Epic Games has asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling clearing Apple of violating antitrust laws on its App Store.
08.09.2023 - 19:33 / pcgamer.com
Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, has been sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a court in Istanbul for crimes including aggravated fraud, money laundering, and organised crime. His sister Serap and brother Guven were also found guilty and received the same jail term.
Thodex was founded in 2017, and found success during a period where Turkey's state currency, the lira, was undergoing a period of rapid inflation. Turkish people began to see crypto as an apparently safer option than the fluctuating lira, particularly when it came to savings, and Özer became a financial celebrity of sorts in Turkey. Thodex collapsed in April 2021, with Özer initially claiming investors' money was safe, before he fled.
Almost immediately afterwards, Turkish police arrested dozens of Thodex employees and seized the firm's computers. It emerged that, in April 2021, Thodex moved approximately $125 million worth of bitcoin to the established US crypto exchange Kraken. Interpol then issued a red notice, and Özer was found in Albania and extradited.
«I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth,» Özer told the court, as reported by state news organisation Anadolu Agency. «That is evident in this company I established at the age of 22. If this were a criminal organization I wouldn’t have acted so amateurishly.»
The total amount of money lost in Thodex's collapse is unclear and estimates vary wildly. In court prosecutors identified 356 million liras ($43 million in 2021) of losses, but other reports put it as high as $2 billion and a study by Chainalysis put the value of cryptocurrency lost at Thodex at $2.5 billion. «We should note that roughly 90% of the total value lost to rug pulls in 2021 can be attributed to one fraudulent centralized exchange, Thodex, whose CEO disappeared soon after the exchange halted users’ ability to withdraw funds,» says that report.
These long prison sentences have become common in Turkey ever since it abolished the death penalty in 2004. Believe it or not, the Özer siblings got off lightly: state prosecutors were out to set an example with this case, and sought a sentence of 40,562 years. On the bright side for Özer, with good behaviour he'll be out in five or six thousand.
Epic Games has asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling clearing Apple of violating antitrust laws on its App Store.
Epic Games Inc. asked the US Supreme Court to review a judge's 2021 ruling that Apple Inc.'s App Store policies don't violate federal antitrust laws.
The headliner from today's Meta Connect event was the Meta Quest 3 (unless you're super excited to "talk" D&D with Snoop Dogg), but the company also revealed the next generation of its Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses.
By Richard Lawler, a senior editor following news across tech, culture, policy, and entertainment. He joined The Verge in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget.
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Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer considered buying Nintendo at one point, a leaked 2020 email revealed. Multiple documents from Microsoft's trial with the US FTC were leaked Tuesday, with one showing a casual discussion about buying the Mario maker, where Spencer called it a “career moment” and implied that a collaboration would be a ‘good move' for either company. It's worth highlighting that this conversation happened in August 2020, before Microsoft acquired Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion (about Rs. 62,431 crore). The leaks also disclosed Bethesda's release schedule, alongside details for Microsoft's planned mid-generation console refresh.
The court documents from Microsoft’s FTC case are the gift that just keeps giving, although in this instance it seems someone released a document they should have not, as it’s been removed the US courts website.
When it comes to terrifying solar storms, the last 24-hour period has been one of the worst since March 2023. The solar storm was triggered by a coronal mass ejection (CME) that was hurled towards the Earth's strike zone on September 18. There were speculations on whether it would hit the planet or not, but not only did it hit the Earth, it also arrived a day earlier than expected. Also, Earth was hit by multiple solar flare eruptions that caused severe radio blackouts. Know the full impact of this solar storm.
The court documents from Microsoft’s FTC case are the gift that just keeps giving, although in this instance it seems someone released a document they should have not, as it’s been removed the US courts website.
Microsoft’s leak that spread Tuesday morning revealed a ton of explosive Xbox secrets, and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California says it was Microsoft’s own fault.