Company News in Brief

MultiChoice hit with multimillion-rand fine for privacy ‘breaches’



Nigeria’s data protection agency has fined MultiChoice Nigeria, Africa’s biggest pay-television company, ?766-million (R8.9-million) for allegedly violating the country’s data protection law, a spokesman said.

MultiChoice, which operates pay-TV services DStv and GOtv in Nigeria, has faced legal and regulatory hurdles in the past two years from authorities regarding contentious price hikes and tax disagreements. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.

Babatunde Bamigboye, head of legal at the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), said the penalty follows an investigation initiated a year ago, prompted by suspected breaches of subscribers’ privacy rights and illegal cross-border transfer of personal data.

“The depth of data processing by MultiChoice is patently intrusive, unfair, unnecessary and disproportionate,” affecting not only subscribers but also their associates,” Bamigboye said in a statement late on Sunday.

Despite a directive to implement remedial measures, MultiChoice’s efforts were deemed unsatisfactory, Bamigboye said. — Reuters



Apple’s AI ambitions rattled by defection to Meta



Apple’s top executive in charge of artificial intelligence models is leaving for Meta Platforms, another setback in the iPhone maker’s struggling AI efforts.

Ruoming Pang, a distinguished engineer and manager in charge of the company’s Apple foundation models team, is departing, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Pang, who joined Apple from Google in 2021, is the latest big hire for Meta’s new superintelligence team, said the people, who declined to be named discussing unannounced personnel moves.

To secure Pang, Meta offered a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, the people said. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on a hiring spree, bringing on major AI leaders including Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, start-up founder Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman with high compensation.

Pang had been running a roughly 100-person team responsible for Apple’s large language models

Meta on Monday also hired Yuanzhi Li, a researcher from OpenAI, and Anton Bakhtin, who worked on Claude at Anthropic, according to other people with knowledge of the matter.

Meta declined to comment. Apple and Pang didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. — Bloomberg



BP, Shell to study hydrocarbon potential at three Libyan oilfields



Oil Majors BP and Shell have made agreements with Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) to conduct studies for hydrocarbon exploration and development at three Libyan oilfields, NOC said on Monday.

Libya, Africa's second-largest oil producer and a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has suffered from disruptions to its oil activities due to disputes between armed rival factions over oil revenues that have often led to oilfield shutdowns.

Foreign investors have been wary of putting money into Libya, which has been in a state of chaos since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. However, oil giants like Eni, OMV, BP, and Repsol resumed exploration activities in Libya last year after halting them for a decade.

BP will reopen its office in the capital Tripoli during the last quarter of 2025, NOC said in its statement on Monday.

It also said it signed a memorandum of understanding with BP to conduct studies to assess the potential for hydrocarbon exploration and production in the Messla and Sarir oilfields, as well as in some surrounding exploration areas.

The British oil major had re-entered Libya in 2007 with an exploration and production sharing agreement covering exploration areas A and B (onshore), and area C (offshore) with NOC, which was later suspended due to a force majeure.

In 2022, Eni took a 42.5% stake and assumed operatorship of the agreement, with BP retaining a 42.5% interest and the Libyan Investment Authority holding the remaining 15%. The force majeure was formally lifted in 2023, allowing onshore exploration to resume.

Separately, the state oil firm said it agreed with Shell to evaluate hydrocarbon prospects and conduct a comprehensive technical and economic feasibility study to develop the Atshan oilfield and other fields fully owned by NOC. — Reuters



Ramaphosa blasts Trump over threatened Brics tariffs



President Cyril Ramaphosa has stepped in to an escalating spat with Donald Trump over the US president’s threats targeting the Brics group, saying that “it cannot be that might should now be right”. “It is really disappointing that when there is such a very positive collective manifestation such as Brics, there should be others who see it in negative light and want to punish those who participate,” Ramaphosa told reporters in Rio de Janeiro as he left the two-day summit of Brics nations. “It cannot be and should not be.”

Ramaphosa was the first leader to break cover and criticise Trump for his comments overnight, warning Brics members of penalties for adopting policies he said were “anti-American”. The summit’s host, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, earlier declined to address Trump’s comments, saying that he’d speak only once the meeting was concluded.

Top officials waking up to the news in a rainy Rio were adopting a wait-and-see approach. The South African president, however, opted to enter the fray, and the spotlight will be on Lula when he gives a news conference slated for later in the day.

“There needs to be greater appreciation of the emergence of various centres of power in the world,” Ramaphosa said, adding that it “should be seen in positive light rather than in a negative light”.

“It cannot be that might should now be right where, in the end, those who are more powerful are the ones who seek to have vengeance against those who are seeking to do good in the world,” he said. — Bloomberg