Financial Daily Dose 9.16.2021 | Top Story: White House Discusses Vax Mandates With Business Leaders

President Biden sat down with a range of executives from Microsoft to Columbia Sportswear to discuss the administration’s recently announced vaccine mandates - NYTimes and WSJ

Walmart announced this week that it is launching a home-delivery pilot as part of a new collaboration with Ford Motor and Argo AI (Ford’s autonomous driving affiliate). The partnership will start in Miami, D.C., and Austin and is “intended to expand over time” - NYTimes

Your latest Elizabeth Holmes trial dispatch features more testimony from Theranos lab tech and whistleblower Erika Cheung, this time describing the defamation action threats she received from then-company counsel David Boies – Law360 and WSJ

And while that’s sinking in, mull over the sexism bubbling just below the surface of the proceedings and consider Ellen Pao’s basic premise: in the “boys’ club that is the tech industry,” the “same rules don’t apply” to the few women who have made their way into the game - NYTimes

CanPac has closed a $27 billion deal to purchase fellow railway operator Kansas City Southern, as rival Canadian National Railway Co. “dropped its pursuit of the highly coveted railroad after a monthslong battle.” If it goes through, the merger would be the first big one in the industry in some 20 years “and would create the first freight rail network linking Canada, the U.S. and Mexico”  - WSJ

Former Virgil Sigma hedge fund manager Stefan Qin, who pleaded guilty to securities fraud over a Ponzi-like scheme he ran for 3 years through the fund before its “implosion in late 2020,” received a 7 ½ year sentence from SDNY Judge Valerie Caproni on Wednesday. Caproni called the 15-20 year-sentences called for by federal sentencing guidelines “draconian,” though she didn’t go with the 2 years Qin’s attorneys requested - WSJ

The Upshot adds its perspective to the case of Fed Chair Powell’s reappointment, including what it views as the vital question for the President: “What is his theory of how change happens?” - NYTimes [and Bloomberg]

Lina Khan’s FTC is rethinking guidelines “adopted just last year on how the government reviews so-called vertical mergers of companies that don’t directly compete with one another, the latest signal the agency is looking to escalate antitrust scrutiny of deal making” - WSJ

In an effort to evade state laws requiring car sales and repairs through dealerships only, Tesla has struck a deal with tribal officials in New Mexico to build its first store in a defunct casino on Nambe Pueblo tribal land - MarketWatch and DailyMail

A federal jury in Delaware sided with BASF and granted the company nearly $85 million in damages “after agreeing with claims that specialty chemical and carbon product maker Ingevity Corp. violated antitrust laws in an effort to protect its dominance in markets for vehicle fuel vapor capture components” – Law360

The SEC has awarded a whistle-blower $110 million as part of the second-largest award ever, “bringing total payments under the agency’s whistle-blower program to more than $1 billion.” Further details, per SEC practice, were not revealed - Bloomberg and Law360 and WSJ

Revisiting Dante—via three new translations—at a time when “the world hangs in the balance.” AKA, some light fare for your Thursday morning - NewYorker

Stay safe, and get vaxxed,

MDR