Two men admit to working on illegal streaming sites that rivaled the size of Netflix and Hulu - CNN

Two computer programmers in Las Vegas pleaded guilty last Friday to criminal copyright charges after an FBI investigation revealed they had been working on two massive, illegal online streaming sites, iStreamItAll and Jetflicks, according to plea agreements.

iStreamItAll's content library featured more than 118,000 television episodes and nearly 11,000 movies, making it larger than Netflix (NFLX), Hulu or Amazon (AMZN) Prime, according to a release from the Justice Department.

Both iStreamItAll and Jetflicks had tens of thousands of paid subscribers and were designed to work on many different devices and platforms, "including myriad varieties of computer operating systems, smartphones, tablets, smart televisions, video game consoles, digital media players, set-top boxes and web browsers," the DOJ said, citing the two plea agreements.

Pirating has long been a major concern for leaders behind streaming companies. In a 2015 letter to shareholders, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings called piracy one of the company's "biggest competitors."

The world of streaming has changed significantly since then, but piracy may be an even bigger concern now that more legitimate players have entered and fragmented the market. Consumers now must subscribe to Disney+ if they want Disney movies and to Netflix if they want to watch popular original shows such as "Stranger Things." There are now scores of streaming services.

In 2017, 30 content creation companies, including Hulu, HBO, Amazon and others, formed an independent organization aimed in part at battling piracy (HBO shares CNN parent company WarnerMedia).

Darryl Julius Polo, 36, pleaded guilty to charges related to running iStreamItAll, according to the DOJ. The site featured a huge trove of copyrighted television shows and movies that it was not authorized to use, the DOJ said. Thousands of US users paid for subscriptions that allowed them to stream and download the illegal content.

Polo, who also goes by "djppimp," admitted in the plea agreement to using a computer program that ran 24/7 to scrape pirating sites from around the world, and then download, process and provide the illegal content on iStreamItAll. He would then send emails to potential users, urging them to cancel their subscriptions to legitimate streaming services and sign up with his instead, citing its massive library of content, the DOJ said.

As part of his plea agreement, Polo also admitted to running several other piracy services, including a site called SmackDownOnYou, and to working as a computer programmer for Jetflicks. He admitted to earning more than $1 million from his piracy operations.

The indictment of Polo and several other co-conspirators states that the harm caused by iStreamItAll to television and movie copyright holders, as well as to licensed streaming services, is estimated to be millions of dollars.

Polo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, one count of criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, one count of copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, one count of copyright infringement by public performance and one count of money laundering, according to the DOJ.

In a separate proceeding, Luis Angel Villarino, 40, also admitted to working as a computer programmer for Jetflicks, the DOJ said. That site also used automated software programs and other tools to reproduce and stream tens of thousands of copyrighted TV shows and movies for tens of thousands of paid subscribers throughout the United States and Canada, the DOJ said. Villarino pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.

Sentencing for both men is scheduled for March before federal judge TS Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia. Other defendants in this case are scheduled to go on trial on February 3.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to add missing context and attribution and to clarify information about the defendants.

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2019-12-17 12:37:00Z
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2 Las Vegas men plead guilty in massive illegal video streaming case - FOX5 Las Vegas

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2 Las Vegas men plead guilty in massive illegal video streaming case  FOX5 Las VegasView full coverage on Google News
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2019-12-17 06:00:00Z
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Dow gains 10,000th point since Trump's election - Fox Business

Keith Fitzgerald of Money Map Press shares his insight on the markets.

The stock market has been unstoppable under the influence of President Trump.

Continue Reading Below

The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 28,332.74 on Monday, meaning it has rallied 10,000 points, or more than 54 percent, since Trump’s election victory on November 8, 2016. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained more than 46 percent.

“The rally has been driven by pro-growth measures, de-escalation of trade tensions, huge liquidity injections by central banks and a FOMO approach by investors worried about missing out on a remarkable U.S. market outperformance that has set one record high after the other.” Mohamed El-Arian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, told FOX Business.

STOCK MARKET 'MELT-UP' COMING SOON: BANK OF AMERICA

The gains show why U.S. markets have become the envy of the world under Trump, who has followed through on his promises of cutting taxes and regulations and rewriting global trade deals in America's favor.

By comparison, global exchanges such as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Britain’s FTSE have gained 20.4 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively, since Trump’s election win, while China’s Shanghai Composite has lost 7.2 percent, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Of the major global averages, only Japan’s Nikkei, up 44.1 percent, has come close to the gains of the U.S. markets.

