California federal jury "found that General Motors hid an engine defect that resulted in excessive oil consumption, leading to engine damage, stalling, and premature breakdown in tens of thousands of General Motors's 5.3-liter SUVs and light trucks. The jury returned a $102.6M verdict against GM in a class action lawsuit led by national plaintiffs' trial firm, DiCello Levitt, on behalf of owners and lessees of GM trucks and SUVs sold from 2011-2014 in California, North Carolina, and Idaho, which contained the company's Generation IV Vortec 5300 LC9 engine. The case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Filed in late 2016, the lawsuit claimed that internal GM documents showed that the company was quickly alerted to a defect in the engine's piston rings that resulted in the vehicles consuming too much oil. The excess oil infiltrated parts of the engine where it didn't belong, resulting in damage and, eventually, premature engine breakdown and failure. By 2010, GM recommended to its dealers that they clean the pistons of the vehicles in question. That solution was ineffective and company engineers and other employees recommended that the piston ring design be changed. GM made other ineffective engine design changes in 2011, but the oil consumption issues persisted until GM finally discontinued production of the engine following the 2014 model year. The jury found that GM violated the breach of implied warranty of merchantability to California plaintiffs, the breach of implied warranty of merchantability to North Carolina vehicle owners, and breached the provisions of the Idaho Consumer Protection Act. It awarded each of the 38,000 class members $2,700, bringing total damages to $102.6 million."

Apollo-backed (APO) EmployBridge and IAC (IAC) announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for EmployBridge to acquire IAC's Bluecrew business unit, the first hourly W-2 workforce-as-a-service platform. The transaction will bring together EmployBridge's industry-leading offering and scale with Bluecrew's digital-first model and technology to create a leading national workforce management platform. "The role of our industry has never been more critical as employers continue to face widespread hiring challenges across sectors," said Billy Milam, CEO of EmployBridge. "Our clients and talent increasingly expect a seamless digital experience, and with the addition of Bluecrew, we will immediately accelerate our technological transformation to capture this growing demand, while creating a flywheel to drive growth in the other areas of our business. Bluecrew brings a world-class team and a sophisticated, self-service product that will complement our own distinguished offerings, allowing us to provide an unmatched experience." Upon completion of the acquisition, Bluecrew CEO Stephen Avalone will be named Chief Platform Officer, reporting to EmployBridge CEO Billy Milam. Under the terms of the agreement, IAC will receive consideration in the form of cash and combined company stock, becoming a minority shareholder in the combined company, which, upon completion of the transaction, will generate over $4B of pro forma revenue. Apollo funds will remain the combined company's controlling shareholder. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Optex Systems "announced it has been awarded a $1.75M order as part of our continuing support to the M1 Abrams Tank Program. The products will be manufactured at the Applied Optics Center Division of Optex Systems, Inc."

In a regulatory filing, Alphabet disclosed that its SVP Prabhakar Raghavan sold 22.2K shares of common stock on October 3rd in a total transaction size of $2.18M.

In a regulatory filing, Deckers Brands disclosed that its CEO David Powers sold 3.3K shares of common stock on October 3rd in a total transaction size of $1.04M.

Blizzard Entertainment (ATVI) president Mike Ybarra said that the company's new game "Overwatch 2," which launched Tuesday, is experiencing a mass DDoS attack on its servers. "Teams are working hard to mitigate/manage," Ybarra said on Twitter. "This is causing a lot of drop/connection issues." The Fly notes that Activision Blizzard agreed to be acquired by Microsoft (MSFT) earlier this year. Reference Link

OncoSec Medical "announced a corporate restructuring intended to prioritize development of its lead clinical candidate TAVO a plasmid encoding interleukin 12 delivered by intratumoral electroporation, and extend the Company's cash runway. Oncosec is reducing its staff by approximately 45% and prioritizing clinical pipeline activities to reduce operating expenses. The Company and remaining employees will focus clinical activities in melanoma to advance TAVO-EP toward near-term data milestones of the KEYNOTE-695 clinical trial. OncoSec will provide more detail on the financial implications of the restructuring in the Form 10-K due in October. Updated guidance on the pivotal Phase 2b KEYNOTE-695 trial in metastatic melanoma, is as follows: Top-line results of the secondary endpoint, Objective Response Rate by investigator assessment based on RECIST v1.1, is expected to be announced in the fourth quarter of 2022; Top-line results of the primary endpoint, Overall Response Rate by blinded independent central review based on RECIST v1.1, is expected to be announced in the first quarter of 2023."