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Kemi Badenoch heads to India this week in the hope of making progress on a trade deal, but government sources played down the prospect of an imminent breakthrough.

A source told Sky News that “tricky” issues have not yet been resolved as the talks enter their twelfth round, almost a year after a deadline announced by Boris Johnson.

Government insiders say a full trade agreement being struck in time for Rishi Sunak’s first official visit to India in September for the G20 summit is unlikely, despite “passion on both sides”.

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Police stop pre-G20 meeting after Modi criticised
Britain signs deal to join £12trn Indo-Pacific trading block

“It’s about the deal and not the date. There are several outstanding issues, and you leave the really tricky stuff until the end,” a UK government source said.

A breakthrough in talks is not impossible, insiders said, but after criticism from ministers of the UK’s deal with Australia, they say officials are not working to a deadline.

These difficult issues are understood to include relaxation of visa rules for Indian workers – as well as continued wrangling on trade standards.

Ms Badenoch will attend a meeting of G20 trade ministers in Jaipur and then head to Delhi to meet with industry minister Piyush Goyal.

While in Delhi, she will also meet the chairman of Tata group Natarajan Chandrasekaran, to discuss the company’s investments in the UK including the steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales.

A deal with India, which would be the largest bilateral post-Brexit trade deal the UK has struck, was one of Ms Badenoch’s key priorities as trade secretary. Progress is understood to have been made on agreements to reduce prohibitive import tariffs on cars and whisky – to open up opportunities for British firms.

India is predicted to be the world’s third largest economy by 2050, and the UK government estimated in 2019 that a trade deal could increase UK GDP by around £3.3bn by 2035.

MPs were critical of the announcement by Boris Johnson, who promised last April that a deal would be signed “by Diwali”, an Indian autumn festival that occurred last year in October. The deadline has long passed.

Ms Badenoch said in December, when embarking on an earlier round of negotiations, that an “amazing” deal was possible, but she had no plans to discuss if student visas were part of it. Time-limited visas for highly qualified workers were under discussion, she told a newspaper.

Her trip last year was billed as a reset for negotiations. Home Secretary Suella Braverman was said to have set back the talks when she said in an interview last year that she had “concerns about an open borders migration policy with India” and pointed out that “the largest group of people who overstay [their visas] are Indian migrants”.

Speaking to Sky News, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Pat McFadden, said his party would not rule anything out when asked if they opposed more visas being given to India.

Shadow trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “The Conservatives’ record on trade negotiations has been to deliver bad deals or no deals at all.

“They committed to delivering agreements with India and with the United States by the end of 2022, yet failed to meet their own deadline. So them trumpeting the latest round of trade talks falls far short the concrete action needed to get any deal across the line.

“India is a key partner for the UK, we have deep historical links and it is a fast-growing economy, so Labour is committed to deepening our trade links.”

Mr Sunak‘s appointment as prime minister last year triggered great interest in India, with the TV station NDTV greeting it as an “Indian son rises over the Empire”.

With both he and Narendra Modi expecting to face elections next year, a government source said there was “genuine passion on both sides” for a deal to come together.

Recent reports in India have suggested a deal is closer than UK officials say. Indian commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal claimed in the summer that it could be signed “well before” the end of the year.

It would be India’s first free trade deal with a developed country, after an interim pact with Australia last year. Long-running talks have been held with the EU and US on trade.

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A Department of Business and Trade spokesperson said: “The UK and India are committed to working towards the best deal possible for both sides. We’ve made good progress in closing chapters, and are now laser-focused on goods, services, and investment.

“While we cannot comment on ongoing negotiations, we are clear that we will only sign when we have a deal that is fair, balanced, and ultimately in the best interests of the British people and the economy.

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NAYG lawsuit against Galaxy was ‘lawfare, pure and simple’ — Scaramucci

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<div>NAYG lawsuit against Galaxy was ‘lawfare, pure and simple' — Scaramucci</div>

<div>NAYG lawsuit against Galaxy was ‘lawfare, pure and simple' — Scaramucci</div>

The New York State Attorney General’s (NAYG) recent legal action against Galaxy Digital over its promotional ties to the now-collapsed cryptocurrency Terra (LUNA) was unfair and an abuse of the legal system, says SkyBridge Capital and founder Anthony Scaramucci.

“It’s LAWFARE, pure and simple due to an obscure but dangerously powerful New York law known as the Martin Act,” Scaramucci said in a March 28 X post.

Martin Law can “open the door for abuse”

“The law has no need to prove intent, creating a low standard of proof that can open the door for abuse like this. It shouldn’t exist,” he said.

New York’s Martin Act is one of the US’s strictest anti-fraud and securities laws, allowing prosecutors the power to pursue financial fraud cases without needing to prove intent. The NAYG alleged that Galaxy Digital violated the Martin Act over its alleged promotion of Terra, with Galaxy Digital agreeing to a $200 million settlement.

According to NAYG documents filed on March 24, Galaxy Digital acquired 18.5 million LUNA tokens at a 30% discount in October 2020, then promoted them before selling them without abiding by disclosure rules. 

Scaramucci reiterated that Galaxy CEO Michael Novogratz was under the impression everything he was saying about Luna was true, as he had been deceived by Terraform Labs and its former CEO, Do Kwon.

Law, New York, United States, Terra

Source: Amanda Fischer

Meanwhile, MoonPay president of enterprise, Keith Grossman, said he had never heard of the Martin Act and had to look it up using AI chatbot ChatGPT.

