This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. It's four thousand, I know, and there's a waiting list. I assumed five years for a bag. It's not a bag, it's a Birken The Hermes broken bag the ultimate status symbol, instantly recognizable, hard to get with stunning prices ranging from ten thousand to more than three hundred thousand dollars, and of course it's been the subject of more than one storyline on Sex in the City, Broke my Broken Sort.
So it's no surprise that French luxury brand air Mez sued for trademark infringement when a digital artist started creating and selling meta broken and f T s. They depict digital images of the broken bag covered a cartoonish colorful fur instead of leather. Is it art or a digital knockoff? The trial is the first to focus on how trademark rights will be applied to n f T s, and the outcome may have broader implications for whether n f
t s are art or commercial assets. My guest is intellectual property litigator Terence Ross, a partner caton Uchen Rosenman. Terry set the stage for us about this trademark battle over the meta Burken n f T s So Hermes has put out for a decade now a type of pope bag for lack of better word that they branded the Birkin, and the Birken has literally become iconic in the fashion world. The least expensive one I could find online sold, but most of these are far more expensive
and can run over a hundred thousand dollars each. The very high quality bag made out of only to find its materials, including esoteric things like ostrich and rocodile. The latches are made out of palladium or gold, you know, very expensive metal. The craftsmanship is absolutely the best in the world. It's a phenomenal handbag. Is to afford to spend that much for a tote bag. All the celebrities and brag about them. The Kardashians, Cardi b all have them.
And so in December of one along comes a gentleman by the name of Ason Rothschild who is involved in fashion and art and entertainment in Los Angeles, and he puts out online what he describes as Meta Birken, and they are an FT non fungible token in the digital
world of the metaverse. And for all practical purposes, they are a two dimensional image of the Birken in the form of n f T s. He embellished them in some ways trying to sell online m He finds out about this and the cease and desist letter accusing the trademark in the fringement, and when he refuses to comply with the season desist letter, Rmese files a lawsuit or trademark infringement and and other clauses of action in the United States District Card for the Southern District of New
York as a January and a year later here we are beginning of February, and that lawsuit is now in trial in New York City in front of a jury. Or mist claims that consumers were duped into believing that the n f T s were created or endorsed by her mess. So this is fundamental to trademark law in the United States. Trademark law exists to protect consumers against being duped or tricked into buying goods or services under the mistaken assumption that they are being offered by someone
other than the person actually offering. So in every trademark infringement case, it is necessary for the plant of the trademark owner. To establish what we call consumer confusion, you don't have to establish that every consumer is confused, just a significant portion of them, and most courts say that's in the range of ten to the consumers, depending on
the type of good or service. And the argument here, which there seems to be some support for, is that people assume that Hermes had entered the metaverse and was
putting out these meta berkins. There has been testimony that one Hermes executive was teaching a class at I think Columbia University in New York City and students came up to him after the class and asked about the new Hermes line meta burkins, and I think there are obviously the are Columbia University of smart kids, and you know, if they're being duped, that's the guest that the broader public probably is also being duped into thinking that somehow
Hermes is affiliated or associated with these meta berkins. Rothschild said, as quote, my meta Berkin's project as a whole was an artistic experiment to explore where the value in the broken hand bag actually lies in the handcrafted physical objects or in the image it projects. So his story has changed over time. When he first put these out in December,
he described them as a tribute to the iconic Hermes Berken. Apparently, after the lawsuit was filed and he got legal counsel, he started to describe the meta Berkins as a commentary on the fashion company's mistreatment of animals and a way to own a berkin without actually having to kill a crocodile and ostrich cow whatever the particular Berken is made
out of. So the story shifted over time, and the reason for that is that the defense strategy is trying to bring itself within the Rogers v. Grimaldi test, which is a tricky test, and provide the First Amendment protection against trade mark infringement. And we've talked about that test before. There's a case before the Supreme Court that we discussed
involving Jack Daniels and their trademark bottle. We have June talked about this before, and I think just in December when the case you're referring to, which goes by the title Jack Daniels Versus v. I P. Products, was first accepted by the Supreme Court, they granted cert cr on it. And it's one of the confusing things here clearly Jed Draycoss is the trial judge on this case. Very smart man,