U.S. investors' holdings have benefited from Trump’s pro-business agenda. He has lowered income tax rates for individuals, cut corporate taxes and rolled back a number of regulations, including restrictions on the country’s biggest banks.

Trump also negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which overhauls the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as NAFTA, and has embarked on a nearly 21-month-long trade war against China, which he says has “been taking advantage” of the U.S. for years.

This week, Democrats in the House backed the USMCA after months of negotiation, and an initial trade deal with China was reached. Both deals are expected to provide a tailwind for a stock market, and an economy, that have been on fire in the past four months.

The Dow Jones index, for instance, has gained 11.2 percent since bottoming out on Aug. 14.

David Kostin, chief US equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, thinks the stock market’s recent success suggests “the pace of U.S. economic growth will improve in the near future.”

TRUMP'S HOME-RUN WEEK DELIVERS EDGE IN 2020 RACE

His team points to Fed rate cuts along with the bottoming of the inventory cycle as reasons, in addition to the easing of trade tensions with China.

Morgan Stanley Equity Strategist Michael Wilson, who recently released his year-end 2020 S&P 500 outlook, has a base-case target of 3,000 – almost 5 percent below current levels.

He expects the US economy to “muddle through in 2020,” but is concerned that earnings growth will disappoint.

Bob Doll, chief economist at Nuveen Investments, partly agrees. He told FOX Business’s Maria Bartiromo that the recession fears from December 2018 and August are “dissipating,” leading to the stock market’s rally.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

However, Doll says the economy has to deliver, or it will be a sluggish year because “valuations are not cheap” and expectations for next year’s earnings are “a little on the high side.”

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2019-12-16 15:20:37Z
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5 things to know before the stock market opens Monday - CNBC

1. Dow to rise on US-China trade deal but sinking Boeing shares limit gains

Traders and financial professionals work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the closing bell, June 18, 2019 in New York City. U.S. markets surged on Tuesday after President Donald Trump announced that he plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss a trade deal at next week's G-20 summit in Japan.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images

U.S. stock futures were pointing to a 65-point advance for the Dow Jones Industrial Average at Wall Street's open on Monday. The Dow was getting a boost from Friday's announcement of a "phase-one" trade deal between the U.S. and China. But the blue-chip average would be tracking for double that advance if not for Boeing shares being down about 3% in the premarket. The Wall Street Journal reports that Boeing could disclose as early as Monday a decision on whether to further cut or suspend production of its grounded 737 Max. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were coming off record closing highs, with slim gains Friday. The Dow also was nearly unchanged. Heading into Monday's trading, it was 32 points away from record high close last month.

2. US Trade Rep Lighthizer says first-step trade agreement 'totally done'

Liu He, China's vice premier, left, and Robert Lighthizer, U.S. trade representative, wave to members of the media before a meeting at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Oct. 11, 2019.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Sunday the first-step U.S.-China trade agreement is "totally done." However, Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural purchases, a critical aspect of the deal, remains in question, with American officials mentioning hard targets amounts of nearly $50 billion, which Chinese officials have yet to acknowledge publicly. It's still unclear how and when the U.S. will roll back other tariffs, a Chinese condition for the deal. Both sides still need to sign the text of an agreement, which Chinese officials said requires legal review and translation. Lighthizer said both countries hope to sign the deal in Washington in early January, and there would be no new tariffs as long as China negotiates in good faith.

3. Report on Trump impeachment released as full House gears up for vote

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a the White House Summit on Child Care, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on December 12, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Mark Wilson | Getty Images

The House Judiciary Committee released its full report on the impeachment of President Donald Trump early Monday, ahead of consideration by the full House as early as Wednesday. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., proposed terms on Sunday for a likely impeachment trial in the Senate, including calling former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as witnesses. The terms laid out in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was evidence that Democrats are seeking an evidentiary trial, not intending to rely on the House investigation. McConnell responded that he would meet with Schumer "soon" to discuss plans for a possible trial.

4. Warren calls out Dimon and the BRT over the purpose of a corporation

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren addresses her supporters in Manchester.

Preston Ehrler | LightRocket | Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking J.P. Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon and the Business Roundtable to task over its August commitment to "redefine" the purpose of a corporation to extend beyond the maximization of shareholder profits. Dimon is head of the association. In an interview with CNBC's John Harwood published on Monday, Warren also said that "government listens disproportionately to rich guys who don't want to pay taxes." She added: "The folks at the top, they get heard all the time in Washington. I want middle-class families to get heard in Washington."

