decide – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under increasing pressure to demand another nationwide lockdown in India as the overwhelmed health system struggles to fight a devastating second wave of Covid-19.

However, a member of Modi’s economic advisory board says that state governments should instead have the final say on social restrictions.

“All in all, the current policy of leaving it to different states to take local conditions into account and adopt a lockdown strategy – I think it’s a better one overall,” said V. Anantha Nageswaran, part-time member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Board, said Tuesday to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia”.

Calls for a national lockdown – as imposed between late March and May last year – have grown louder as the Indian health system deteriorates and patients suffer from the lack of hospital beds, medical oxygen and drugs needed to treat the disease Disease will be rejected.

Leading coronavirus adviser to the White House, Anthony Fauci, said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that India must be shut down in order to break transmission chains.

So far, the central government has resisted lockdown calls and allowed states to tighten their own local restrictions, including lockdowns and curfews.

Instead, the government is focusing on delivering global aid – including oxygen concentrators, bottles and generation equipment, and the antiviral drug Remdesivir – to affected areas. The country is also stepping up its vaccination campaign.

People aged 18 and over waiting to be vaccinated against Covid-19 at a vaccination center on the Radha Soami Satsang site operated by BLK Max Hospital on May 4, 2021 in New Delhi, India.

Hindustan Times | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

Nageswaran stated that at this point, the benefits of a statewide lockdown will not significantly outweigh the costs. He added that in cases the increase is still relatively localized in different pockets rather than nationally.

India has reported more than 300,000 cases per day for 20 consecutive days. However, on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health said its data showed a net decrease in total active cases over a 24-hour period for the first time in 61 days.

India’s death toll from coronavirus is close to 250,000.

Economic growth path

Last year’s national lockdown held India back from growth and pushed the economy into a technical recession. Before the second wave of infections, the economy was slowly on the mend – but economists are now predicting that the recovery will be delayed given the current situation.

There is a growing likelihood that localized lockdowns are likely to last through June or beyond. Given the current rate of vaccination, any attempt to fully reopen the economy could lead to a potential third wave of infections, Kunal Kundu, Indian economist with Societe Generale investment bank, said in a recent note.

Kundu said the bank had forecast real GDP growth of 9.5% year-over-year for India’s fiscal year ending March 2022, which is below the market consensus. But even this goal is no longer tenable, as it was assumed that the economy will open sooner due to the rapid pace of vaccination.

“With localized lockdowns through June and beyond, this increases the downside risk to our existing growth forecast. We now expect real GDP to grow by 8.5% for the current year,” said Kundu.

He added that India’s ability to chase the new variants will be key to preventing subsequent waves. To do this, the country must “provide more fiscal resources for genome monitoring and vaccine research” and ensure that all temporary Covid-19 care centers are still in operation, he said.

Nageswaran added that if India’s Covid-19 cases don’t peak in the next two weeks and drag on into the next quarter, it will be more difficult to match the country’s pre-pandemic growth trajectory through fiscal 2022-2023.

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The Supreme Court will hear arguments from Goldman Sachs in a longstanding case that could have a material impact on shareholders wishing to bring securities fraud lawsuits.

The arguments are slated to begin Monday at 10 a.m. ET and be broadcast live as the court continues to convene remotely as a precaution against Covid-19.

The case, which dates back to the Great Recession, concerns statements made by the investment bank during the marketing of “Abacus,” an investment known as a synthetic secured bond.

Goldman promoted Abacus to its clients without disclosing that hedge fund manager John Paulson played a role in the selection of its subprime mortgage portfolio. Paulson’s hedge fund Paulson & Co. had put enormous stakes on the failure of Abacus.

After Abacus collapsed in the housing crisis, Paulson made $ 1 billion and Goldman’s clients lost roughly the same amount. Goldman ultimately paid $ 550 million to clear the 2010 Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges – the largest penalty a Wall Street bank has ever faced. In the settlement, the bank did not admit or deny the allegations.

The shareholders who filed the lawsuit, including the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System and a plumber and pipe fitter pension fund, said they lost up to $ 13 billion when Goldman’s shares fell following the SEC’s fraud investigation.

CNBC policy

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Shareholders alleged that Goldman lied in claiming “Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business” and “Our customers’ interests always come first” even when marketing Abacus and other CDOs it bets against would have.

Those statements, according to shareholders, were making Goldman stock artificially high.

Goldman has argued that the statements cited by shareholders are too vague and general to be the basis of a securities fraud case. The bank has also argued that the statements did not affect the share price.

While many securities fraud cases are based on false comments that cause the stock price to rise, Goldman shareholders instead argue that Goldman’s alleged manipulation was “inflationary maintenance” or prevented the stock from falling. The Supreme Court has never recognized such an argument, although some lower courts have recognized it.

The shareholders, who have been litigation since 2011, are attempting to classify the case on behalf of all Goldman stock buyers between February 2007 and June 2010.

A district court has ruled that shareholders can do so twice, and the US Court of Appeals approved that decision in April.

Goldman called on the Supreme Court to review the 2nd Circuit decision, saying it would be “devastating” for public corporations to abandon them. It has identified the case as the most important securities case to be heard in the Supreme Court since 2014, when judges ruled on a case with oilfield services giant Halliburton.

Goldman attorney Kannon Shanmugam, a partner in law firm Paul, Weiss, wrote in court records that a loss to the bank would mean shareholders filing future securities fraud lawsuits would be able to cite “boilerplate aspirations.” that almost all businesses do. “

In a letter from a court friend, the Society for Corporate Governance wrote that the 2nd Circuit statement could have a dissuasive effect on companies seeking statements promoting diversity or countering harassment in the workplace.

The decision gives “a financial incentive to companies to remain silent on important social issues for fear that even general or ambitious statements will become the basis of allegations of crippling liability for securities fraud,” wrote Jeremy Marwell, the group’s attorney and a partner at the Vinson & Elkins company.

Financial transparency groups, on the other hand, have argued that Goldman should be held accountable.

Stephen Hall, legal director at Better Markets, who filed a brief in support of shareholders, said Goldman’s argument was “strained.”

“As we explain in the letter, the bank’s top executives knew well before the ABACUS deal that they were increasingly doing business that created strong conflicts of interest, and they also knew they needed to better manage those conflicts,” said Hall in a statement.

“Such good intentions, however, along with honest statements, were completely abandoned when the bank aggressively attempted to capitalize on the downward mortgage market at the expense of investors and ultimately shareholders in 2007,” he added.

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, said a win for Goldman would “unleash companies and introduce a wide range of misleading behaviors that could seriously harm US investors.”

The Justice Department filed a brief under President Joe Biden in February saying it did not support either party.

In the letter, the DOJ asked the judges to reverse the opinion of the 2nd Circuit and order the appeals court to re-examine the case, while giving greater consideration to Goldman’s argument that his statements were too general to affect the stock price.

Shanmugam will represent Goldman in Monday’s arguments. Shareholders will be represented by Tom Goldstein, a seasoned Supreme Court attorney known for publishing SCOTUSBlog. Sopan Joshi, a Justice Department attorney, will represent the United States.

A decision in this case is expected by the summer.

The case is Goldman Sachs Group v Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, No. 20-222.