(TechCrunch) Fearless Fund, which provides grants and investments to women of color, has been indefinitely barred from deploying its $20,000 grant to Black women after the American Alliance for Equal Rights, led by conservative activist Edward Blum (best known as the man who helped overturn affirmative action in education), sued them over the scheme. The lawsuit against the…

(Financial Times) Concern about climate change is the most common reason for financial groups to exclude companies from their portfolios, according to research that underlines how the phenomenon continues to affect investment decisions despite a pushback against “woke” capitalism. The findings, from a coalition of non-profit environmental and sustainability groups, show that 40 per cent…

(Bloomberg) Venture capitalists probably aren’t ready for upcoming ESG rules. How sustainable is your startup? For the most part, venture capitalists can avoid the messy scrutiny and onerous rules that come with public company investing — but not always. A new spate of global rules around responsible investments could soon change the way VCs do…

(Fortune) As debate over regulating artificial intelligence roils Congress, the U.S. government will enter into a voluntary agreement with leading venture capital firms to encourage early-stage startups to develop AI responsibly. “We need to have a framework of accountability, explainability, transparency,” Hemant Taneja, managing director of venture capital firm General Catalyst and founder of the…

(Financial Times) The debate about who should regulate artificial intelligence has been very top down. Tech titans say they want elected officials to set limits. But Washington had a hard enough time keeping up with targeted advertising and surveillance capitalism. Individual US states have AI regulatory proposals — often corresponding to the big industrial use…

(Washington Post) A panel of federal appellate judges on Saturday temporarily blocked an Atlanta-based venture fund from awarding $20,000 grants to Black female entrepreneurs, writing that the program was “racially exclusionary” and “substantially likely” to violate a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in contracting. The temporary injunction issued by a panel on the U.S. Court…

(Axios) A group of venture capital firms is working with the U.S. Commerce Department to develop “responsible AI” guidelines for themselves and their portfolio companies, Axios has learned. Why it matters: This effort is designed to cover thousands of current and future startups, whereas most other AI self-regulation talks have been limited to Big Tech companies and major AI…

(NPR) Ford Motor Co. said Monday that it’s pausing construction of a $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan until it is confident it can run the factory competitively. The move comes as the company is in the midst of national contract talks with the United Auto Workers union, which wants to represent workers…

(Reuters) Deutsche Bank-controlled (DBKGn.DE) investment firm DWS will pay $25 million to settle charges over misstatements regarding its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and failures in policies designed to prevent money laundering, U.S. regulators said on Monday. DWS Investment Management Americas made “concerning” misstatements regarding its ESG investment process, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)…

(Reuters) Wall Street’s top regulator on Wednesday adopted a new rule cracking down on so-called “greenwashing” and other deceptive or misleading marketing practices by U.S. investment funds. The changes to the two decades-old Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “Name Rule” requires that 80% of a fund’s portfolio matches the asset advertised by its name. It…