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The 11 new guidelines published Monday by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are designed to thwart companies seeking to dominate their industries by buying up rivals.

They largely mirror a proposal issued in July, though the final version didn’t include a proposed guideline related to so-called vertical deals — those between companies that aren’t direct competitors but operate in the same supply chain.

The new guidelines come on the heels of two major wins by the agencies.

Earlier Monday, Adobe Inc. said it was abandoning plans to acquire Figma Inc. after clashing with regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.

This weekend, Illumina Inc. said it would sell off cancer startup Grail Inc. ending a transatlantic antitrust fight and marking the FTC’s first successful litigation to block a vertical deal.

Under President Joe Biden, the US has doubled down on efforts to block more mergers after decades of a light-touch approach by government.

Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter and FTC Chair Lina Khan have argued previous administrations were too permissive, leading to a rise in corporate concentration that has limited choices for consumers and contributed to higher prices.

-- SunPower Corp. plunged the most ever in intraday trading after it breached a credit agreement and said there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue operating.

Shares of the rooftop solar company slumped as much as 41%.

SunPower, which is majority owned by French energy giant TotalEnergies SE, said a subsidiary defaulted under its credit agreement due to a delay in third-quarter financial statements, according to a filing Monday.

If SunPower’s lenders demand immediate repayment, the company wouldn’t have enough liquidity to meet its obligations and pay its liabilities, the company said.

“As such, substantial doubt exists about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” Green Stock Selloff Deepens as Tesla Sentiment Sours: MLIV Pulse The company could be on the hook for more than $65 million, analysts at Roth Capital Partners said in a research note Monday.

“SunPower’s cash flow challenges could cascade and result in meaningful cash flow constraints” for dealers of the solar company.

A SunPower representative said the company has “already initiated constructive discussions with our lenders and equity sponsors regarding solutions that we believe will strengthen SunPower’s long-term financial position.” The company also gained access last week to $50 million from its revolving credit facility, “which will give us runway to advance discussions,” according to the statement.

The Roth note also suggested that SunPower might be having trouble paying the dealers who install its panels.

“We deeply value our partnerships with our suppliers and dealers, and we remain committed to getting up-to-date on payments to all vendors as quickly as possible,” the SunPower representative said.

Home solar companies have been battered by a slowdown in sales triggered by rising interest rates, which made it more expensive for customers to borrow to pay for panels.

The industry’s woes are part of a larger collapse in clean-energy stocks driven in part by central bank tightening.

SunPower shares have fallen more than 75% this year as the company has struggled with rising rates.

Global demand is expected to moderate amid higher borrowing costs, weak international trade and limited support from fiscal authorities, the economists wrote in the blog, provided to Reuters.

Subdued global growth is expected to continue to put downward pressure on oil prices, which account for 40% of the swings in inflation.

Meanwhile, the economists wrote, the global supply pressures that were a big factor in pushing up prices worldwide have recently receded to historic lows and are expected to also contribute to a decline in worldwide inflation.

And while the U.S. Federal Reserve last week signaled that its rate hikes are likely done and a few interest-rate cuts are on tap for next year, monetary policy in the U.S. and elsewhere looks poised to stay much more restrictive than the historical norm as central banks remain focused on bringing down inflation.

"All fundamental drivers of inflation suggest that global inflation should decline in the coming months," wrote senior economist Jongrim Ha, deputy chief economist M. Ayhan Kose, and Franziska Ohnsorge, chief economist for the South Asia region.

"Inflation is highly synchronized across countries, implying that these factors will likely drive down inflation around the world." Still, inflation remains above local targets in most of the world, and will remain so in a good 40% of inflation-targeting countries next year, forecasters say.

Fed policymakers for instance expect inflation to end next year at 2.4%; European Central Bank staff expect it to average 2.7%.

Both central banks aim at 2% inflation.

More progress will likely require more moderation in demand for services and softer labor markets, the researchers said, and geopolitical tensions could spark a resurgence in oil prices.

-- New York delivery drivers are seeing their first paychecks under a new, hard-won minimum wage mandate.

But they’re not ready to celebrate just yet.

The obligatory base rate for delivery workers of at least $17.96 an hour, which went into effect Dec. 4, has resulted in higher overall earnings in the first week, according to receipts from drivers sent to Bloomberg and posted on social media sites.

But to compensate for the added costs, Uber Technologies Inc., DoorDash Inc. and Grubhub, owned by Just Eat Takeaway.com NV, have made changes to their apps that workers say will reduce their hours and could limit earnings potential in the long run.