5. IFF to merge with DuPont's nutrition unit to create a new consumer giant

Andreas Fibig, CEO of IFF

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

International Flavors & Fragrances has agreed to merge with DuPont's nutrition and biosciences unit in a deal that would create a new consumer giant valued at more than $45 billion. Under the agreement, DuPont shareholders will own 55.4% of the shares of the new company, and existing IFF shareholders will own 44.6%. Industrial materials maker DuPont will receive a one-time cash payment of $7.3 billion upon closing of the deal. IFF also said its largest shareholder, Winder Investments, has agreed to vote in favor of the deal. In premarket trading, shares of IFF were losing about 6% while DuPont shares were gaining about 4.5%.

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2019-12-16 13:03:00Z
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Global Stocks Rise as China’s Economy Shows Gains - The Wall Street Journal

Chinese parents and their children shop for toys at a shopping mall in Beijing. Photo: Andy Wong/Associated Press

By

Avantika Chilkoti

Avantika Chilkoti
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @AChilkoti
• avantika.chilkoti@wsj.com

Updated Dec. 16, 2019 7:24 am ET

Global stocks started the week higher as data signaled an improvement in the Chinese economy, adding to optimism that some of the biggest risks to markets are clearing.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.2% on Monday, while the Stoxx Europe 600 index gained 1.2% to reach an all-time high. In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.6%.

Fresh data showed that Chinese economic activity, including factory production and consumer spending, improved in November. The better-than-expected results for industrial production and retail sales may help alleviate investors’ concerns about growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Markets were buoyed last week as some of the major risks facing global economic growth—the U.S.-China trade spat, changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement and uncertainty around Brexit—appeared to ease. On Friday, the U.S. reached a truce with China after securing a pledge from Beijing to boost purchases of agricultural products, bringing to a temporary halt to tensions that have rocked markets for most of this year.

Ahead of the opening bell in New York, shares in Boeing declined 3.4%. The aerospace company is considering either suspending or cutting back production of the 737 MAX, The Wall Street Journal reported. Deepening production cuts would inflate Boeing’s costs and trigger charges against its financial results as fixed expenses would be spread among fewer planes.

International Flavors & Fragrances fell 6.1% in premarket trading after DuPont de Nemours reached a deal to combine its nutrition business with IFF in a deal that will give DuPont a $7.3 billion cash payment and about 55% of the new company. Shares in DuPont gained almost 5%.

Over in the U.K., the FTSE 100 index, which tracks the biggest companies in the country, rose over 2% in its largest one-day rally since February. The gauge is extending gains from last week following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resounding majority in the general elections. The result, analysts said, paves the way for the U.K. to leave the bloc at the end of next month, clearing some of the political uncertainty that has hung over the economy since the 2016 Brexit referendum.

“It takes the risk of a no-deal Brexit immediately off the table and it gives you some certainty, so that’s better than where we were,” said Thomas Pugh, U.K. economist at Capital Economics.

Within European equities, shares in Electrolux dropped over 10% after the Swedish appliance maker announced that a reorganization of its manufacturing in the U.S. will hit fourth-quarter operating income.

Write to Avantika Chilkoti at Avantika.Chilkoti@wsj.com

Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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2019-12-16 12:24:00Z
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Fashion Nova’s Secret: Underpaid Workers in Los Angeles Factories - The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — Fashion Nova has perfected fast fashion for the Instagram era.

The mostly online retailer leans on a vast network of celebrities, influencers, and random selfie takers who post about the brand relentlessly on social media. It is built to satisfy a very online clientele, mass-producing cheap clothes that look expensive.

“They need to buy a lot of different styles and probably only wear them a couple times so their Instagram feeds can stay fresh,” Richard Saghian, Fashion Nova’s founder, said in an interview last year.

To enable that habit, he gives them a constant stream of new options that are priced to sell.

The days of $200 jeans are over, if you ask Mr. Saghian. Fashion Nova’s skintight denim goes for $24.99. And, he said, the company can get its clothes made “in less than two weeks,” often by manufacturers in Los Angeles, a short drive from the company’s headquarters.

That model hints at an ugly secret behind the brand’s runaway success: The federal Labor Department has found that many Fashion Nova garments are stitched together by a work force in the United States that is paid illegally low wages.