very good judge. You must know that the Supreme Court is considering the Rogers e. Grimaldi test, and I would have thought, indeed, if I were the judge, I would have simply stayed this lawsuit pending Supreme Court guidance on whether the Rogers test even exists anymore, and if it does exist, what are the parameters for it. When I heard about this, I thought, who would have bought these n f T s if it was you know, these fur lined bags not shaped like a birkin, but also
about Andy Whirlhol's silk screens of Campbell soup cans. If this was a painting in a gallery of birken hambag, you know, would there be any question that it was considered art. So, June, I can't help you with the question of who it's bocking, and it's not just the meta Birken. I don't understand why anyone buys any n f T s, and I understand that some of these n f T s sold for as much as an actual Burken So I'd rather have the handbag. I agree with you as for the Campbell suit, the Andy Warhol
famous painting. That has been a trope that the defense has trotted out from a very early point in the case. They want to sell the notion that this is artwork and therefore an expressive work within the Rogers test that's protected by the First Amendment. That argument took a body blow in trial when Arakoff barred the defenses expert witness from testifying that the Meta Berkins were nothing more than
the digital equivalent of Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup painting. But that, in terms of trial strategy, was very serious blow to the defense and that they weren't going to be allowed to present this key witness and probably weren't going to
be able to talk about the Campbell Soup argument. Why did Judge Rakoff make that decision, Well, the Supreme Court number of years ago established a very tough test for allowing expert witnesses to testify uh and under that test, the disrecord judge, the trial judge has to determine that first the witness is qualified in whatever field to gran testify.
It too, that the opinion they intend to offer is um based on solid methodology and grounded in some form of scientific approach, and third that the results obtained by the expert in coming to opinion are replicable by other experts, because that's ultimately under science the way new theories are established and accepted in scientific community. Somebody does the procedure,
reports upon it in a peer review journal. Other scientists go out, they repeat the exact procedure, and they come up with the same result that therefore it becomes accepted
the scientific community. And what Judge ray Cost said here is you maybe have the qualifications and experience to offer expert testimony, but there's nothing about how you reached your opinion that's based through grounded in any scientific approach, let alone replicable by other experts, And therefore it doesn't pass the Supreme Court tests and I cannot allow it indevidence. And I thought Judge ray Costs decision was absolutely correct
in that regard. He also said that the um as experts explanation of n f T S was over complicated and that the jury appeared puzzled to join the crowd. He said it was far more confusing than helpful. So this is the most common criticism of trial lawyers that you get from juries and individual drawers. When you interviewed. The map to this fact built my career on the ability to explain very complex things in very simple ways to lay people such as jurors or judgets. That is unusual.
The vast majority of trial lawyers in the intellectual property space seemed to um fall into the trap of over explaining in very unnecessary detail how things work. And n f t s are fundamentally about digital source codes, and the lawyers and the expert they put on explained this when did the great detail about how would write source code and and about digital coding and things that were really unnecessary instead of talking about n f T s in the way that most human beings talk about it
in in terms of analogies to real world objects. You know. Of day one of the trial, of the of the evidence of the trial, it seemed like both sides suffered significant blows. The loss of the expert was a blow the defense um this dreadful approach to testifying about explaining fts by the planets expert was a mistake and a blow to their case. So neither side got off to quick starts in this trial. So I mean, what does
ers have to prove that it's confusing? In the marketplace that it's like, you know, the rip off handbags that we see on the street. What exactly is is its
burden of proof? Hear the law, the land of Act is the name of the trademark law in the United States, and it prohibits anyone from and I'm just reading here now causing confusion or deceit as to affiliation, connection, or association in or as to origin, sponsorship, or approval of their goods or services with a trademark because their services.
And so you have to show that the consuming public, which I think would be someone in the luxury goods marketplace, that the consuming public would be thinking that somehow the meta burkin was affiliated with, connected with, associated with, sponsored by, or approved by Hermes. And so what we're in here a lot of is testimony on the planet side of instances in which consumers reported that sort of confusion to them.
