US Law on Conservatorship

According to the legal concept of conservatorship, a conservator may be appointed by a court to handle the affairs of someone who is deemed unable to make their own decisions. A person under conservatorship is a conservatee.

A conservator can have authority over a conservatee’s estate, and/or their daily life, health decisions, living arrangements, and more. Alternatively, there are limited conservatorships for those who are capable of making important decisions themselves.

This legal principle is established by court orders and governed by state laws that vary across state borders.

Britney’s Case

In February 2008, the superstar was put on an involuntary psychiatric hold which is when she lost control of her finances. Her father petitioned to name him and an attorney called Andrew Wallet as conservators over her “person” and $60 million fortune. The court order became permanent in October 2008. Since the action, Britney has had to ask her father to “sign off on every major decision she makes, from business to health, to voting and marriage.”

Concerns about the conservatorship began to surface in 2019 when Wallet resigned from his role, leaving Jamie Spears as the sole conservator of Britney’s estate. He stated that “substantial detriment, irreparable harm, and immediate danger will result to the conservatee and her estate if the relief requested herein is not granted on an ex parte basis.”

In 2019, Jamie stepped down from having control of her “person” due to health reasons and Britney tried to permanently replace his role with a care professional, Jodi Montgomery. 

Those that have been involved in controlling Britney’s life over the last 13 years have claimed that the agreement has been an effective tool that saved her from a low point in her life and that she could move to end it at any point. However, sealed records obtained by The New York Times revealed that she has been trying to remove the motion since 2014. In a 2015 report, a court investigator wrote that “she articulated she feels the conservatorship has become an oppressive and controlling tool against her.”

23rd June 2021

Earlier this week, the pop icon gave an emotional 23-minute speech about the treatment she has received under the action that controls her life. She told the judge over a call (due to social-distancing measures), that she has been forced to work against her will, prevented from removing her IUD, and even compelled to take lithium against her wishes. She adds, “I was told right now in the conservatorship I am not able to get married and have a baby”, two things she has explicitly stated she has a desire for.

In the court hearing, the singer drew attention to the discrepancy that she can “make a living for so many people, and pay so many people” but does not control any of her assets. Until recently, Britney has continued to perform and bring in millions of dollars, a capability that forces the arrangement into question as it is usually a last resort for people who cannot care for themselves.

This rare public court appearance was the first time the public has heard Britney speak of her struggles in detail leaving many shocked. One of the #FreeBritney movement founders told the BBC “everything she said was heartbreaking and it was even worse than I thought it was.”

Britney has declared herself “done” as she “just wants her life back.”

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The Beginning

Art dealer, Robert Simon, and his colleague, Alexander Parrish, bought a painting by an unknown artist in 2005. They are said to have paid $1,175 for it. Later, it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. Finally, Dianne Modestini was asked to restore it. Her work on the piece eventually led to the discovery that it was Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in 2011. The National Gallery even displayed it in its 2011-12 Leonardo exhibition.

The discovery increased Salvador Mundi’s value and it sold at Christie’s for $450,312,500. The price of the piece staggered everyone. It edged out the owner of Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger and the purchaser of Willem de Kooning’s Interchange.

Sudden Popularity

Some question why the painting no one remembered was sold for the breathtaking price in 2017. This is attributed to Christie’s promotional campaign. They presented Salvator Mundi as The Last Leonardo and the male Mona Lisa.

All around the globe, the painting got outstanding television coverage which pushed forward the idea of the authenticity of Salvator Mundi. It was seen as a bid to entice Asian and Middle Eastern buyers who are the market’s biggest players. For that very reason, Salvator Mundi was not promoted as a Christian figure.
To some extent, it explains why the painting got sold for such an outrageous price. However, it does not explain why the authenticity issues arose right after the purchase.

