The U.S. Asked A Judge To Throw Out Huawei's Lawsuits; Samsung Is Facing Lawsuits Over Its Water Resistant Smartphone Claims
ZAIN ASHER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Coming to you live from New York, I'm Zain Asher, in for Julia Chatterley and here is what you need to know. Fighting Huawei. The U.S. asked a judge to throw out Huawei's lawsuits. Plus drowned in complaints, Samsung is facing lawsuits over its water resistant smartphone claims. And there is no stranger danger here, companies are cashing in on Netflix popular TV series, "Stranger Things" as it kicks off its third season. It is Thursday, and this is FIRST MOVE. Welcome, everyone to FIRST MOVE. I'm Zain Asher, it is July 4th here in the United States. We are celebrating Independence Day here in America. Wall Street is closed for the holiday, but all the major indices finished Wednesday's session at record highs. There are a few fireworks when it comes to overseas trades. European stocks a little changed overall. Italian stocks are rallying for a second day after the E.U. said it was happy for now with the country's effort to cut debt. Asian stocks, meantime finished the session mixed. Friday will be a very, very important day for investors here the United States. The U.S. releases its latest jobs report which is a crucial piece of information for the Federal Reserve as it debates cutting interest rates and by how much. We've got ADP numbers yesterday. They came in a little bit lower than expected, about 102,000 jobs added last month. Let's get right to the drivers now. The United States says it is hitting back at Huawei over the lawsuit it filed against the government ban. The Department of Justice has asked a Federal court in Texas to dismiss the Chinese firm's case. Sherisse Pham is following the story. So Sherisse, first of all, just explain to us how does this lawsuit fit in with the President Trump's announcement on Saturday at the G20 that he is easing restrictions on Huawei. How do the two fit together?</s>SHERISSE PHAM, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: So these are actually two separate issues. This lawsuit that Huawei filed, they filed it back in March. And it was it was challenging the constitutionality of the National Defense Authorization Act. And they said because a section of that law specifically named Huawei and banned Federal agencies from selling -- or from buying Huawei equipment, that it was unconstitutional, but Department of Justice lawyers are saying that is wrong. They are saying that that argument is not only faulty and outdated, but they're saying that barring Federal agencies from buying Huawei equipment is actually quote, "the logical next step" in protecting U.S. national security. Now Huawei has long argued that none of its products pose any kind of a national security risk and they took that case to court. They filed this lawsuit in a district court in Texas back in March. And now this is obviously not the response that they were hoping for because lawyers are saying, "Look, you are using arguments from Civil War and Cold War eras and they do not imply to this massive Chinese tech company." So the part of the NDAA that they're pushing back against is specifically called Section 889. And I want to quote to you from the motion that the Department of Justice filed overnight they said, "Section 889 does not sentence Huawei to death, imprison it or confiscate its property and plainly, it does not preclude Huawei from engaging in its chosen profession." So again, you know, likely not what Huawei was looking for. But to your question earlier, Huawei has much bigger problems to deal with because since this lawsuit was filed, they were added to a trade blacklist and that happened in May, when the Commerce Department added Huawei to the entity list and that bars American companies like Google and Micron from selling software and chips to Huawei, and Huawei needs those parts to build its smartphones and its telecom gear. Now Trump did change course over the weekend and said that U.S. companies could continue selling or resume selling to Huawei provided it doesn't pose any kind of national emergency risk as he put it, but Huawei and its suppliers are still really unclear on what those details are. They don't know when they can start selling to Huawei again and what they can sell to Huawei -- Zain.</s>ASHER: All right, so there still needs to be some further clarification on that front. Sherisse Pham live for us there. Thank you so much. Okay, so Samsung is in hot water for putting his phones in sea water. The electronics giant ran advert showing the Galaxy smartphone in oceans and in pools making it look as though it could actually be used while swimming. Australian regulators say that is certainly misleading and are hitting the company with a lawsuit.</s>ASHER: Hadas Gold has been following this story. So just give us more specifics here. What exactly has Samsung claimed about their phones and how water resistant are these phones really?