And the example of this one executive going and teaching at Colombian being approached by students about the Hermes new meta burkin is a classic example of the sort of consumer confusion that's required to established trademark infringement. And we'll just have to wait for the trial to go on to see how much more of that is and then it will be up to the jury to decide whether that's sufficient or not. And then there's the Rogers v. Grimaldi test, which would be a defense even if there
was consumer confusion. So if this jury believes that these n f T s are in fact art, then the defense would win. So let's just remember what the Rodgers v. Grimaldi test is all about and remind people even then. We just did an episode in the back in December. This was a lawsuit by Ginger Rogers, the famous dancer, against the producers of a movie who had titled the movie Friend and Ginger I think was the name of
Ginger referring to her. Went up on appeal of Second Circuit, and they held that the use of a celebrity name in an expressive work, if artistically relevant to that expressive work and not intentionally misleading, is protected on of the First Amendment against trademark infringement. And so it was a relatively narrow ruling. You know, it was limited to US celebrity names. It's been expanded beyond that to a broader
range of trademarks. But again, the requirement has always been in connection with the use of that trademark connection with an expressive work, if it's really artistically necessary to use that trademark, and if it's not misleading, intentionally misleading, And there's a lot of factual predicates there that and facts are determined by jury, not judges or lawyers. And so the first thing juries going to have to decide is whether or not the Meta Birkin is an expressive work.
And that's why you see the plainiff trying to push the notion that Mr ross Shaw was just about to make money here, and you see on the other side, on the defense side, the argument Mr Rothschild is an artist and this is an artistic work. I mean, they want to bring it within this Rodgers test and the requirement established it was an expressive work and artistically relevant, not intentionally misleading. And we'll just have to see how
that plays out. I mean, Judge Rakoff said on a motion to dismiss brought by the dependants that he thought Rogers v. Grimaldi applied here. I think there's a big question mark about that. The case accepted by the Supreme Court, which came out of the Ninth Circuit is the very first case in which the Rogers test was applied to a commercial product there it was a dog shoot toy, and other circuit courts have consistencies. Was said that Rogers test is not applied to commercial products. N f T
s are really a type of commercial product. And that's why this is at the intersection of technology and art. I mean, is the n f T work of art? Is it? Technology is a bunch of source code? I mean, what is it? And I think Judge Rickoff may have sort of jumped the gun by saying that the Rodgers test applies when I think there's a lot of factual
issues about that. And I really think it's going to depend on what Supreme Court says in the Jack Daniels case, because the Supreme Court good one option for them is to say, hey, you know, there is no such thing as Roger's test that was made up by a court that's not in the statute. Statute already has a fair use test that should be applied instead of this Roger's test. I don't know what's going to happen. That's why I think it's very curious to allow this case to go
forward when it all could become moot in June. Which side do you think has the better argument. Which side would you rather be representing? I always prefer repressing the side that has the money to pay me, and I doubt Mason rots Sound has that money is apparently using a new law firm that I think it's sort of
a public interest type firm called Lex Lumena. But as far as the law and the fact this is the case, the first impression, I think it's fair to say my gut reaction is that the Hermes side of the argument is a bit stronger. Particularly, I don't like the way that the defendant story kept changing over time, apparently in a sort of post hoc attempt to fit itself within the Rogers test. You lawyer up and you go, oh, you know what I should have been saying all along,
that this is artistically relevant, is an expressive work. I'm not just trying to make money less. I mean, they seem to be trying to force fit this into the Rogers test, and I not so sure that it fits. Quite Frankly, who would buy this if it didn't have the burke In name on it? If these were just called handback, would any consumer actually buy these? I mean, isn't it the association with the Birkin iconic handbag that makes it purchasable and people interested in it. I don't know.
I mean, it's an interesting question. This case to be a game change. You're right, this is a really important case to trademark law as the metaverse expands and more companies move into it. And we've heard a lot of testimony already, and her Knees has plans to move into the metaverse, and therefore this would directly impact their ability to do that. We need to probably update the Land of Act to really address this sort of issue. You're absolutely right, June. It is a cutting edge haste and
just the first of many. I think we're seeing this field. We'll keep track of what happens here, and that Jack Daniels case is going to be heard by the Supreme Court on March two, so maybe we'll learn more about their take on the Rogers test at that point. Thanks so much, Terry. That's intellectual property litigator Terence Ross, a partner at Caton Euten Rosenman. Republican state attorneys general are trying to kill a climate friendly retirement investment rule they
derived as WOKE. More than two dozen states are suing to block the rule which permits private sector employers to consider environmental, social, and corporate governance factors when choosing pension investments, and the US Labor Department is facing litigation deja vu because it has to defend its rule in a conservative Texas jurisdiction known for striking down consequential employee benefit regulations.