Authenticity Issues

On one side, there were findings published by Dianne Modestini that supported Salvator Mundi’s authenticity. The National Gallery displayed Salvator Mundi in 2011-2012 and Christie’s categorized it as Leonardo da Vinci’s work. On the other side, there are the Louvre findings and the recent documentary which deny the 100% connection between Leonardo and Salvator Mundi.

Following extensive scientific analysis, experts at the Louvre concluded that the painting was produced in Leonardo’s workshop but not by the Old Master himself. Art historians, Ben Lewis, Dr Carmen Bambach and Matthew Landrus, support these findings.

With contradictory views and the inability to trace the painting to Leonardo (as opposed to his studio), the attribution claims of Salvator Mundi remain unclear.

Diplomatic Issues

The whole situation caused minor diplomatic issues between France and Saudi Arabia. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, was the one who bought Salvator Mundi. However, as attribution issues arose, he delayed the delivery of the piece to the Louvre for the Leonardo exhibition and he retained it on his yacht, Serene, instead.

The recent documentary on Salvator Mundi alleged that the owner pressured the Louvre to lie about the authenticity of the painting to spare him the public humiliation of having spent $450 million on a fake. When the Louvre refused to present it as 100% Leonardo, the owner refused to loan it for their Leonardo exhibition in 2019.

However, it is said that a book was produced by the Louvre in 2019 in case the French government bent on Saudi Arabia’s wishes. The secret booklet, Léonard de Vinci: Le Salvator Mundi, affirmed that Salvator Mundi was da Vinci’s creation. However, as the painting was not loaned, the booklet was never distributed. This was conveniently omitted in the documentary.

Conclusion

Salvator Mundi is surely a sensation in the art world. A staggering value of $450m and doubtful attribution claims only feed into its fame. With no connection to Leonardo da Vinci, the painting would lose its value.

The most interesting is the question of who could be held accountable for the consequences of misattribution. The issue is not black and white. However, one lesson is to be learnt: we should think twice before spending $450m on a piece of art.

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Within the app, women have to make the first move within 24 hours of a match, or the match will no longer be there. This challenges traditional societal norms in the digital age and is arguably a large contributor to the success of the app.

In 2016, at the age of 22, Wolfe Herd had joined the Hatch labs and whilst joining she had become a part of the start-up Cardiff, which was led and managed by Sean Rad (founder of Tinder). The start-up was soon discarded, and Wolfe Herd then became a part of the development team for Tinder.

Soon after joining the team, Wolfe Herd had become the Vice President of the marketing team and was reportedly behind the name of the infamous dating app as well as being credited for advertising the app on college campuses which enabled the app to substantially increase its user base.

However, after growing tensions with company executives, Whitney resigned from Tinder in 2014. In the same year, she had also filed a lawsuit against Tinder for sexual harassment which she had detailed as “a pattern of threatening and abusive behaviour” notably from her ex-boyfriend and former boss, Justin Mateen. The case was resolved outside of the court as Tinder had denied any wrongdoing; Wolfe Herd reportedly received a settlement of $1 million.

After Wolfe Herd had left Tinder, she was not focused on developing a dating platform, however, a few months after the settlement, Andrey Andreev had contacted her about creating a new dating platform that was centred around being female-friendly.

In the same year (2014) Wolfe Herd was one of Business Insider’s 30 Most Important Women under 30; two years after she had been named as one of Ellen’s women in Tech; in both 2017 and ’18 she was on Forbes list of 30 under 30.

By the end of 2014, Wolfe had moved to Austin, Texas and had founded Bumble with the intentions of it being a female-focused dating app and by the following year of its launch, Bumble had reached 15 million conversations and 80 million matches. By 2017, Bumble had reached over 22 million users.

By the beginning of the second quarter of 2019, the parent company of Bumble – Magic Lab – was sold to The Blackstone Group whilst abdicating Andreev’s entire investment into both Bumble and Badoo. Consequently, Wolfe became the CEO of the newly inherited Magic Lab, which at the time had a valued figure of $3 billion and a user estimation of 75 million; Wolfe had acquired approximately 19% of the company’s stake ($570 million).

