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Trade Wars
NAM, Business Groups Say No to EU ESG Mandate
A European Union directive approved last year would have a devastating financial effect on manufacturing in the U.S. if allowed to go into effect as written, the NAM and four allied groups joined forces to tell the Trump administration last week. “Under the current [Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive] framework … American businesses will be held legally liable under EU standards for environmental and human rights obligations across their entire global supply chains,” the NAM, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Council for Capital Formation, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council and the International Franchise Association told leadership at the departments of Treasury, Energy and Commerce; the White House National Economic Council; and the U.S. Trade Representative.
On Oct. 13, a committee of the European Parliament approved a compromise proposal that would reduce the number of companies directly regulated by the directive, but larger U.S. firms and their suppliers still would be subject to CSDDD. If the directive proceeds “with extraterritorial subjugation intact, American businesses could be forced to respond to protect their interests,” the organizations went on, adding that companies may reconsider their EU investments, which would result in slowed economic growth, bottlenecked supply chains and worsened EU–U.S. relations.
Read the letter
Regeneron Plans To Sell Former Avon Site In Rockland It Purchased in 2023, Will Expand in Westchester.
Tarrytown-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which bought 1 Avon Place in Suffern for $38.9 million in Dec. 2023, had planned to use the facility for research, development and cold storage. Those plans have been scrapped. The company will sell the facility, and the town will need to determine the assessed value because at the time it bought the building it negotiated a raft of benefits of benefits from the Rockland County IDA, including a 15-year PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) agreement.
“Regeneron has made the strategic decision to sell our Suffern, NY property, which was acquired in late 2023 to supplement the expansion of our Tarrytown campus,” said a Regeneron spokesperson. “The decision reflects the progress of our Tarrytown project, which is providing additional lab and office space to meet the needs of our growing R&D pipeline, as well as our desire to keep more colleagues together on fewer campuses.” In 2021, Regeneron said it would invest about $1.8 billion over six years to expand its facilities at the company’s Westchester County campus in Tarrytown. At the time, Regeneron said it would create 1,000 new full-time, high-skill jobs in the Mid-Hudson Region over the next five years.
Read more at The Rockland County Business Journal
Novelis Says Aluminum Plant Disrupting Ford, Stellantis, Nissan To Reopen In December After Fire
After the unfortunate fire incident in its Oswego aluminium plant, the renowned aluminium producer Novelis experienced a massive production setback. However, the aluminium producer, Novelis, now expects to restart operations in the same facility before the end of 2025, which is several months earlier than originally anticipated. The company had initially warned that the outage could continue into the first quarter of 2026. However, Chief Executive Steve Fisher said repair work had progressed faster than expected, and teams on site were now working extended hours to complete the rebuild by December.
Novelis supplies roughly 40 per cent of the automotive aluminium sheet used in car production across North America. The disruption triggered temporary shutdowns at Ford and Stellantis plants in Michigan and Kentucky, sending thousands of employees onto short-term layoffs. Fisher said repair work includes replacing 40,000 square feet of roofing and installing new steel trusses. Most of the repair parts — around 2,500 individual components — have already been delivered. Equipment and motor repairs are being carried out on site, reducing the need to dismantle and reinstall heavy machinery.
Read more at AL Circle
French Cement Firm Lafarge In The Dock, Accused Of Funding Terrorism
“long”, “complex”, and “gigantic” process. These are often the terms used to describe the eight years of investigation into the Lafarge case. And the trial that opened ysterday is unlikely to mark the end of it. The French cement manufacturer is to appear until 16 December 2025 before the Paris Criminal Court, where it is charged with “financing terrorist enterprises” and “failure to comply with international financial sanctions”. In this case, Lafarge is accused of paying €5 million to several terrorist organizations between 2013 and 2014 through its Syrian subsidiary. These payments were intended to ensure the continuation of its activities in the country.
In 2022, Lafarge - which had since merged with the Swiss group Holcim - admitted to financing terrorist organizations as part of a plea bargain signed in the United States. The group had to pay a $778 million fine, thus ending US proceedings. These admissions only implicate the legal entity; the eight individuals brought before the French courts were not involved in the proceedings – although this could undermine their presumption of innocence, according to one of their lawyers.