Will his to re repeat itself? Joining me to answer that question is Josh Lichtenstein, partner and head of the ARISCA fiduciary practice at Ropes and Gray. So, Josh tell us about this rule that's being challenged. The rule that we're talking about here, it's often referred to as an e x G investing rule, but it's really broader than that.
This is actually a rule that governs the way that produciaries to arista plans, and that's both the traditional defined benefit pensition plans and define contribution plans like a following Cave plan. It's the rule that governs the way that produciaries to those plans make all of their investment decisions.
And so the rule will cover how plan produciaries select a particular fund that they either want to invest assets in or want to make available to four along participants, and it goes to how they're supposed to determine what criteria are relevant interesting those funds, and then how they're
supposed to wait those criteria. And while people are generally thinking about this in terms of whether a plan sponsor can use E s G factors as part of their investment decision or not, it's really much broader than that, and it goes to every financial or potentially financial factor that might be utilized by a plan producer. So Texas and other Republican led states are suing, what are their allegations,
what's their cause of action? Basically it's very interesting, right, you know, And I think that this is important to sort of be clear about because there are a lot of headlines about various of these states, including Texas, having passed laws the government how their own retirement plans get invested.
And generally speaking, you know, these laws are limiting the ability to use E s G considerations for ind USTs and purposes is or are restricting the state pensions from investing with certain asset managers based on levels of participation in certain industries like the uscile fuels industry. But the Department of Labor's rule does not actually impact those government plans are making all of these headlines. The Department of
Labor's rule only impacts private pension plans. Of these are pension plans that are either maintained by a private employer or that are maintained by a union that covers employees of private employers. So it's not obvious necessarily, you know, why it would be the States that would want to bring a lawsuit like this because doesn't directly impact their plans.
You know, what the States are claiming at heart as the basis for why they should be able to sue is an alleged detrimental impact on residents of the states and on the tax receipts of the states. But there are also some private plaintiffs, you know, that are part of the suit, and there's ending might be somewhat more obvious as a plan sponsor alleging that they will be um you know, more work and more costs associated with money their plan under the rule of plan participants and
energy company. But at heart, what all of these allegations really are about. They're basically allegations that the rule put forward by the Biden administration's Department of Labor will have the effects of devoting more retirement assets towards E S G. GOLs and away from the fossil fuels industry and certain other sectors, and that that will have a detrimental impact on the states that are joining this letter, and that it would be sort of a being appropriate use of
retiring assets to pursue non retirement related goals. I know, I started this answer by saying that the duos rules do not govern the state plans, and that's correctly, it's not covering them. But it's interesting the state laws that government state pension plans are all modeled on the federal law.
They're all modeled on ARISSA, and so the Biden administration and many of these states that are involved in this lawsuit have actually themselves come to very different interpretations of the same statutory language around few Sharry standards, and so, you know, sort of separate and apart from the question about the interests of the states have in directly bringing this lawsuits, they're sort of a secondary question of who really has the right interpretation of this statutory language when
you have multiple government bodies, you know, at the state in paral level, interpreting the same language that brings up a couple of things. The Texas Attorney General Can Paxton said that this kind of investing what's hard working Americans retirement savings at risk. The rule reverses restrictions on socially conscious investing that we're adopted by the Trump administration. Can
you compare the rules for US? So, I find the allegations in the complaints to be somewhat opposite to what my read of the actual rule is, because the allegations of the complaints are basically that the Department of Labor's current rule will have the effect of making it more difficult and more costly for planned sponsors to have to evaluate different investment options, and that it will have the effect of driving more assets into e s G type funds. But I think that the reality is that the Biden
administration's rule is very neutral. I actually think it's the most neutral version of this guidance that we have seen from the Department of Labor, and the Department of Labor has been putting guidance out on this topic for decades,
literally for decades. It may have the longest history of any of you US regulator regulating the E s G type investment decisions, and the guidance has gone back and forth over time as administrations have changed, but you know, there's sort of core principles that have been in the
guidance from the start. I've really been that fiduciaries are supposed to invest solely based on what's in the best interests of the planned participants, and that you know, they're only supposed to consider sort of non economic collateral factors like the positive externalities or the social good created by E s G investing in very limited circumstances where the fiduciary otherwise can't choose between two different investment options, and so rather than flipping a coin to choose which of
the two they can select m the investing option actually considering those non economic considerations like the positive externalities. And that's what the guidance has said, with varying levels of emphasis for years. The Trump administration rule came out a little bit different because the Trump administration rule, both the proposed rule and then also the final rule, and with a viewed as being very very restrictive on the ability to consider E s G factors as pure economic factors.
