• The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the company used deceptive practices to market and manage its Uber One subscription service. The complaint centers on claims of misleading savings and a deliberately complex cancellation process. It’s the first major tech lawsuit to be brought under the Trump administration’s FTC.

The FTC is suing Uber over claims it engages in “deceptive” billing and cancellation practices through its subscription service, Uber One.

The agency is alleging that Uber misled its users about potential savings and made cancellation difficult, violating consumer protection laws. The agency claimed that some users had to click through up to 23 pages and perform 32 actions just to cancel their subscriptions.

A spokesperson for Uber did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

However, Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen told Reuters: “We are disappointed that the FTC chose to move forward with this action, but are confident that the courts will agree with what we already know: Uber One’s sign-up and cancellation processes are clear, simple, and follow the letter and spirit of the law.”

It’s the first major tech lawsuit to be brought under the current Trump administration. The Federal Trade Commission has several ongoing lawsuits against Meta, Google, and Amazon. While some of these legal battles began under the Biden administration, the agency was already ramping up enforcement during Trump’s first term—with Meta becoming one of its most prominent early targets.

“Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said in a statement. “The Trump-Vance FTC is fighting back on behalf of the American people. Today, we’re alleging that Uber not only deceived consumers about their subscriptions, but also made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel.”

Late last year, Bloomberg reported that Uber was facing an investigation from the U.S. consumer watchdog into its flagship subscription plan. At the time, the company defended its cancellation policy and said it was cooperating with the FTC to answer the regulator’s questions.

Uber One

Launched in 2021, Uber One offers members benefits like free delivery fees and discounts on select rides and orders for a fee of $9.99 a month or $96 annually. As of December, Uber said the service had around 30 million subscribers, according to the company’s most recent annual report.

The FTC is claiming that customers who signed up for Uber’s subscription service were wrongly promised savings when they signed up. In its lawsuit, the regulator argues that Uber advertises its subscription service as offering savings of $25 a month, but fails to include the monthly cost of its membership in this calculation. It also accuses the ride-hailing company of charging consumers before their official billing date.

The case is not the first time Uber has faced scrutiny from the FTC.

In 2017, the company settled allegations that it had misrepresented its privacy and data security practices. The following year, it agreed to pay $20 million to resolve claims that it had overstated potential driver earnings in its recruitment efforts. Most recently, in 2022, Uber avoided criminal charges through a settlement in which it acknowledged that employees had failed to disclose a 2016 data breach affecting 57 million users and drivers.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Harvard sued US President Donald Trump’s administration Monday in a sharp escalation of the fight between the prestigious university and the Republican, who has threatened its funding and sought to impose outside political supervision.

Trump has sought to bring several prestigious universities to heel over claims they tolerated campus anti-Semitism, threatening their budgets, tax-exempt status and the enrolment of foreign students, but Harvard has refused to bow.

“This case involves the Government’s efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard,” the Ivy League university said in a lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts federal court that named several other institutions targeted by Trump.

“The Government’s actions flout not just the First Amendment, but also federal laws and regulations,” said the complaint which called Trump’s actions “arbitrary and capricious.”

Trump and his White House team have publicly justified their campaign against universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled “anti-Semitism” and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppresion of minorities.

The administration claims protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept across US college campuses last year were rife with anti-Semitism.

Many US universities, including Harvard, cracked down on the protests over the allegations at the time, with the Cambridge-based institution placing 23 students on probation and denying degrees to 12 others, according to protest organizers.

Other institutions, including Columbia University, have bowed to less far-ranging demands from the Trump administration, which claims that the educational elite is too left-wing.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Source link

• Pope Francis died on Monday, leaving behind a legacy of reform at the $6 billion Vatican Bank. Although founded to manage clergy and church finances in 1942, for years the organization had been tied to scandals, secrecy, and catastrophic financial deals. During Francis’ tenure, the bank improved transparency and centralized control of its finances to boost regulatory oversight.

Although he was billed an anti-capitalist by some, one of Pope Francis’ key accomplishments was a financial endeavor: his reform of the scandal-plagued $6 billion Vatican Bank.

Francis, who died on Monday at age 88, sought to reform the bank and the Holy See soon after he became Pope in 2013. Although it was created in 1942 with the goal of managing funds for clergy and church organizations around the world, for years, the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, was allegedly plagued by money laundering, corruption, and even mafia connections. The Vatican Bank had holdings of 5.4 billion euros, or $6.1 billion as of 2023.

Yet, during his pontificate, Francis, the Argentina-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, spurred changes at the bank that helped root out corruption and bring more transparency to the organization’s inner workings. Thanks to work that began under Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican Bank in 2013 began releasing annual reports for the first time ever outlining its profit, operational costs, and charitable giving, among other details. 

The bank’s management also got a revamp with Francis in 2014 diminishing the power of clergy members in economic affairs and appointing as head of the Vatican Bank Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, a french financier who was previously CEO of Invesco Europe. The 61-year-old de Franssu has served as president of the Vatican Bank since 2014.

Pope Francis also sought to increase transparency at the bank, complying with financial regulations and implementing stricter outside oversight during his tenure. The bank closed thousands of accounts in 2014 to bring the organization into compliance with international financial standards.

Implementing stricter control of the Holy See, Francis also ordered all Vatican departments to close their investment accounts and send their funds to the Vatican Bank. By centralizing the Vatican’s funds, Francis took financial power away from non-expert clergy and helped bring about stronger oversight by financial regulators of its holdings.

Pope Francis’ changes at the Vatican came in response to several scandals, including the collapse of Italy’s largest bank, Banco Ambrosiano, in which the Vatican Bank had a financial stake. The bank’s president, Roberto Calvi, was later found hanged under London’s Blackfriars bridge with pocketfuls of bricks as well as thousands in cash. Calvi had been accused of stealing millions belonging to the mafia. He was referred to as “God’s banker” because of his Vatican connections.

In addition, a Vatican financial adviser under Pope Pope Paul VI, Michele Sindona, also had ties to organized crime and dragged the Vatican into disastrous investments, including the collapse of his U.S.-based Franklin National Bank in 1974. At the time of his death, of cyanide poisoning at age 65, Sindona was serving a 25-year sentence for fraud.

Despite Francis’ efforts, the Catholic Church has still been rocked by some scandals. 

The Vatican confirmed in 2022 that two former Vatican Bank directors were convicted for malfeasance at the organization. In 2023, a Cardinal was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for embezzlement.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com