</s>HADAS GOLD, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, well, Zain, I'm sure we've all experienced as I myself have lost a phone to water damage, but the Australian Competition Regulator says that Samsung was advertising its phone as being completely waterproof that you could go underwater, they would show advertisement since February of 2016, a swimmer underwater using his phone. They would show advertisements of the phone being used to film one of those shark cages and clearly ocean water. But now, the Australian Competitions Regulator is filing this lawsuit against Samsung saying that these advertisements were misleading because they actually say that not all of Samsung's are completely waterproof. As you can see on the screen right now, these are some of the advertisements that you saw. It's very clearly a man in a pool. There's other advertisers that show very clearly a Samsung phone being used underwater, in an ocean. But the Australian Competition Regulator that not all of the phones were actually suitable for use in all types of water and actually even if you went on to Samsung's website, it said that some of its phones, specifically the Galaxy S10 should not be used in the beach or at a pool. And the Australian Regulators are saying that when people went to Samsung and said "Hey, fix my phone, it's under warranty." Samsung, they say did not adhere to that. Now the phone subject to this case, I want to put a list up on the screen just to see how many phones are subject according to the Australian Regulator. They include the S10 E, multiple S10s. The S9, S9 plus, S8, S7 Edge, the Note 9, the A7, A5, -- any of these phones that were manufactured between 2016 and 2019, these are some of Samsung's most popular phones. Now if this lawsuit is upheld, Samsung could face fines worth millions of dollars because of recent change in the law found that any -- that the maximum penalty for any violation, you could even consider sort of each advertisement, a violation can be up to $7 million. Samsung is facing some high fines here. Now, this comes on the heels of a tough few months for Samsung. If you remember that foldable phone fiasco that some of their new foldable phones that they sent to reviewers broke and they got some really awful press and they delayed the release of this foldable phone. But this is another sort of ding in their armor now for Samsung that they're dealing with. Samsung for their part says that they stand by the marketing and advertising of the water resistance of its smartphones and they plan to fight this lawsuit -- Zane.</s>ASHER: But as you mentioned, it's been a tough month and few years, I guess for Samsung. Appreciate you joining us, Hadas Gold. Thank you so much. Okay, so India's biggest ride hailing firm, Ola has permission to now drive in London. The company will rival Uber in one of the world's largest taxi markets. Anna Stewart is joining us live now from London. So it's interesting, you know, Ola, joining the London market. It's a tricky market because it's heavily saturated when it comes to other ride hailing apps. And also you have a huge amount of lobbying from taxi drivers in London as well that has made things quite difficult for Uber at times.</s>ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: You're absolutely right. A real tough market to crack and I think it's really interesting that this company, it's a new company, Ola did actually did some soft launches in smaller cities around the U.K. very quietly, before making this move in London. We expect this launch to happen sometime around September. Tricky markets to crack firstly, due to regulation, we've got some the toughest transport regulation out there. In fact, the London Transport Regulator actually decided not to renew Uber's license just over a year ago, that decision was overturned in the end. Bolt, another rival used, it to be called Taxify. That first launched two years ago. It has closed down and closed shop just three days later. That was also due to licensing problems, but as you say, it has actually already passed this first hurdle, it's already got the license. That is great news. Now, the big challenge will be cannot really steal market share from Uber? Because the other rivals haven't really posed much of a threat, yet. Now Morgan Stanley and researchers says this one could be. The thing about Ola that's different to other rivals, is it has really, really deep pockets. It's raised nearly $4 billion. It's backed by Softbank, like Uber. So it really could be a threat here.</s>ASHER: But also, as you mentioned, or as I mentioned earlier, the London market is heavily saturated. It is not just Uber that Ola is going to have to contend with here.</s>STEWART: Yes, there's also Kapten, there's also Bolt which used to be called Taxify. But Uber is definitely the dominant player here. And actually apparently for Uber as a company, overall, London accounts to something between four to eight percent of all ride sharing bookings. So it's a big deal for Uber. So what will be interesting is when Ola actually launches sometime in September, I think we can expect to see lower driver take rates, lots of promotions, driving down those costs, but if Uber tries to match that that is going to take a huge hit on revenue, given how big London is as a market for Uber. So it's going to be very interesting. It could be a race to the bottom -- Zain.</s>ASHER: All right, Anna Stewart, live for us there. Thank you so much. All right, so these are the stories making headlines around the world. In the past hour Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis have been meeting. There is speculation it's a warm up for a Papal Visit to Russia, which would be the very first of its kind. One likely topic for discussion is the conflict in Ukraine. The Pope has previously urged Mr. Putin to make a quote "sincere and great effort to achieve peace." And the US President's big Independence Day event is stirring up controversy. The "Salute to America" parade will have tanks and military flyover and a presidential speech. A source tells CNN military chiefs are concerned it will be politicized. And Netherlands are into Sunday's final of the Women's World Cup often knocking out Sweden. They score the only goal of the game with a sweet injury time strike into the bottom corner. The Dutch will now face the defending World Cup champions and tournament favorite, the United States. All right, coming up FIRST MOVE goes to the upside down. Netflix releases season three. Can't wait to watch it. Season Three of its hit show "Stranger Things." We will take a look at how the streaming giant is cashing in on 1980s nostalgia. That's next.