By 2020, Bumble had interchanged with the Magic Lab and took the title of being the parent company, and in the same year, Bumble had surpassed 100 million subscribers internationally. Fast forward to 2021, and Bumble has attained a $13 billion valuation and Whitney Wolfe Herd is the youngest self-made female billionaire after taking Bumble public. Her current net worth stands at $1.5 billion.

Conclusively, it is notable that Whitney did not have an easy introduction to the world of tech and dating platform apps. She has endured difficult work environments which have led to resignations and court settlements.

However, she has demonstrated such resilience and persistence throughout her journey and has consequently become the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. The foundations and premise of Bumble have largely aided Wolfe in her success of the dating app and facilitated the increase in the user base.

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Bezos pre-Amazon: a brief timeline

The origin of Bezos’ success story begins at Princeton University, where the future billionaire obtained Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. He graduated from Phi Beta Kappa in 1986.

After Princeton, Bezos went on to work for Fitel, a telecommunications start-up. Bezos was offered jobs at established companies Intel, Bell Labs, and Anderson Consulting but opted for the start-up. Two years later, the start-up failed, and Bezos took a job as a product manager at Banker’s Trust, which is now part of Deutsche Bank. It is reported that Bezos became the V.P. after only two years at Banker’s trust, but he grew bored and his interest in tech was beginning to take shape.

His penultimate job was at then two-year-old hedge fund D.E. Shaw. True to character, Bezos became V.P after only four years at D.E. Shaw. His responsibilities included researching new business opportunities on the rapidly growing Internet, which was held as having tremendous potential in the early 1990s.

Bezos, keen to participate in the growing internet phenomenon created a list of 20 products he could sell online before concluding that books were the most viable option. He floated the idea to D.E. Shaw who was not on board. Bezos decided to leave the hedge fund to create the company out of his garage.

Speaking on his decision to leave Wall Street in the middle of the year and to start what is now the world’s most prolific online retailer, Bezos said “I knew that I might sincerely regret not having participated in this thing called the internet that I thought was going to be a revolutionizing event. When I thought about it that way… it was incredibly easy to make the decision.”

Thus in 1994 Amazon was born and his risk paid off.

From books to everything else:

Bezos selected Seattle because technical talent Microsoft was located there. In 1997, the company went public. It began selling music and videos in 1998, at which time it also began operations internationally by acquiring online sellers of books in the United Kingdom and Germany. The following year, the company branched out and began selling goods like video games, electronics, and home improvement items.

Although Amazon has been seen to be innovative at many points throughout the company’s 27-year history, what was perhaps the turning point for the company was the use of data in 2002. In 2002, Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS provided data on website popularity, Internet traffic patterns, and other statistics for marketers and developers. Then, in 2006, Amazon grew its AWS portfolio when Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which rents computer processing power as well as Simple Storage Service (S3), which rents data storage via the Internet, were made available. That same year, Amazon started Fulfillment by Amazon which managed the inventory of individuals and small companies selling their belongings through the company internet site.

Today, Amazon has a range of products and services ranging from media (books, DVDs, CD) to beauty products and gourmet food. Amazon Web Service alone boasts 200 different products and services. Describing itself as the “world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform”. A far cry from its humble origins.

Amazon and the Pandemic: a controversial win

A second, significant milestone in the company’s success was the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout 2020, the company was able to leverage its position as a household name to establish itself as the largest online retailer in the world. In May of 2020 e-commerce sales nearly doubled. The company currently has 38% of the world’s e-commerce market, followed by Walmart which accounts for 6%.

The cause of Amazon’s success, however, has been at the cost of others. Many workers have reported poor working conditions and little social distancing in the warehouses. Amazon is also facing antitrust charges by the EU who has accused the tech giant of using business data to gain an unfair advantage over merchants operating on its platform. Although this has been a two-year ongoing investigation, the pandemic has played a part in securing a case against the tech company. According to one seller, Amazon notified sellers that during the pandemic, its warehouses would accept only household staples, medical supplies, and “other high-demand products” but it failed to explain how it determined what it would accept. The seller in question has a knitting business and stated that while some sizes of her knitting needles were accepted, others were rejected on grounds of lack of essentiality.

