Category Archives: Business

Man with alleged mafia links allowed to gamble in Queensland after he was barred from other casinos, inquiry hears

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Man became a top 10 player at the Star Gold Coast after being banned from Melbourne and Sydney casinos

Star Entertainment allowed a patron barred from casinos in two states and allegedly linked to the Italian mafia to continue gambling in its Queensland venues for years, an inquiry has heard.

The man became one of the top 10 players at the Star Gold Coast after he was banned from the Crown Melbourne in 2014, and New South Wales police barred him from attending The Star, Sydney, seven months later.

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Philip Hammond’s consultancy firm made almost £1m in profit

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Filings cover period ex-chancellor worked for controversial clients including Saudi government

The former chancellor Philip Hammond’s private consultancy has generated almost £1m in profits while working for controversial clients including the government of Saudi Arabia, company filings suggest.

Accounts filed this month suggest the Conservative peer has built a lucrative business since leaving government in 2019 providing “advisory services” to an array of private sector and foreign government clients.

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Qantas posts $1.9bn loss but revenue jumps 54% as air travel surges after borders reopen

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Airline’s loss halves on back of revival in travel as company announces share buyback of up to $400m

Qantas has posted a full-year underlying pre-tax loss of $1.86bn after border closures and travel uncertainty as the Covid-19 pandemic weighed on earnings.

The airline’s net loss after tax for the year to 30 June narrowed to $860m, compared with $1.7bn the year before.

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British Gas to donate 10% of profits to struggling customers

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Company’s owner, Centrica, says extra support will begin in autumn and last for the ‘duration of the energy crisis’

British Gas has announced it will donate 10% of its profits to help its poorer customers manage rising gas and electricity bills for the “duration of the energy crisis”.

Ahead of an expected rise in the price cap on energy on Friday, the company’s owner, Centrica, said it would donate £12m this autumn into an existing support fund. Grants of £250 to £750 would be given to poorer customers, and the pledge to donate 10% of profits every six months would last for the duration of the energy crisis “backdated to the start of 2022”, it added.

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Economists demand urgent action on energy bills to avert ‘catastrophe’

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Millions of vulnerable people will be harmed without radical policies to ease cost of living crisis, say experts

Physical and financial harm will be caused to millions of vulnerable families unless the government takes action to avert a winter catastrophe by cutting energy bills, leading economists have warned.

In the run-up to the announcement of the new energy price cap tomorrow the Resolution Foundation thinktank said radical policies such as price freezes, solidarity taxes or lower social tariffs were needed to prevent the cost of living crisis worsening.

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Oil firm Rockhopper wins £210m payout after being banned from drilling

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Italian government ordered to compensate UK firm after exploration forbidden within 12 miles of coast

A corporate tribunal has ordered the Italian government to pay more than £210m to the UK oil company Rockhopper as compensation for an offshore oil drilling ban.

Rockhopper’s case was launched after the Italian government banned oil exploration and production within a 12 mile-limit off Italy’s coast in 2015, scotching the company’s planned Ombrina Mare oilfield.

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Growers and immigration experts slam proposal to allow workers to be part-paid in fruit and veg

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National Farmers’ Federation wants ‘non-monetary benefits’ such as food and board to be considered in pay deals

The National Farmers’ Federation proposal to take “non-monetary benefits” into account when negotiating pay deals has attracted strong criticism from farmers and immigration experts who claim it could erode workers’ rights.

Chris Kelly, a Victorian grain grower, said the proposal was “appalling” and called it an attempt to “stretch the boundaries” of what was reasonable and fair.

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Workers’ anger at cost of living as strong as time of poll tax riots, union boss says

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Sharon Graham, head of Unite, on picket line with Felixstowe dock strikers, says people could rise up again as they did in the 1990s

British workers are at breaking point, with anger over the cost of living crisis reaching a level not seen since the poll tax riots of the 1990s, the head of one of the UK’s most powerful trade unions has said.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said frustration at pay failing to keep pace with soaring inflation was spilling over into a wave of strike action that would extend from a summer of discontent into the winter.

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Kenyan tea pickers on Scottish-run farm to pursue health issues in UK court

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Prolonged bending to gather tea for James Finlay Kenya is argued to accelerate ageing of pickers’ backs by up to 20 years

More than a 1,000 Kenyan tea pickers who say that harsh and exploitative working conditions on a Scottish-run tea farm have caused them crippling health complaints can now pursue their class action in an Edinburgh court.

Lawyers acting for the tea pickers have won an order from the court of session, Scotland’s highest civil court, telling James Finlay Kenya Ltd (JFK) to abandon attempts to block the suit through the Kenyan courts.

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Dutch state railway to sell Abellio in UK management buyout

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Abellio UK’s CEO Dominic Booth is understood to be leading buyout and will help fund deal using own money

The Dutch state railway is to pull out of the UK with a management buyout of its subsidiary Abellio, which runs four rail lines and a number of London bus routes.

