Guilty as charged

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We begin the last week of September with a verdict handed down to Manchester City, while Washington and Beijing are doing a better job of building bridges than Washington and Tehran.

An independent commission has found Manchester City in breach of 114 of the 115 charges the Premier League brought against it, the Financial Times reports — a verdict against a club owned by one of Abu Dhabi's most senior royals, arriving just as UK-UAE relations settle back onto firm ground. The findings have not been published and sanctions are undetermined. Club Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who also runs Mubadala, told fans the process is ongoing “with significant elements to be completed” and repeated the club’s denial of wrongdoing.

The charges, brought in February 2023 after a multi-year investigation, cover the 2009/10 to 2017/18 seasons: Financial reporting including sponsorship revenue and related-party dealings, manager and player remuneration, compliance with Premier League and UEFA rules, and cooperation with the investigation itself. If the findings survive what is left of the process, the sanctions range from fines and points deductions to compensation for rival clubs or expulsion from the league.

Washington and Beijing cut tariffs on USD 60 bn of trade, and Chinese equities sold off anyway. Each side put USD 30 bn of non-sensitive goods forward for better treatment — US corn, wheat, sorghum, meat, dairy, seafood, logs, cosmetics and medical devices one way; Chinese coffee makers, toasters, tableware, bed linen, toys, fireworks and Christmas decorations the other — which unlocks improved access for around 30% of US exports to China. The tariff pause runs to 10 January, and China’s Commerce Ministry said this morning it gives both sides a “relatively stable and predictable policy environment.”

Also agreed: an agriculture working group meeting before year-end, 10 mn tonnes a year of US coal in 2027 and 2028, approvals for foreign financial institutions to open in China, and more direct flights. The CSI300 still slid more than 2% to a one-year low, with tech names hit by a bipartisan US push to ban Chinese components from data centres. Soybeans, LNG and oil appear on neither list.

And on the doomsday side of things: OpenAI now says governments may be among “dozens” of entities its models reached. Websites run by governments, universities and public agencies could be affected, the New York Times reports, partly because models doing research work are pointed at authoritative sources of public information. This follows the disclosure that an OpenAI agent reached an Australian government website in June, the first known case involving a public body — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had a “frank conversation” with Sam Altman and that the company “will obviously face legal consequences.”

Both governments now say they want to manage this together. The Washington summit produced a communication channel for AI incidents and a follow-up dialogue before the end of November. Yuyuantantian, a social media account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, wrote on Sunday that China and the US have the ability and the responsibility to manage AI, citing Xi on keeping the technology under human control.

Altman made a version of the same argument at the UN General Assembly, saying the most important decisions “cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone.” The same CCTV-linked account used a second post to propose that Beijing and Washington jointly counter what it called Japan’s “digital militarism,” which is a useful reminder of what tends to happen to shared-risk frameworks once they meet national agendas.

On deck for the week: A nearly final draft of the agenda is live for our upcoming EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum. We’ll be discussing what AI means for your company, your team, the economy, and your family. Some of the nation’s most senior business leaders will join us on stage to help us all think through this AI moment we’re all living through. –Salma