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Influencers and celebrities like Cardi B post about Fashion Nova on Instagram.Credit...Rich Fury/Getty Images for Fashion Nova

Los Angeles is filled with factories that pay workers off the books and as little as possible, battling overseas competitors that can pay even less. Many of the people behind the sewing machines are undocumented, and unlikely to challenge their bosses.

“It has all the advantages of a sweatshop system,” said David Weil, who led the United States Labor Department’s wage and hour division from 2014 to 2017.

Every year, the department investigates allegations of wage violations at sewing contractors in Los Angeles, showing up unannounced to review payroll data, interview employees and question the owners.

In investigations conducted from 2016 through this year, the department discovered Fashion Nova clothing being made in dozens of factories that owed $3.8 million in back wages to hundreds of workers, according to federal documents that summarized the findings and were reviewed by The New York Times.

Those factories, which are hired by middlemen to produce garments for fashion brands, paid their sewers as little as $2.77 an hour, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

After repeated violations were found at factories making Fashion Nova clothes, federal officials met with company representatives. “We have already had a highly productive and positive meeting with the Department of Labor in which we discussed our ongoing commitment to ensuring that all workers involved with the Fashion Nova brand are appropriately compensated for the work they do,” Erica Meierhans, Fashion Nova’s general counsel, said in a statement to The Times. “Any suggestion that Fashion Nova is responsible for underpaying anyone working on our brand is categorically false.”

In 2018, Mr. Saghian said about 80 percent of the brand’s clothes were made in the United States. Fashion Nova’s supply chain has shifted since then, and now the brand says it makes less than half of its clothes in Los Angeles. It would not specify the overall percentage made in the United States.

The company does not deal directly with factories. Instead, it places bulk orders with companies that design the clothes and then ship fabric to separately owned sewing contractors, where workers stitch the clothes together and stick Fashion Nova’s label on them.

The brand’s clingy dresses and animal-print jumpsuits are often made by people like Mercedes Cortes, working in ramshackle buildings that smell like bathrooms.

Ms. Cortes, 56, sewed Fashion Nova clothes for several months at Coco Love, a dusty factory close to Fashion Nova’s offices in Vernon, Calif. “There were cockroaches. There were rats,” she said. “The conditions weren’t good.”

She worked every day of the week, but her pay varied depending on how quickly her fingers could move. Ms. Cortes was paid for each piece of a shirt she sewed together — about 4 cents to sew on each sleeve, 5 cents for each of the side seams, 8 cents for the seam on the neckline. On average, she earned $270 in a week, the equivalent of $4.66 an hour, she said.

In 2016, Ms. Cortes left Coco Love and later reached a settlement with the company for $5,000 in back wages. She continued to work in factories sewing Fashion Nova clothes, noticing the $12 price tags on the tops she had stitched together for cents. “The clothes are very expensive for what they pay us,” Ms. Cortes said.

“Consumers can say, ‘Well, of course that’s what it’s like in Bangladesh or Vietnam,’ but they are developing countries,” Mr. Weil said. “People just don’t want to believe it’s true in their own backyard.”

For all their seediness, these factories are still producing clothes for major American retailers. Under federal law, brands cannot be penalized for wage theft in factories if they can credibly claim that they did not know their clothes were made by workers paid illegally low wages. The Labor Department has collected millions in back wages and penalties from Los Angeles garment businesses in recent years, but has not fined a retailer.

This year, Fashion Nova’s labels were the ones found the most frequently by federal investigators looking into garment factories that pay egregiously low wages, according to a person familiar with the investigations.

In September, three officials from the department met with Fashion Nova’s lawyers to tell them that, over four years, the brand’s clothes had been found in 50 investigations of factories paying less than the federal minimum wage or failing to pay overtime.

The company’s lawyers told the officials that they had taken immediate action and had already updated the brand’s agreement with vendors. Now, if Fashion Nova learns that a factory has been charged with violating laws “governing the wages and hours of its employees, child labor, forced labor or unsafe working conditions,” the brand will put the middleman who hired that factory on a six-month “probation,” it said in a statement.

The working relationship would continue, unless workers file another complaint against the same factory or another one that the contractor hired during those six months. At that point, the brand will suspend the contractor until it passes a third-party audit.

While Fashion Nova has taken steps to address the Labor Department’s findings, Ms. Meierhans, the brand’s general counsel, noted that it works with hundreds of manufacturers and “is not responsible for how these vendors handle their payrolls.”

In a statement, the Labor Department said it “continues to ensure employers receive compliance assistance with the overtime and minimum wage requirements, and the Wage and Hour Division is committed to enforcing the law.”