What’s more is that the company is vertically integrated, which further strengthens its monopoly. Much like Tesla has sought to develop and manufacture its chips, Amazon has its delivery, shipment, and packing services. These services meant that not only is the company vertically integrated, but it serves as an essential infrastructure to a host of other businesses.

Amazon’s actions during the pandemic have served to cement itself as the brand it is today and in turn made Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world. Amongst other legal controversies, the tech mogul’s cutthroat management style has also been called into question as employees reveal some of the more drastic actions the former CEO has taken to ensure maximum productivity.

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Jack Ma is the co-founder and former executive chairman of the company Alibaba Group and one of the richest men in the world. He was born in China in 1964 and he came from a poor family with his parents being simple musical performers. He studied English and worked at some point in his life as a lecturer.

In 1994, he started his first company, a translation agency, and one year later the second one, China Pages. After a friend introduced him to the world of the internet, he purchased his first computer when he was 33 and began building websites for Chinese businesses. His current net worth is about 61,4 billion dollars. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ma has donated medical supplies to the United States and to many countries on other continents proving that he is not only an investor but also a philanthropist.

Alibaba

In 1999, Ma and his team created Alibaba, a company with nine subsidiaries which are Alibaba.com, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall, eTao, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Juhuasuan, 1688.com, AliExpress.com, and Alipay. It is now one of the largest Chinese multinational conglomerations of retail, e-commerce, and technology. At first, to win the game and surpass other businesses like eBay, he launched a secret operation called Taobao in 2003 and this led to the introduction of Alipay as a secure online transaction portal. Then, eBay expressed an interest in buying Ma’s company but he refused and signed a contract with Yahoo.

Ma, except Alibaba, has also a stake in the online payment service Ant Group. He resigned from the board of Alibaba in 2019 and made only a few public appearances since then through media and philanthropic events. By 2014, Alibaba became legendary via the world’s largest IPO while the company’s net worth this year was approximately 500 billion dollars.

The controversial speech

In October 2020, Ma suggested that lots of reforms should be done in the financial system. In this speech, many officials of the regulatory organizations were present. This led to the suspension of a planned IPO of Ma’s Ant Group, by the Chinese authorities and an investigation launched against his companies. They have criticized the company for edging out rivals from the market and hurting consumer rights. From November 2020 till January 2021 nobody had seen Ma in public and some people thought he might have been placed under house arrest or otherwise detained or that he wasn’t still alive.

Ma had accused Chinese banks of operating with a ‘pawn-shop mentality. These declarations made furious the banking establishment and reached the attention of President Xi Jinping. After this, Ma and his colleagues were invited for a meeting with the regulators and soon the shares in his company fell and the Shangai Stock Exchange suspended the planned initial public offering of Ant Group two days before its launch. Some experts explained that with this move, Ma crossed a red line and that is why he disappeared till 20 January 2021. That day, he resurfaced in the form of a short video address for a charity event. In February he was, also, seen playing golf on the island of Hainan. Because of his statements, he is now keeping a low profile.

In general, the Chinese government launched an antitrust campaign and anti-monopoly investigation into Alibaba, and before some days it had fined 12 companies including Tencent and Baidu over 10 deals that are said violated anti-monopoly rules. The regulators are concerned about the technology giants’ influence over public opinion. China is trying to keep safety as its priority as it has been attacked by the USA and because of the rapid establishment of 5G all over the world.

In conclusion, Alibaba has emerged as the leader in luxury e-commerce in China. Analysts suggest that the Chinese government has to keep an eye on tech companies only in the light of political developments because China still doesn’t have strong foundations and the same control mechanisms as a country in the West.

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