Patricia Arquette's Oscar Speech for Equal Pay: Your Top Headlines for Monday

1) Patricia Arquette stole the (otherwise conventional) show at the Oscars with a passionate plea for equal pay for women. "Time to have wage equality once and for all," she exclaimed. There is a particular context for Arquette's speech: the email leak at Sony Pictures revealed a stark pay gap between male and female execs at the studio, as well as lower pay for female actresses. On American Hustle for instance, a film with an ensemble cast of equal importance, male stars received 9% of profits, female stars only 7%. And Sony's Columbia Pictures division has two co-presidents – one a man, one a woman – with the same job descriptions and a million-dollar pay gap between them. ("People should know what they're worth" and not accept less, was former studio head Amy Pascale's response.) And it's not just Hollywood of course.

2) HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver had his own Swiss bank account sheltering $7.6 million from tax authorities. That's the latest revelation from a trove of documents published last week that showed how HSBC's Swiss operations actively encouraged tax evasion. So much for Gulliver's claims that the illegal behavior was the fact of a local branch not living up to the UK headquarters' standards. Gulliver is scheduled to present the bank's annual report today.

3) Greek negotiators have been scrambling all weekend to put together a list of reforms Athens proposes to enact in exchange for a four-month loan extension. That's the condition of the agreement reached with European creditors on Friday and the deadline is today. The proposals would "make the Greek civil service more effective and combat tax evasion,” Minister of State Nikos Pappas said.

4) Drugmaker Valeant is buying Salix Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth $14.5 billion. "Valeant is a serial acquirer, using an advantageous tax structure to make purchases and then slashing research and development costs to boost profits," writes Bloomberg. A nice way to say Valeant is an expert at tax inversions.

5) Pebble has resorted to the oldest trick in the marketing handbook: the smart watch maker slapped a countdown – and no explanation – on its homepage. A new device to compete with the upcoming Apple Watch maybe?

6) Don't be surprised if Rachel sounds a bit higher pitched next time you catch a rerun: cable channels are speeding up shows to squeeze in more commercials. They can shave off up to three minutes that way. That's what you call scraping the bottom of the revenue barrel. There's now on average 15.8 minutes of commercials per hour on cable TV, up from 14.5 five years ago. And maybe 10 the last time I watched cable TV.

Every morning, we share the top headlines professionals need to know about right now. Share with your network, read and discuss — and let us know what we missed in the comments below.