‘Everyone wants to have more followers’

Mr. Saghian opened the first Fashion Nova store in 2006, in a Los Angeles mall. Seven years and four storefronts later, he realized that he was losing customers to online outlets selling the same clothes.

A web developer talked him out of starting a website; it would get no traffic, because no one knew what Fashion Nova was. Mr. Saghian had a better shot on Instagram, where “there were some really basic boutiques that had 300,000 followers,” he said in the interview.

In 2013, Mr. Saghian opened an Instagram account and began posting photos of his clothing on mannequins and customers. He noticed that some of his stores’ regular visitors were influencers he had seen on Instagram, where they had hundreds of thousands of followers.

“I had rappers’ girlfriends, female rappers, models,” he said.

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Fashion Nova makes inexpensive clothes that look expensive.Credit...Rich Fury/Getty Images for Fashion Nova

Image

Instagram influencers help drive sales for the company.Credit...Rich Fury/Getty Images for Fashion Nova

Mr. Saghian started giving them free clothing, and they posted photos of themselves draped in Fashion Nova garb. In turn, he reposted their photos and tagged their handles.

“Everyone wants to be famous. Everyone wants to have more followers,” Mr. Saghian said. “By tagging them, the influencer would grow their following.”

Gradually, the strategy brought Fashion Nova from the outskirts of the internet into the mainstream. The brand earned mentions on hip-hop tracks. In 2017, its sales grew by about 600 percent.

Cardi B, the Grammy-winning rap star, unveiled her first collection with the brand in an Instagram video in November last year.

“I wanted to do something that is like, ‘Wow, what is that? Is that Chanel? Is that YSL? Is that Gucci?’ No,” she said, adding an expletive, “it’s Fashion Nova.”

All 82 styles in Cardi B’s collection sold out hours after they became available. She posted another video the same night, promising a full restock “in two or three weeks.” (Cardi B’s line is made in Los Angeles, but the government has not found any of the clothes in factories where workers have alleged they were paid less than the minimum, Fashion Nova said.)

There were more searches for Fashion Nova last year than for Versace or Gucci, according to Google’s year in search data. It has 17 million followers on Instagram, and at any given moment there are enough people browsing clothes on its website to fill a basketball arena, Mr. Saghian said.

To keep them interested, Fashion Nova produces more than a thousand new styles every week, thanks in part to an army of local suppliers that can respond instantly to the brand’s requests.

“If there was a design concept that came to mind Sunday night, on a Monday afternoon I would have a sample,” he said.

‘The best possible price’

Many of the people vying for Mr. Saghian’s business occupy glass-walled storefronts jammed into the six frenetic blocks of the garment district in downtown Los Angeles.

These are the companies that design clothing samples and sell them in bulk to Fashion Nova and other retailers. Those businesses outsource the job of making clothes to nearby factories that work as subcontractors.

In November, The Times visited seven companies that got Fashion Nova clothes made in factories that underpaid workers, according to the Labor Department investigations. Some spoke freely about their work with the brand. Others refused to comment or talked on the condition of anonymity, fearing that they might lose the company as a client if they went on the record.

The five owners and employees who agreed to be interviewed said Fashion Nova would always push to pay the lowest price possible for each garment, and would demand a quick turnaround.

“They give me the best possible price they can give it to me, for that will allow them to still break a profit,” Mr. Saghian said.

The companies can negotiate with Fashion Nova, but their power is limited. A dwindling number of retailers are still doing business in Los Angeles, and a couple of big orders from Fashion Nova can keep a small garment shop afloat for another year. So they look for subcontractors who can sew clothes as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Amante Clothing, which occupies a stuffy storefront filled with racks of colorful samples, regularly works with Fashion Nova. The brand paid Amante $7.15 per top for a bulk order last year, according to a Labor Department investigation conducted last December. Amante then went to a sewing contractor called Karis Apparel, which made the tops.

Amante paid Karis $2.20 to sew each garment, the Labor Department found. Fashion Nova sold the top for $17.99.

“We don’t own the sewing contractor, so whatever the sewing contractor does, that’s his problem,” said a designer at Amante, who declined to be named for fear of losing her job. “We don’t know what they do to give us the lowest price. We assume they’re paying their employees the minimum.”

Karis, the factory that worked with Amante, went out of business in April. Another manufacturer ensnared in the investigations moved production to Mexico this year.

But many more factories have evaded punishment.