One of the most controversial changes concerns tipping.

As a result, both companies moved the prompt for tipping on the app to appear after customers have already placed their orders, which could mean fewer tips for drivers.

DoorDash said the move is necessary “to ensure our platform remains affordable for all New Yorkers.” Higher wages also mean the companies won’t be able to recruit as many workers, they said, which necessitates squeezing more deliveries out of fewer drivers.

Moving the tipping option will discourage drivers from “cherry-picking” deliveries based on the size of the tip.

Instead of chasing orders with the highest tips, drivers will be obligated to take any order that comes up or risk having only limited access to the platform.

Tips, which used to account for as much as half of drivers’ total weekly earnings, now make up only 5%-15%, according to the pay stubs of some drivers under the new model.

Drivers reported getting more orders that had no tips, even as their overall earnings have increased.

The new pay is much better than what it was before but is still not an ideal wage for New York, so even modest tips would help, said a driver who has been doing Uber Eats deliveries full-time for about five years and asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the company.

Prior to the minimum wage rule, delivery app workers took home $11.12 per hour with tips, or $4.03 per hour without, according to a 2022 report by the city to inform the calculation of the new pay level.

That’s well below the city’s $15 standard minimum wage.

New York and other big cities have taken measures in recent years to try to regulate and better protect workers in the volatile gig economy, where earnings, largely determined by the app companies’ algorithms, can be irregular.

Last month, Uber and Lyft Inc., agreed to pay New York drivers $328 million in back pay and institute a series of labor reforms, including offering paid sick leave and improving hiring and earnings notices.

But the regulations often come at a cost for workers as the companies seek to compensate to protect earnings.

Of the three major players in New York, only Uber, which also offers ride-hailing, has become consistently profitable.

What’s more, the minimum wage is set to rise to almost $20 an hour by April 2025 as the city expects the companies will be able to absorb the pay by having a smaller and more efficient workforce.

New York has about 60,000 delivery drivers, the city said in September.

“The city itself acknowledged that platforms could make changes to our tipping structure to help meet the significantly increased costs, which is exactly what we’re doing and therefore should come as no surprise.” A 2022 study by the National Equity Atlas on California’s Proposition 22, which also promised to establish a pay floor for drivers, found that the law not only made drivers work more hours to make equivalent earnings, it also diminished drivers’ control over their work.

That was partly because companies rescinded features such as the ability to filter out low-paying rides, undercutting promises that drivers can “be their own boss.” Uber and DoorDash fought New York’s wage mandate in court, claiming the city didn’t understand how the delivery industry works and warned the results would limit service and raise prices for customers and restaurants while allowing them to employ fewer drivers.

Uber is introducing a first-come, first-served scheduling system in January to control the number of drivers on the platform at any one time.

“The goal of the city’s rule is to have a significantly smaller, significantly better paid, more productive full time workforce relying less on tips & more on direct pay,” said Uber spokesperson Josh Gold in a social media post.

The base pay of $17.96 per hour includes some waiting time between orders, but how much idle time — which can be nearly 40% of a delivery shift — is unclear.

The law also allows for an alternative rate of $29.93 per hour only for the time that the driver is on a trip to complete a delivery, without compensating for idle time.

The companies can choose which rate to pay drivers.

Uber will make that decision on a weekly basis.

In the week ended Dec. 11, it used the $29.93 rate, as did DoorDash.

Grubhub declined to disclose details of how it intends to comply with the rule.

“Since the pay rule requires us to pay for idle time, the changes are designed to reduce idle time,” said Uber’s Gold.

“This is why delivery workers are still relying on tips in order to complement their pay, to make sure that they actually get to earn a living wage,” said Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the advocacy group Workers Justice Project.

Uber’s planned scheduling system next year will mean drivers must sign up for hourly time slots in advance.

DoorDash and Grubhub already have similar systems in place that will limit when drivers can take orders instead of choosing times spontaneously that are the most convenient to them.

Some drivers see the changes, such as the tip prompt, as a form of retaliation by the companies, said Josh Wood, an Uber Eats driver who is also an organizer for Los Deliveristas Unidos, the workers group that pushed for the minimum wage rule.

“It does dampen the effect of this minimum wage that we fought so hard to achieve, as it’s calculated based on the assumption that tips don’t change.” While Mayor Eric Adams hailed the victory on wages as a “powerful tool to hold apps accountable,” the city’s own policy documents noted platforms could make changes to “discourage or eliminate tipping” to adjust to the higher base pay.