Read more at Justice Info
Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Sales Tumble After Government Guidance On The Shots Narrows
Pfizer on Thursday reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that topped estimates and hiked its full-year profit guidance, as cost cuts helped to outweigh declining sales for the period. The pharmaceutical giant now expects its full-year adjusted profit to come in between $3 and $3.15 per share, up from previous guidance of $2.90 to $3.10 per share. Pfizer said that reflects its “solid” performance for the year, “continued confidence in our business” and progress with reducing costs, among other factors.
Pfizer reported revenue of $16.65 billion for the third quarter, down 6% from the same period a year ago, largely because of lower demand for its Covid vaccine and Paxlovid, an antiviral pill for the virus. Pfizer is slowly regaining its footing after a rapid decline in its Covid business over the last three years, with the company betting on new ways to boost revenue, including through cancer products from its $43 billion acquisition of Seagen and a proposed deal with the obesity biotech Metsera.
Read more at Investing
Metsera Says Novo Nordisk’s New Up To $10 Billion Bid For Obesity Drugmaker Is ‘Superior’ To Revised Pfizer Offer
Metsera on Tuesday said Novo Nordisk’s new bid for the obesity biotech is “superior” to a revised offer from Pfizer, escalating a heated tussle over the startup between the two pharmaceutical giants. Novo Nordisk’s new proposal values Metsera at up to $86.20 per share, for a total of around $10 billion. In a release, Metsera said that represents a roughly 159% premium to its closing price as of Sept. 19, the last trading day before Pfizer announced its proposed acquisition of the company.
Meanwhile, Pfizer’s new proposal values Metsera at up to $70 per share, for a total of roughly $8.1 billion. Under the terms of the original agreement for Pfizer to acquire Metsera, the drugmaker has two business days to negotiate adjustments to the proposal. If Metsera’s board believes that Novo Nordisk’s proposal is still better than Pfizer’s after that window, Metsera would be entitled to end the existing merger agreement, according to the release. The new bids comes one day after Pfizer filed its second lawsuit against Novo Nordisk and Metsera, alleging that the Danish drugmaker’s attempt to outbid Pfizer to acquire the biotech company is anticompetitive.
Read more at CNBC
U.S. Chemical Safety Board Opens Investigation into Fatal Explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) said last week that it is deploying a team to investigate the fatal explosion that occurred on October 10, 2025, at the Accurate Energetic Systems, LLC (AES) facility in Humphreys County, Tennessee. According to local officials, the incident resulted in 16 fatalities, several serious injuries, and severe damage to the facility. AES manufactures explosive products for the defense and commercial markets.
The CSB team arrived last week at the incident scene. Until recently, access to the site was restricted, as it was under the control of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) while the ATF was analyzing the debris field and removing undetonated explosives and other hazardous materials from the site. The CSB is an independent, nonregulatory federal agency charged with investigating incidents and hazards that result, or may result, in the catastrophic release of extremely hazardous substances. The agency’s core mission activities include conducting incident investigations; formulating preventive or mitigative recommendations based on investigation findings and advocating for their implementation; issuing reports containing the findings, conclusions, and recommendations arising from incident investigations; and conducting studies on chemical hazards.
Read more at EHS Today
Ontario Firm Joins Rolls Royce’s Small Modular Reactor Program
A Canadian fabricator has been chosen as a partner for the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor project, which aims to develop and deploy SMRs to generate 470 MW of low-carbon energy, to power up to a million homes. Ontario-based BWX Technologies Inc. is now contracted to provide a detailed design for a nuclear steam generator, and has a memorandum of understanding with Rolls-Royce SMR to support future collaboration on the development of the program. By contracting program suppliers Rolls aims to achieve affordability, scalability, and faster deployment of the SMRs through modular, factory-built components and a generic design that can be used at multiple sites.
BWXT's nuclear steam generators are large-scale, critical components for the process of transferring heat from a primary reactor coolant loop to a secondary water loop, to create steam for generating electricity. It has supplied over 300 steam generators to nuclear power plants around the world over the past six decades. Rolls-Royce was selected to build the U.K.’s SMRs by Great British Nuclear, an agent of the government’s Dept. for Energy Security and Net Zero, designated to design, build, and operate nuclear-energy generating plants. It’s also set to install three gigawatts of nuclear power capacity in Czech Republic.
Read more at American Machinist
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