“It is so broad and essentially is the essence of lawfare,” Grossman said. “Sorry you got caught in the crosshairs of it, Mike,” he added.

Related: Sonic unveils high-yield algorithmic stablecoin, reigniting Terra-Luna ‘PTSD’

The filing alleged that Galaxy helped a “little-known” token, referring to LUNA, increase its market price from $0.31 in October 2020 to $119.18 in April 2022 while “profiting in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Asset manager and investor Anthony Pompliano said he isn’t familiar with the details of the lawsuit but vouched for Novogratz, calling him a “good man” who has devoted a lot of time and money to helping others.

The Terra collapse is one of the crypto industry’s most infamous failures. In March 2024, SEC attorney Devon Staren said in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that Terra was a “house of cards” that collapsed for investors in 2022.

Magazine: Arbitrum co-founder skeptical of move to based and native rollups: Steven Goldfeder

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Elon Musk’s sale of X to xAI just made fraud lawsuit a ‘lot spicer’

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Elon Musk’s sale of X to xAI just made fraud lawsuit a ‘lot spicer’

Elon Musk’s sale of X to xAI just made fraud lawsuit a ‘lot spicer’

Billionaire investor Elon Musk has sold his social media platform X to his AI startup xAI, sparking controversy as it coincides with a US judge rejecting his bid to dismiss a lawsuit tied to the social media platform.

The transfer of ownership of X to xAI on March 28 means that the class-action lawsuit against Musk — accusing him of defrauding former Twitter shareholders by delaying the disclosure of his initial investment in the social media platform — has become “a whole lot spicer,” Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran said in a March 28 X post.

Acquisition may open up xAI to more ‘exposure’

On the same day that Musk said “xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction,” a US judge reportedly rejected Musk’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit. Cochran said it has “opened up his AI entity to exposure here too, and it’s a much bigger pie.”

Twitter, Elon Musk

Source: Grok

Musk said the deal values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, factoring in $12 billion in debt from the $45 billion valuation. He originally bought X, formerly Twitter, for around $44 billion in April 2022.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said.

Twitter, Elon Musk

Source: Bryan Rosenblatt

“This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach,” he said, adding:

“This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”

However, Cochran claimed that “Musk used his pumped up xAI stock to pay multiple times over value for X, but still take an $11B loss on the transaction.” He said that Musk is “screwing over xAI investors, and X investors” and was executed to sell user data to xAI.

Related: Elon Musk’s ‘government efficiency’ team turns its sights to SEC — Report

xAI is best known for its AI chatbot “Grok” which is built into the X platform. When Musk released it in November 2023, he claimed it could outperform OpenAI’s first iteration of ChatGPT in several academic tests.

Twitter, Elon Musk

Source: Raoul Pal

Musk explained at the time that the motivation behind building Grok is to create AI tools equipped to assist humanity by empowering research and innovation.

While Cochran said that Grok being valued at $80 billion is an “insanely dumb valuation,” crypto developer “Keef” disagrees. Keef said, “This is shady all around, but given the day, Grok is genuinely probably the top model for various tasks.”

Magazine: Arbitrum co-founder skeptical of move to based and native rollups: Steven Goldfeder

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Senators press regulators on Trump’s WLFI stablecoin

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Senators press regulators on Trump’s WLFI stablecoin

Senators press regulators on Trump’s WLFI stablecoin

Five Democratic lawmakers in the US Senate have called on leadership at regulatory agencies to consider the potential conflicts of interest from a stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto firm backed by US President Donald Trump’s family.

In a March 28 letter from the US Senate Banking Committee, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and four other Democrats asked the Federal Reserve’s committee chair on supervision and regulation, Michelle Bowman, and acting comptroller of the currency, Rodney Hood, how they intended to regulate WLFI and its stablecoin, USD1.

Government, Congress, Donald Trump, Stablecoin

March 28 letter from five Democratic senators to OCC, Fed leadership. Source: US Senate Banking Committee

The letter came as members of Congress are considering legislation to regulate stablecoins through the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act. The bill, if signed into law, would essentially allow the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Federal Reserve to oversee stablecoin regulation, including for issuers like WLFI and its USD1 coin. 

Trump also signed an executive order in February attempting to have all federal agencies — purportedly including the OCC — “regularly consult with and coordinate policies and priorities” with White House officials, giving the US president unprecedented control. 

“President Trump’s involvement in this venture, as he strips financial regulators of their independence and Congress simultaneously considers stablecoin legislation, presents an extraordinary conflict of interest that could create unprecedented risks to our financial system and to the integrity of decisions made by the [Fed and OCC],” said the letter, adding: 

“The launch of a stablecoin directly tied to a sitting President who stands to benefit financially from the stablecoin’s success presents unprecedented risks to our financial system.”

Related: Trump’s USD1 stablecoin deepens concerns over conflicts of interest

Since World Liberty launched in September 2024 — months before the US election and Trump’s inauguration — many of the firm’s goals have been shrouded in secrecy. The project’s website notes that Trump and some of his family members control 60% of the company’s equity interests. 

As of March 14, World Liberty had completed two public token sales, netting the company a combined $550 million. On March 24, the project confirmed launching its first stablecoin on the BNB Chain and Ethereum. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also pitched USD1 from the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26 with three of WLFI’s co-founders.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

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