COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

UK slams Lufthansa ad over 'misleading' claims

A UK watchdog hit out Wednesday at Lufthansa for a poster advertisement which it said made "misleading" environmental claims about the German airline "protecting" the planet.

The ad, which ran last June, featured an aircraft with the underside replaced by an image of the Earth, alongside the slogan "Lufthansa Group. Connecting the world. Protecting its future."

"We considered the claim was likely to be understood by consumers to mean that Lufthansa had already taken significant mitigating steps to ensure that the net environmental impact of their business was not harmful," the Advertising Standards Authority said in a statement, asking it to make clear the basis for any future claims.

Air travel produced "high levels" of both carbon dioxide and non-CO2 emissions that made a "substantial" contribution to climate change, the regulator said, adding many of Lufthansa's initiatives would deliver results only after years or decades.

Approached by AFP, Lufthansa expressed regret that its poster advert campaign "could have given a misleading impression".

It argued that the ad's purpose was to make consumers aware of how the airline was addressing the need to reduce the impact of flying on the environment.

But the ASA insisted that the carrier could not substantiate what it described as the poster's "absolute green" claim.

"We understood that there were currently no environmental initiatives or commercially viable technologies in the aviation industry which would substantiate the absolute green claim, 'Protecting its future', as we considered consumers would interpret it.-Fin24

Ericsson fined nearly R4 billion

Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson has said it will pay a US$207 million (R3.8 billion) fine for breaching a deal with US authorities by not disclosing an investigation relating to suspected bribes to the Islamic State group in Iraq.

Swedish prosecutors have also opened an inquiry into the alleged IS payments, a case that has forced the company to vow an overhaul of its compliance oversight after the claims emerged last year.

US prosecutors had already imposed $1 billion in penalties in 2019 to close corruption cases in Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait, after Ericsson agreed to a so-called deferred prosecution agreement (DPA).

But last year, an investigation coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed that an internal inquiry at Ericsson had also found suspected payments to IS jihadists in Iraq between 2011 and 2019 — a period covered by US prosecution deal.

In a statement late Thursday, Ericsson said it had entered "a guilty plea regarding previously deferred charges relating to conduct prior to 2017," for not disclosing its inquiry to the US authorities.

"The entry of the plea agreement will bring the 2019 DPA to an end," it said.

The company had warned of the likely fine in January, setting aside 2.3 billion kronor (US$220 million) in its fourth-quarter accounts to cover the cost.-Fin24

Tech rivals chase ChatGPT as AI race ramps up

Chasing Microsoft, global tech giants have rolled out announcements on how they will implement ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence into their world leading platforms and applications, with YouTube the latest to present plans.

Microsoft has gone the furthest in pushing out generative AI to consumers and has pledged to pump billions of dollars into OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

The Windows-maker is aggressively testing the latest version of OpenAI's GPT-3 technology in a beefed up Bing search engine, with plans to add the tool to the easily accessible Windows 11 taskbar.

Microsoft is also planning to add GPT-3 to its Office suite, including Word, as well as the Edge browser. The rollouts guarantee maximum exposure to the technology despite controversies about the AI's readiness for the general public.

Media reports of the chat technology going haywire surfaced soon after the Bing integration was introduced.

The Redmond, Washington-based company subsequently made some tweaks to the program, but has largely stayed on course.

Feeling the pressure from Microsoft, Google in February unveiled Bard, a ChatGPT like conversation robot that is powered by its own large language model called LaMDA.-Fin24

SAB promises 'very small' number of job losses

South African Breweries (SAB), the local unit of global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), has embarked on a retrenchment process at its local operations that could affect some 40 jobs.

In response to questions from News24, SAB confirmed it had embarked on a restructuring process and had started consultations with affected employees, saying that only a "very small amount – less than 0.01%" of the group's 5 000 permanent South African jobs would be affected.

It also planned, where possible, to absorb affected staff into other areas of its business.

The company said the process followed it having reviewed its operating models across the business in line with its "continuous improvement processes and a dynamic environment globally".

"This review recommended changes to human resource allocations."

It said the process it had undertaken "adhered to both the spirit and letter of labour relations legislation" and that it was currently consulting with the affected employees.

Earlier on Thursday, its parent AB InBev reported SAB had delivered record total-full-year volumes after its beer market share moved ahead of its pre-pandemic levels.

Explaining the strong performance, AB InBev said a "focused commercial investment" and consistently executing its strategy for increasing the brand power of its "beer and beyond beer portfolios" had helped drive the South African performance.-Fin24