Core issues: Apple CEO Tim Cook says in an email to employees this morning that the U.S. government should withdraw its demand that Apple help the FBI hack a locked iPhone used by a shooter in the San Bernardino attack. The Associated Press reports Cook’s message, with the subject-line “Thank you for your support,” is accompanied by an online question and answer page that reiterates many of the comments Cook made in a public letter after a U.S. magistrate ordered the company on Friday to break its iPhone security protocols to assist federal officials probing the San Bernardino shootings. His communication to staff also brushes aside several key government claims made in Friday’s filing, including an assertion the company was acting out of business interests in saying it would not cooperate with an investigation of the California shootings by the FBI. Read the full story.
Down the road: Oil markets will begin to rebalance in 2017 thanks to falling U.S. production but that decline will prove short-lived, as efficiency gains will push U.S. output to new records by the beginning of the next decade, Reuters reports. “Only in 2017 will we finally see oil supply and demand aligned but the enormous stocks being accumulated will act as a dampener on the pace of recovery in oil prices when the market, having balanced, then starts to draw down those stocks,” the International Energy Agency says in its medium-term outlook. “Today’s oil market conditions do not suggest that prices can recover sharply in the immediate future.” Over the course of 2015 to 2021, U.S. output is expected to reach a record high of 14.2 million barrels per day, after dipping initially this year and next, the IEA says in its report. Read the full story.
Dragging it out: European Union antitrust regulators have halted their scrutiny of U.S. oilfield services provider Halliburton Co.’s proposed takeover of Baker Hughes because the companies failed to provide some details of the $35 billion deal, Reuters reports. The European Commission announced the decision last Thursday, according to a filing on its website. “This is a standard procedure on merger investigations which is activated if the notifying parties do not provide an important piece of information that the Commission has requested from them,” Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso says in an email. The EU competition authority will set a new deadline for its decision when it has the required information from the companies. The previous deadline was June 23. Halliburton is prepared to sell businesses with combined 2013 revenue of $5.2 billion to appease regulators worried about higher prices and less innovation following the merger. Read the full story.
