The additional 2,605 will be split between 1,120 small aircraft, 855 mid-size widebodies, and 630 large widebodies. Overall of the 2,605 additional freighters, 1,670 will be conversions from passenger aircraft and 935 will be new-build freighters.

World Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and trade remain the main drivers of air cargo. With long term trade forecasted at 2.7% CAGR, Airbus forecasts that air cargo will develop at a rate of 3.3% annually over the next 20 years, effectively almost doubling cargo volumes over the next two decades. Airbus forecasts significant air cargo growth as it has proved essential – not just to support economies, but also to connect remote communities, transport essential and health-critical goods, and enable local business development in emerging countries. 

After rapid cargo fleet growth during the pandemic, fuelled by an increase of passenger aircraft conversions into freighters and minimum retirement of previous generation freighters, Airbus forecasts that going forward, a large proportion of these older freighters will leave the fleet and be replaced by newer, more fuel efficient freighters such as the A350F or A320/A321 and A330 Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) conversions.

Airbus also forecasts trade lanes, and therefore air cargo flows diversification, as more countries in the Asia-Pacific region become industrial centres. Likewise, GDP and demographic forecasts indicate that new countries such as Brazil, Indonesia or Vietnam will emerge as major consumer economies in the coming decades. This will initiate a gradual shift in air cargo geography and the global air freight map.

Of the total need for 2,605 freighter deliveries over the next 20 years, Asia-Pacific and North America will account for nearly two-thirds of demand, requiring 850 and 920 aircraft, respectively. 

Find more info on the latest Airbus Global Market Forecast and the Airbus family of freighters. 

#AIRBUS #A350F #FREIGHTER #CARGO #GLOBALMARKETFORECAST 

Sidley advised Xignux, a Monterrey, México-based leader in the energy and food industries, in connection with the US$5.275 billion sale to GE Vernova Inc. (NYSE: GEV) of its remaining fifty percent stake of Prolec GE, its joint venture with GE Vernova Inc., which was originally established in 1995. The deal reportedly marks the largest private transaction in México’s history, as reported by Reforma.

The sale will allow Xignux, which employs more than 33,000 people in México, the United States, and Brazil, to further invest in innovation, technology, and the expansion of its North American presence.

The Sidley team was led by Alyssa A. Grikscheit (Investment Funds and M&A) and Eduardo Marquez Certucha (Energy and Infrastructure), and supported by Mo Green (Private Equity), and Jessica Day (M&A).

Xignux received advice on legal matters from their in-house counsels Oscar Martinez Treviño, Teresa Villarreal Torres, and Federico de la Torre Herrera; with Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enríquez, and Santos-Elizondo, providing local counsel in México, and Pinheiro Neto Advogados providing local counsel in Brazil; and on financial matters by J.P. Morgan Securities LLC.