Abellio, which for 20 years has run East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, Merseyrail and West Midlands Railway and employs 15,000 staff, is to be sold by the Netherlands state-run Nederlandse Spoorwegen to its UK management. The business will be operated by a new firm, to be known as Transport UK Group Limited.

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TUC picks opportune moment to call for rise in minimum wage

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Analysis: £15 an hour is ‘logical next step’ amid cost of living crisis but neither Labour or Tories likely to back campaign

• Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC

The TUC has chosen its moment well. With Britain gripped by a cost of living crisis, the umbrella body for trade unions has called for the minimum wage to be raised from £9.50 to £15 an hour as soon as possible, and by 2030 at the latest.

It is an ambitious target, as the TUC openly accepts. The minimum wage is now 64% of median earnings. A £15-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 would be 75% of median earnings, the highest of any of the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development group of rich countries.

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Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC

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Move opens new policy gap between unions and Labour party, which is reluctant to commit to specific figure under Keir Starmer

The minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible to help millions of low-paid workers struggling amid the cost of living crisis, the TUC has said.

In a move that opens a fresh policy gap between unions and Keir Starmer’s Labour party, the TUC has thrown its weight behind calls for a more ambitious legal floor on pay rates. The union body said the government needed to draw up plans to get wages rising as workers suffer the biggest hit to living standards on record.

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UK customers face ‘catastrophic winter’ as energy costs soar, says EDF retail boss

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Half of UK households could be in fuel poverty by January unless government steps in, says managing director for customers

The UK faces a “dramatic and catastrophic winter for customers” as energy prices soar, according to a stark warning from the head of EDF Energy’s retail business.

Philippe Commaret, the energy firm’s managing director for customers, called for extra government intervention, including help for households to insulate their homes and a VAT cut for small businesses as prices jump to record levels.

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Gatwick scraps capacity restraints amid return to ‘business as usual’

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Airport says it will not extend restraints beyond end of month, as it reveals first-half profit of £50.6m

Gatwick airport has said it is back to “business as usual” and will not need to extend its capacity restraints beyond the end of the month.

The company said normal operations have resumed following months of strain on airports and airlines across Europe amid a surge in demand and staff shortages as pandemic restrictions eased.

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Anti-aircraft noise campaigners to target shareholders in bid for Brisbane airport curfew

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Independent review recommends moving flight paths to alleviate noise concerns but disgruntled residents want solutions sooner

Anti-aircraft noise campaigners say they will target investors in Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) as they threaten to ramp up efforts to force a curfew and cap on flights over the city.

Aircraft noise was the defining local issue at the federal election for many who live under flight paths that emerged when the Brisbane airport opened its second runway in mid-2020, playing a role in the election of Greens MPs in three inner-city seats.

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Chinese firm Miniso apologises for Japanese branding after outcry

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Consumers complained the homeware and electronics company was not supporting its national roots

A Chinese retail company has apologised for styling itself as a Japanese store, saying it made “serious mistakes”.

Miniso, which sells homeware and electronics, used a logo and branding that appeared similar to that of the Japanese clothing firm Uniqlo. It has been under criticism from Chinese consumers who believed it was not supporting its Chinese roots.

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Ford to appeal $1.7bn verdict against it in Georgia truck crash case

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Civil suit centering on what was argued to be defective roofs came after couple killed when vehicle rolled over

The American automaker Ford Motor Co has promised to appeal a $1.7bn verdict leveled against it in connection with a pickup truck crash that killed a Georgia couple, a manufacturer representative said Sunday.

Jurors in Gwinnett county, just north-east of Atlanta, returned the verdict late last week in a yearslong civil case centering on what the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued were dangerously defective roofs on the Ford pickup involved in the crash and other vehicles like it, lawyer James Butler Jr said Sunday.

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Sydney’s Star casino ordered to pay $285,000 jackpot to disabled man after withholding 2019 win

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Judge says Star must also pay $35,000 interest, ruling casino’s failure to initially pay out win was ‘misconceived and breached the contract’ of wager

A $285,000 jackpot won by a disabled man with the assistance of a previously banned gambler at Star casino in Sydney must be paid out in full, a court has ruled.

David Joe on Friday was awarded almost $320,000 including interest in the district court, which found the casino illegally refused to hand over a jackpot won in October 2019.

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Conflict in South China Sea would threaten 90% of Australia’s fuel imports

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The country would run out within two months of a major disruption. Here are five ways to reduce vulnerability

China’s sabre-rattling about Taiwan underlines the need for Australia to be prepared for conflict in the South China Sea.

With its growing navy and air force, and the bases it has built throughout the area, China is increasingly capable of disrupting shipping lanes crucial to Australia’s exports and imports.

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Walmart expands abortion coverage for employees after Roe overturned

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Memo to staff says that new healthcare policy will also offer ‘travel support’ for workers seeking abortions

The US’s largest private employer, Walmart, is expanding its abortion coverage for employees after staying largely mum on the issue following the supreme court ruling that in June scrapped a nationwide right to abortion.

In a memo sent to employees Friday, the retail giant said its healthcare plans will cover abortion for employees “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability”. The plans will be “effective immediately”, the memo added.

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