And so that was really the reason why the Trump adminstrator rules having impact on the market, and why it was causing plan sponsors so much angst and worried because it made them worry that entire classes of economic data could be prohibited, I mean, part of their decision space because the Trump administration rule was so skeptical of the ability for E s G factors to the economic considerations.
And that's really strange because if you look at institutional investors behavior more broadly in the market, it's just become very common practice, as I understand it, to incorporate E s G data the same way that other financial data is incorporated as just the means of assessing different types
of risks. And so, but the Trump administration rule, you know, one of the fears that people had was that the rule was basically going to force pension plans from being able to invest into mainstream like not you know, E s G impact funds, just sort of mainstream investment funds which are incorporating E s G risk factors as part of their economic analysis the same way that they consider any other risk factor. So when you see the Attorney General saying that that this is going to create extra
risk or be harmful to plan participants. To me, that doesn't really ring true because, based on my understanding, in almost every case you know, where a plan sponsor or plan producer is going to be considering E s G factors as part of their investment process, it's because they're just behaving the same way that other similarly situated institutional investors would behave in you know, considering the full range
of economic criteria. And the other thing that I think is interesting is that you know, even within these states, right like Texas State Planned have themselves, you know, adopted E s G considerations as part of their own risk evaluation framework. And there are questions now under state law about whether they're allowed to really do that or not, But it's just a very accepted part of institutional invest things that you would consider E s G risk factors
like you consider other risk factors. We've seen the State of Texas and other Republican led states bring all kinds of suits against the Biden administration, everything from immigration to healthcare issues. So what do you think the real reason is for bringing this suit? Well, I mean, it's impossible to get inside of people's heads you know exactly why they're bringing it, right, But I think it's hard to ignore the political dimension here at E s G has
obviously become a very political topic. I all so think that part of it maybe that, as I was saying before, you know, a lot of these states have adopted or are adopting their own E s G restrictive views of investing for their state retirement plans. And because the states are operating under the same statutory language as the federal government, is here the fact that the Biden administration's rule has a very different interpretation of the way that produciary duties
should be discharged. We're making investments, you know, because the Biden administrations rule is basically from its prefuducers to choose any factor that they think is an important financial factor in the considerations, and a lot of these state rules are restricting consideration of the s G even there would be a financial factor, or her skeptical the ability of
the s G to the financial factor. So I think that there may be a motivation here from these states that if they're either able to get the Biden rule not own, or even if you're just able to sort of put the argument out there into the world that their interpretations are also sort of valid or consistent with historical interpretations of the standards, notwithstanding that they differ so
much from the Biden administration rule. Now, we could talk about the accuracy of the account that the complaints gives of sort of historic interpretations of the rule, and I'm not really sure that they get the rights to be frank, but I think that that may be part of what the motivation is here, that the states are trying to protect their own somewhat radical interpretations of the statutory language by challenging the Biden administrations more traditional interpretation of the
statutory language. This lawsuit is going to be heard by federal Judge Matthew Kismarik, and he's a trumpet pointee who's struck down Biden administration rules on immigration and health care protections for LGBT people. I mean, we've seen the fact that the Texas a g they file in a friendly venue, just as the Democratic a g s would file on a friendly venue under Trump. So how likely is it that this judge will issue an injunction blocking the rule.
