Category Archives: Business

UK’s best known retailers top list of firms fined £7m over pay breaches

Posted on by

WH Smith, Marks & Spencer and Argos among more than 200 firms that failed to pay workers legal minimum wage

Some of the UK’s best known retailers including WH Smith, Marks & Spencer, Argos and LloydsPharmacy are at the head of a list of more than 200 companies collectively fined £7m for failing to pay the legal minimum wage.

The businesses were also forced to pay out £4.9m to about 63,000 workers left out of pocket after violations of the rules were uncovered by inspectors at HMRC, varying from breaches related to asking workers to pay for aspects of their uniform to paying the incorrect apprenticeship rate.

Continue reading...

Disgraced Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn sues former employer for $1bn

Posted on by

Executive who jumped bail in Japan and escaped to Beirut has filed claim in Lebanese court

Carlos Ghosn, the disgraced former Nissan executive who jumped bail in Japan and fled to Lebanon, has filed a $1bn lawsuit against his former employer.

Ghosn, the mastermind of a carmaking alliance with Renault that also later involved Mitsubishi Motors, was detained in Japan in November 2018 amid allegations of financial misconduct involving a plot to deliberately underreport his remuneration.

Continue reading...

Soft power: Saudi Arabia flexes muscles with launch of new Gulf airline Riyadh Air

Posted on by

Launch comes amid resurgent demand for air travel after end of Covid lockdowns

As the deafening roar of an F35 fighter jet washes over the Paris air show, Tony Douglas allows himself a moment of nostalgia: he was formerly responsible for the UK government agency charged with buying the planes.

Now he is in charge of a different aviation proposition, leading the launch of a new commercial airline belonging to the Saudi Arabian state.

Continue reading...

Missing Titanic submarine: US and Canadian teams search for tourist vessel

Posted on by

Race against time to find craft that went missing on Sunday with five people onboard, including British billionaire

US and Canadian rescue teams are scrambling to search for a tourist submarine that went missing during a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck with a British billionaire among the five people onboard.

Hamish Harding is the chair of the private plane firm Action Aviation, which said he was one of the mission specialists on the OceanGate Expeditions vessel reported overdue on Sunday evening about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland.

Continue reading...

Grocery inflation in Great Britain eases to 16.5% but remains high

Posted on by

Supermarket inflation slows to lowest rate this year, although households still under pressure

Supermarket inflation in Great Britain has eased to its lowest level this year but remains high, forcing people to change how they eat and cook as household budgets are strained, according to the data firm Kantar.

Grocery inflation declined to 16.5% in the four weeks to 11 June, down from 17.2% last month and a record 17.5% in March. It remains at its sixth-highest level since the financial crisis in 2008, Kantar said.

Continue reading...

NDIS agency scrambles over risk of leaked sensitive client information in HWL Ebsworth hack

Posted on by

National Disability Insurance Agency seeking information after 1.1TB of law firm’s data was posted to dark web this month

The agency responsible for the national disability insurance scheme is scrambling to learn whether sensitive client information related to appeal cases has been caught up in a large cybersecurity hack on the law firm HWL Ebsworth which has represented the agency.

The Russian-linked ALPHV/Blackcat ransomware group said in a post on the dark web in late April that data from the law firm had been hacked. Earlier this month, the group published some of the data it claimed to have stolen – later established to be 3.6TB worth of data, of which 1.1TB has been posted.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

CBI frozen out of meetings with other leading UK business lobby groups

Posted on by

Efforts to regain place at intersection of business and government after scandal complicated by refusals to engage

The Confederation of British Industry has been frozen out of regular meetings with other leading business lobby groups, hampering its fight for survival after a sexual misconduct scandal.

Formerly Britain’s leading voice for business, the CBI has been battling to overhaul its culture and regain trust after multiple allegations of misconduct were made by female employees, including two who said they were raped. Those allegations resulted in an exodus of members from John Lewis to Aviva and led Labour and the Conservatives to cut ties with the organisation.

Continue reading...

AstraZeneca considers spinning off its China business

Posted on by

UK’s largest stock-market-listed firm weighs up Hong Kong or Shanghai listing to shield it from geopolitical tensions

AstraZeneca is considering spinning off its business in China and listing it in Hong Kong or Shanghai to shield the multinational drugmaker from geopolitical tensions.

Britain’s largest stock-market-listed company has drawn up the plans in attempt to protect its business from the fallout from increasing tensions between China and the US and its allies.

Continue reading...

Labour shadow minister meets CBI boss, suggesting boycott may be ending

Posted on by

Jonathan Reynolds and new DG Rain Newton-Smith hold ‘warm’ meeting after party cut ties due to sexual misconduct scandal

The Labour party has moved closer to ending its boycott of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), in an early sign that steps to rehabilitate the crisis-hit UK lobby group may be working.

Labour on Sunday confirmed its shadow business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, had met the new CBI director general, Rain Newton-Smith, last week.

Continue reading...

EU countries accuse TfL debt collectors of breaching data protection laws over London penalty fines

Posted on by

Belgium and Dutch vehicle licensing agency say citizens’ details obtained unlawfully to issue driving fines

Two EU countries have accused Transport for London’s debt collection agency of breaching data protection laws to obtain the names and addresses of citizens in order to issue fines for driving in the capital.

Motorists from across Europe have been hit with penalties, some totalling thousands of pounds, for driving in London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez). Penalty notices are being sent to foreign motorists who enter the capital without pre-registering their vehicle, and the Guardian has revealed hundreds of drivers have been fined despite driving emissions-compliant cars.

Continue reading...

Sunak, Hunt and homebuyers brace for an economic Big Wednesday

Posted on by

The midweek inflation bulletin could be the most significant piece of government data published this year

This Wednesday will mark the longest day of the year and not long after the sun comes up the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish its latest cost of living bulletin. To say the data is eagerly awaited is an understatement. There is unlikely to be a more significant piece of official data released in the current parliament.

The reason is simple. Despite raising interest rates 12 times since December 2021 in an attempt to quell upward price pressures, inflation is proving harder to shift than the Bank of England imagined.

Continue reading...

UK homeowners face huge rise in payments when fixed-rate mortgages expire

Posted on by

More than 2.4m deals are ending in 2024, raising fears of financial timebomb

More than a quarter of UK homeowners on a fixed-rate mortgage are heading for sharp increase in monthly payments before the next election, in a financial timebomb that will rock the Conservatives just as voters prepare to choose the next government.

With the Bank of England expected to increase its key interest rate next week for the 13th time, figures shared with the Guardian by UK Finance, the banking industry trade body, show more than 2.4m fixed-rate homeowner deals will expire between now and the end of 2024.

Continue reading...

Ban on two-for-one junk food deals to be delayed for two more years

Posted on by

Rishi Sunak says he is suspending anti-obesity measure to avoid restricting consumer options during cost of living crisis

The government is to delay its planned ban on two-for-one junk food deals – a key anti-obesity measure – for another two years amid the cost of living crisis.

Rishi Sunak will shelve the expected measure targeting multi-buy promotions on products high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) to avoid restricting consumer options while prices remain high.

Continue reading...

Death of Berlusconi turns spotlight on to fortune he left behind

Posted on by

Billionaire had an estimated wealth of $7.4bn and left no indication of who would take over after his death

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s longest-serving prime minister since the second world war, was a billionaire who had investments in everything from property and banking to the media and football. His death, at the age of 86, raises questions over the fate of an empire that was closely entwined with a political career that spanned almost three decades.

Berlusconi had an estimated fortune of $7.4bn (£5.8bn) as of April 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. But he left no indication, at least not publicly, of who would take over his empire after his death.

Continue reading...

Tesco boss: food inflation has probably peaked but prices will stay high

Posted on by

Ken Murphy says higher costs of grocery imports because of Brexit are partly to blame for rising prices

The chief executive of Tesco has said food inflation has probably peaked but warns that prices are likely to stay high.

Ken Murphy, the head of the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, said the price of milk, bread, cooking oil and some vegetables such as broccoli had come down this month but inflation continued in other essentials, including rice and potatoes, as aweather issues and locked-in increases in the price of labour and energy continued to bite.

Continue reading...

‘I’m left with nothing’: Nigerians feel brunt of economic shakeup

Posted on by

President Tinubu’s policies please foreign investors, but a devalued currency and soaring petrol prices mean ‘national sacrifice mode’ is widely unpopular

Nigerians are feeling the strain as their new president pushes through a series of unpopular policies that have earned him praise from foreign investors.

Bola Tinubu, who was sworn in on 29 May, has surprised many observers by taking a running start to his tenure of Africa’s most populous country. In little over two weeks he has banished a longstanding petrol subsidy, ejected the country’s central bank governor and ended restrictions on the rate of the naira, Nigeria’s currency.

Continue reading...

UK government urged to outline plans to help with winter energy bills

Posted on by

Report by cross-party MPs criticises previous ‘lack of urgency in addressing market failures’

MPs have urged the government to set out its plans to protect households from high energy bills this winter as they said about 1.7 million people, including some of the most vulnerable groups, had been left waiting too long to receive previous support.

The public accounts committee (PAC) said that although schemes were introduced quickly, the government “did not have the bandwidth” to make sure help reached all groups in a timely fashion.

Continue reading...

Beyoncé concert in Stockholm blamed for unexpectedly high Swedish inflation

Posted on by

Start of superstar’s world tour ‘seems to have coloured inflation’, says economist, after tens of thousands of fans flocked to the capital for concerts

Swedish inflation fell below 10% in May, official statistics showed, but was still higher than expected with some analysts suggesting superstar Beyoncé had tipped the scales.

Consumer prices rose by 9.7% in May year-on-year, down from 10.5% in April, the first time inflation has come in under 10% in over six months.

Continue reading...

EU regulator orders Google to sell part of ad-tech business

Posted on by

Competition commission accuses firm of favouring its own services to detriment of rivals

The EU has ordered Google to sell part of its advertising business, as the bloc’s competition regulator steps up its enforcement of big tech’s monopolies.

The competition commission said it had taken issue “with Google favouring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers”.

Continue reading...

Pyrex and Instant Pot maker files for bankruptcy protection in US

Posted on by

Instant Brands, which blames rising interest rates for financial problems, will continue to serve retailers

The maker of Pyrex kitchenware and the Instant Pot pressure cooker has filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming rising interest rates for its financial difficulties.

Instant Brands, controlled by the private equity investor Cornell Capital, said late on Tuesday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas, as it tries to restructure liabilities of as much as $1bn (£790m).

Continue reading...