Same owners, different names

When Teresa Garcia started working at Sugar Sky, it was called Xela Fashion. It was 2014, and Xela Fashion, state records show, was owned by Demetria Sajche, a woman whom Ms. Garcia was told to call Angelina.

Several months later — Ms. Garcia does not remember how many — the name on her checks had changed, though she worked in the same grungy factory in the heart of downtown, a few blocks from a SoulCycle.

Now her employer was called Nena Fashion, a company that was founded by Leslie Sajche, a relative of Ms. Garcia’s boss, according to business records filed with California’s secretary of state. About a year after that, the name changed again, to GYA Fashion.

In 2017, the factory moved to an industrial stretch of Olympic Boulevard in East Los Angeles and began using a new new name: Sugar Sky. About a year later, Ms. Sajche stopped running the day-to-day operations and handed the job over to Eric Alfredo Ajitaz Puac, whom workers knew as her boyfriend.

Ms. Garcia said that she believed the point of all the name changes was to avoid being shut down by federal or state officials. Several workers, including Ms. Garcia, have filed claims against Xela, Nena, Gya and Sugar Sky for back wages with California’s labor commissioner, the state agency that handles such disputes.

In her claim, which is active, Ms. Garcia included checks showing she earned as little as $225 for 65 hours of work in a week, the equivalent of $3.46 an hour. She remembers the factory’s receiving orders from Fashion Nova for up to 5,000 pieces of clothing at a time.

“They needed it so fast, they couldn’t wait,” Ms. Garcia said of the brand. “We would need to turn it around within a week.”

Weeks of trying to reach Mr. Puac and Ms. Sajche were unsuccessful. A trip to Sugar Sky’s last known location just before Thanksgiving found a furniture store. Neighbors said the garment factory had packed up and moved out two months earlier.

Fernando Axjup, who was listed as an owner of one iteration of the factory, agreed to an interview. He was recently fired from the company and had filed his own claim for back wages.

“They keep changing their names so they don’t have to pay people,” Mr. Axjup said. “There was a lot of exploitation.” As a manager, he had access to payroll data and said Ms. Garcia rarely earned the minimum wage.

Mr. Axjup suggested that perhaps he had been fired for standing up for workers like Ms. Garcia. Ms. Garcia said she doubted that, given that Mr. Axjup was the one ordering her to hurry up.

He said he could never figure out why Fashion Nova did not visit the factory floor to check on how its clothes were being made for such low prices.

“Supposedly, the brand should supervise the people who give them work, to find out whether they are being paid well,” Mr. Axjup said. “But they never do. They never came to see.”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

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2019-12-16 10:00:00Z
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IFF to merge with DuPont's $26.2 billion nutrition unit - CNBC

Dupont corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

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International Flavors & Fragrances on Sunday said it will merge with DuPont's nutrition & biosciences unit in a deal that will create a new consumer giant valued at more than $45 billion.

Under terms of the agreement, DuPont shareholders will own 55.4% of the shares of the new company and existing IFF shareholders will own 44.6%, IFF said in a statement.

The deal has been unanimously approved by both boards, New York-based IFF said.

Industrial materials maker DuPont will also receive a one-time cash payment of $7.3 billion upon closing of the deal, IFF added.

IFF Chief Executive Officer Andreas Fibig will run the combined company and will also continue to be chairman of the board.

Ireland's Kerry Group was also negotiating with DuPont for its nutrition unit, Bloomberg had previously reported.

"We conducted a very thorough process leading us to the selection of IFF as the preferred strategic partner for N&B," DuPont Executive Chairman Ed Breen said.

IFF, which creates flavors and fragrances, works with global brands to develop scents and tastes for products that are household names.

"Together, we will create a leading ingredients and solutions provider with a broader set of capabilities to meet our customers' evolving needs," IFF's Fibig said.

The combination will be executed using a tax-efficient structure called a Reverse Morris Trust, IFF said. Such transactions let a company avoid a big tax bill by spinning off a unit that it wants to divest and simultaneously merging it with another company.

After the deal closes, IFF expects cost savings of about $300 million on a run-rate basis by the end of third year.

The companies said they have obtained fully-committed debt financing from Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.

IFF also said its largest shareholder, Winder Investments, has agreed to vote in favor of the deal.

Greenhill & Co. and Morgan Stanley advised IFF while Credit Suisse Securities (USA) and Evercore served as DuPont's advisers.

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2019-12-16 10:44:00Z
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