I can't speak to how likely they are to issue an a junction, but I agree with you, if they've selected a very friendly venue and I wouldn't be taking this lawsuit as seriously as a threat to the rule if it were in the left friendly jurisdiction, because I really do think that the Biden administration rule is very sort of neutral, and that's the arguments put forward in the complaints about it driving more assets towards d s
G are incorrect. But I do think that the fact that's in front of this judge, and the fact that it's you know, within the Fifth Circuit, anything vision lights up being appealed to wind up in front of the Circuit, and that does create a greater risk of an adverse finding for the Department of Labor than if it was in another court. And you know, I always come back to, you know, this division of the Department of Labor that's
responsible for retirement. It had you know, an expansive rulemaking on the definition of a fiduciary under arrissa, and that was struck down by the Fifth Circuit back in And that was a pretty surprising decision to a lot of people because irrespective of what somebody might have thought of the merits of the rule the Department of Labor had gone through, it seemed like a very painstaking process and despite that very painstaking process, the rule was found to
be arbitrary and deprecias and so here again, I think that the administration has gone through an extensive process. If anything, people were wondering what was taking them so long to come out with final rule, because there was a long time that elapsed between the end of the comment period on the proposal and when the final rule came out. But you know, it all just goes to the rigor of the process and consideration of the comments became in.
But you know, I think it's very very hard to predict how how this particular court and how the Fifth Circuit, also on an appeal, will react to these types of arguments.
I will say, though, that if the deals current rule is struck down by a court on the basis of the process that they went through, that I wouldn't necessarily expect the results of that to be that we wind up back at the Trump administration's rule, because I would expect the Trump administration's rule, if that was then put back into place, to be challenged itself on similar grounds.
And I would expect that any claim that the Trump administration rule, you know, didn't go through an appropriate process would be much stronger an arguments of the Biden administration didn't go through an appropriate process because the Trump administration had very short comment periods and a much faster turnaround time between the close of the common period on the proposed rule and when they came out with a rule, and the Trump administration final rule was very different from
the proposed rule, and they had had to respond to a much larger number of individual comment letters which themselves were starkly sort of negative and disapproving of the Trump administration rule. So I think that if the Biden administration rule is struck down, then the ultimate outcome it might be a reversion to the prior law. And then again I would probably expect that we've lined up with the rule that still remains sort of neutral, not anti E
s G consideration like the Trump administration rules. So how much of a setback would it be for the Biden administration if there was an adjunction issued against this rule? Would it be a great setback? I mean, I think it would be a pretty significant set back to my mind, because the Department of Labor put a lot of resources into this rule, similar to how they put a lot of resources into the prior produciery rule which are struck down.
The agency had limited resources, r a limited number of employees, and they have a lot of responsibilities. They have a lot of rules they need to put out, and they oversee something very important, right They oversee private retirements in America, which is critically important. So you know, I think that the loss of the time that they put into this rule, plus the need to vote more resources, would be a
real set back. I will also say that I think that it would be very unfortunate for pretty much every stakeholder if the rule was struck down, because I really do believe that the Biden administration rule gets it right in a way that administrations both Democratic and Republicans have failed to do so in the past. Because it's so neutral.
It makes it so abundantly clear in my mind that plan producers are supposed to be able just to choose what they think is appropriate in making their investment decisions. That I think that's the right rule. I think that's the way things are supposed to be. That the regulators shouldn't be putting it some on the scale for or against any particular set of economic considerations, and should let
the plant producers make their choices. See, I think it would be a pretty big setback not just to the administration, but to plan sponsors, retirement didaver's, asset managers, consultants, really
everybody if the rule was to be struck down. I will also just say, you know, as another note on that point, that while the Trump administration rule was sort of wildly unpopular among basically every constituency, we had consumer advocates, trade organization drifting in the active management industry, and plan sponsors all lining up together just saying that the Trump administration rule was a harmful rule in a lot of ways, and it had a negative impact on the market of
chilling effects is the language that people use the Biden rule. The only detractors I'm aware of really of this rule elected Republican officials. I'm really not aware of any market participants or planned sponsors who are unhappy with this rule. I think it's noteworthy that when they were gathering private plaintiffs for this plan, just one plan sponsor and not like one of the most noteworthy plan sponsors in America
or anything. So I think, from my perspective, I think that having a settled, neutral rule benefits everybody and creating more chaos in the space only hurts retirees. Thanks for being on the show, Josh. That's Josh Lichtenstein, a partner in Ropes and Gray. And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get
the latest legal news Honor Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every week night at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg