Former attorney general Eric Holder stated on behalf of Uber that fingerprint checks are an unfair way to screen job candidates and potentially discriminatory. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
Former U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. has written to lawmakers on behalf of Uber to argue against the use of fingerprint-based background checks as they mull how to regulate ride-hailing service drivers.
A letter from Holder making the case that fingerprint checks are an unfair way to screen job candidates and potentially discriminatory was sent last week to lawmakers in New Jersey and Chicago.
Holder’s firm advises the company on safety matters, and Uber asked him to write the letter, company spokesman Craig Ewer said. Uber and rival Lyft, both based in San Francisco, pulled out of Austin last month after voters decided against overturning city requirements requiring the checks.
New Jersey lawmakers are debating two different bills to regulate the industry. A state Assembly measure includes the fingerprint rule, while a state Senate version would not require it.
Chicago’s proposal would require ride-sharing drivers to get a chauffeur’s license and undergo a criminal background check and fingerprinting.
Holder wrote that because of deficiencies in the FBI’s database, fingerprint checks can prevent people from getting jobs even if they were never convicted of crimes. He said requiring fingerprint checks can discriminate against minorities.
— Associated Press
The head of the nation’s largest municipal jail guard union was paid tens of thousands of dollars in cash, in exchange for steering $20 million in union money to a hedge fund, according to a criminal complaint.
Norman Seabrook, president of the 9,000-member New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, and Murray Huberfeld, the hedge fund’s founder, were arrested by FBI agents on conspiracy and fraud charges Wednesday.
Seabrook “made decisions about how to invest the nest egg for thousands of hardworking civil servants based not on what was good for them but on what was good for Norman Seabrook,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
The complaint says a scheme by Huberfeld to hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to Seabrook in exchange for the investments in his fund, Platinum Partners, was facilitated by someone not identified who has pleaded guilty.
The court papers do not name the cooperator. But two people with direct knowledge of the case identified him as Jona Rechnitz, a businessman who has contributed to Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaigns, was friendly with top police officials and has been captured on FBI wiretaps in a related gifts-for-favors probe.
Seabrook ultimately was paid $60,000 by Rechnitz, the complaint says.
The complaint says the middleman stashed the cash in an $820 bag bought at “one of Seabrook’s favorite stores, Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue,” before handing it to the union boss at a meeting in New York in December 2014.
— Associated Press
● Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay a $1 million fine to settle Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges that security lapses at the Wall Street bank enabled a former financial adviser to tap into its computers and take client data home, the regulator said Wednesday. The deal resolves allegations related to Galen Marsh’s unauthorized transfers from 2011 to 2014 of data from about 730,000 accounts to his home computer in New Jersey, some of which was hacked by third parties and offered for sale online. The SEC said Morgan Stanley violated the federal Safeguards Rule by failing to properly protect customer data, allowing Marsh to access names, addresses, phone numbers, and holdings and balances.
● Peanut residue detected in flour has prompted Frito-Lay and Hostess to recall some snack products. Frito-Lay this week issued a voluntary recall of four varieties of Rold Gold pretzels, including select sizes of Tiny Twists, Thins, Sticks and Honey Wheat Braided. The move follows Hostess’s voluntary recall last week of 710,000 cases of snack cakes and doughnuts. The recalled products include Ding Dongs and Zingers.
● Spirit Aerosystems announced Wednesday that chief executive Larry Lawson, 58, is retiring July 31 after a three-year tenure in which he turned around the aerospace manufacturer. He will be replaced by Tom Gentile, who joined Spirit on April 1. Gentile, 51, had been viewed as Lawson’s heir apparent since being named chief operating officer at the company following two decades at General Electric. Still, analysts and investors were caught off-guard by the speed with which Spirit made the transition.
● Lululemon Athletica posted first-quarter sales that topped analysts’ estimates, helped by new products such as an expanded selection of women’s tops. Sales rose 17 percent to $495.5 million in the quarter ended May 1, the Vancouver, B.C.-based company said Wednesday. Analysts projected $487.6 million, on average. Lululemon’s first-quarter profit was 30 cents a share, excluding some items. The company forecast that second-quarter profit will be 36 cents to 38 cents.
— From news services
● 8:30 a.m.: Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.
● ● 10 a.m.: Freddie Mac releases weekly mortgage rates.
● ● ● ● 10 a.m.: Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for April.