“We know that it’s uncharted territory to regulate an industry that pays in piecemeal orders,” said Wood.

“It seems like good news so far, but it’s by no means a total victory. We have a lot of fighting and organizing to do.”

Consumers are eager to fill up their stockings, even if they don't have the means to do so.

During Cyber Week — the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday— shoppers spent $940 million using buy now, pay later (BNPL), a 42.5% jump compared to last year, per Adobe Analytics' data on e-commerce.

Consumers have been battling headwinds all year, as high interest rates, the return of student loan payments, and sticky inflation weighed on their budgets.

BNPL, which allows payments to be split into equal installments, saw record demand, even before the holiday began.

The payment solution is now being used for everything from discretionary items like apparel and furniture to gas and groceries.

For the first 11 months of the year, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 6, consumers spent a total of $64.9 billion dollars using buy now, pay later platforms, according to Adobe Analytics, up 15% from a year ago.

The global market for BNPL is projected to grow from $309.2 billion in 2023 to $565.8 billion in 2026, per GlobalData.

Shares of BNPL provider Affirm (AFRM) are up roughly 70% in the past month and 375% on the year, after the company shed more than 90% of its value between November 2021 and January 2023.

The uptick is a welcome change for the payments industry, which has had a tumultuous 2022 as the fintech boom faded and issues such as spending pullback and consumer delinquencies cropped up.

While plans typically don't charge interest for pay-in-four options, longer-term financing can have APRs of up to 36%, reported NerdWallet.

However, the industry has plenty of potential, as there are a variety of ways for firms to make money besides interest on loans.

For one, Affirm can get a cut of transactions from merchants for help facilitating the sales.

If you buy a $100 item, Affirm may only have to pay the merchant $95, pocketing the $5 difference, Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev told Yahoo Finance over the phone.

Affirm also issues a debit card that earns interchange fees and sells a portion of its loans to third-party investors, among other services.

In a few years, BNPL will only be one component of Affirm’s business, Dolev added.

BNPL can be alluring for consumers: No late fees, deferred interest, or compound interest, depending on the provider.

"These loans are closed and fixed, can't revolve, and they're safer for consumers because they always had an end, unlike credit cards, which are really designed to keep consumers revolving for a very long period of time." Affirm CFO Michael Linford told Yahoo Finance.

As credit card balances grow — it’s up 4.7% to $1.08 trillion in Q3, according to Moody's Investor Service — there will be more opportunities for the company.

Affirm underwrites loans by looking at each borrower’s financial health to ensure they can repay down the line, said Linford.

"We're in the early days of buy now, pay later adoption," said Dolev.

Revenue for the company has jumped three times since fiscal year 2020, to over $1.5 billion.

Meanwhile, AfterPay saw transactions increase 19% year over year during Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend.

Klarna also saw a 29.5% increase in orders compared to last year on Black Friday among US shoppers.

But the field is getting more competitive.

PayPal (PL) also offers buy now, pay later, while Apple (AAPL) introduced its own version in March.

Unclear path to consistent profitability, increasing competition, a slowdown in e-commerce spending, credit quality performance in case of a recession, and increasing funding costs in a higher interest rate environment are among reasons that WedBush rates the stock as underperform, according to analysts David Chiaverini and Brian Violino.

However, Affirm benefits from brand recognition and advanced underwriting abilities.

Truist Securities analyst Andrew Jeffrey sees "Affirm as the chief beneficiary of BNPL adoption, driven by enterprise customers, best-in-class tech integrations and Affirm Card [total addressable market] expansion," per a client note.

With more services like this being offered, what does this mean for consumers at the end of the day?

"More spending, increased sales, greater financial inclusion," Shannon Seery Grein, Wells Fargo economist, told Yahoo Finance over the phone.

There is "limited data" on BNPL companies, added Seery Grein.

Based on a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report in March, shoppers using the service tend to have a household income between $20,001 and 50,000, which is a "more vulnerable” population, Seery Grein said.

"If households just rely on buy now, pay later more and more, and start to piece together all the small payments … you're kind of backing into a larger balance [eventually], said Seery Grein.

The service is just the latest "tool" to get consumers to spend, Howard Meitiner, former Sephora USA CEO and current managing director at Carl Marks Advisors, told Yahoo Finance over the phone.