Category Archives: Business

Global supply chain crisis fuels push to local manufacturing as China’s appeal dims

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Analysis: US to examine with fresh urgency easing reliance on China as pandemic disruptions expose global economic vulnerabilities

Everyone has a story to tell about the supply chain problems that have affected the global economy, from the beginning of the pandemic through to the disruption caused by the war in Ukraine. From shortages of Ikea furniture and Christmas turkeys, to the dearth of computer chips that sent the cost of secondhand cars soaring, the dislocation of a once smooth-running system has caused havoc in the global economy.

But while predictions about the easing of bottlenecks have come and gone without any improvement, it has become clear the disruptions of the past two years or more are spurring fundamental changes to the world economy that could have yet more profound impacts on our lives.

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Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance fails to get winding-up order thrown out

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Credit Suisse, one of Gupta’s main creditors, started insolvency hearings against GFG companies last month

Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance has failed in an attempt to have a winding-up order thrown out on the grounds that the metals group’s struggles were caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Credit Suisse, one of Gupta’s main creditors, started insolvency hearings against GFG companies last month, in a move that raised concerns for the jobs of 35,000 workers in the UK and in operations around the world. US bank Citibank has brought the claim on behalf of Credit Suisse, its client.

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Zero-growth warning for UK economy as petrol prices surge

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OECD singles out cost of living crisis as a cause of Britain’s slide down growth league table

Boris Johnson’s attempt to reset his troubled premiership has received a double blow after petrol prices had their biggest daily rise in 17 years and a leading international thinktank said the UK economy would slow to a standstill next year.

Fears that Britain is heading for a prolonged period of 1970s-style stagflation intensified amid fresh evidence of the damaging impact of the war in Ukraine on the cost of living and growth.

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England going smoke-free by 2030 depends on No 10 willpower

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Analysis: The question is not what is in the Khan review but whether its recommendations will be implement

• Plan to raise smoking age to 21 to be unveiled amid cabinet splits

While much has been made recently of the danger posed by soaring obesity levels, tobacco remains the biggest public health threat the world has ever faced.

Despite its risks being known for decades, 1.3 billion people globally still use tobacco products. They kill 8 million people every year, and more than one million of whom die from exposure to second-hand smoke.

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Youpla funeral fund collapse: minister seeks advice on compensating victims

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Stephen Jones says he needs to know scale of problem before committing to redress scheme

The new minister for financial services has asked Treasury for advice on how to compensate Indigenous people who were victims of the collapse of the funeral expenses fund Youpla.

Stephen Jones, who was sworn in last Wednesday after Labor’s election victory, stopped short of committing the Albanese government to compensating the victims, telling Guardian Australia he first needed to understand how big the problem was.

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Australia’s consumer watchdog launches legal action against Airbnb for alleged misleading prices

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ACCC is seeking compensation for Australian customers who were quoted accommodation prices in USD but charged in AUD

The consumer watchdog has launched legal action against Airbnb for allegedly misleading thousands of customers into believing accommodation prices were in Australian dollars when they were actually in US currency.

In a statement filed with the federal court, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is seeking compensation for the customers, who it claims were misled from at least January 2018 until August 2021 because the prices displayed to some Airbnb users did not mention that they were in US dollars, with reference to the foreign currency in the fine print.

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EU agrees ‘landmark’ 40% quota for women on corporate boards

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Binding targets for boardroom gender equality come 10 years after proposals first made

The EU has agreed that companies will face mandatory quotas to ensure women have at least 40% of seats on corporate boards.

After 10 years of stalemate over the proposals, EU lawmakers hailed a “landmark” deal for gender equality. As well as the legally binding target, companies could also be fined for failing to recruit enough women to their non-executive boards and see board appointments cancelled for non-compliance with the law.

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British Gas owner says windfall tax will dent investor confidence

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Centrica boss also defends Amber Rudd’s appointment to its board as a non-executive

The British Gas owner, Centrica, has warned that Rishi Sunak’s windfall tax will “damage investor confidence” as Britain attempts to build up green energy supplies.

The Centrica chairman, Scott Wheway, and its chief executive, Chris O’Shea, hit out at the chancellor’s 25% levy on oil and gas operators’ excess profits, which will be used to pay for measures to reduce soaring energy bills.

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‘We can do much more’: Albanese calls on business to look past China to opportunities in Indonesia

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Prime minister says there is significant opportunity for Australian companies in Indonesia’s growing economy

Anthony Albanese has declared Australia needs to move past its reliance on China for trade and income-generating opportunities with business needing to prioritise new strategies in Indonesia.

On his final day in Indonesia, the prime minister on Tuesday said industry could not rely on a thaw in the Australia-China relationship to restore lost opportunities.

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PM says prospect of Chinese naval base in Cambodia ‘concerning’ – as it happened

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Prime minister responds to reports of Chinese naval base in Cambodia; nation records 29 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

There’s no magic fix for inflation, Jason Clare says

Education minister Jason Clare appeared on the Today show this morning alongside Scott Emerson.

Inflation is through the roof. Wages are through the floor. We have got interest rates knocking at the door. The Reserve Bank ... have made it clear there will be a number of interest rate rises, which makes it harder for people with big rate rises already. Especially for people who are ahead in their mortgage, but if you have just signed up and the bank says you have to pay more, it will make it harder and harder.

There is no simple magic fix to this.

The market expects them to increase interest rates because we have an inflation problem in the economy and rising interest rates were something that the Reserve Bank governor flagged before the election and that is the trajectory we are on, but just because these interest rate rises are expected, it won’t make them any less difficult for a lot of people who are already confronting cost-of- living pressures.

That is the unfortunate reality. There is no point mincing words about that. Our job is the government is to make sure that after some of this near-term cost-of-living relief runs out that it is replaced by responsible long-term sustainable cost-of-living relief in areas like medicines and childcare, getting power bills down over time and getting real wages moving again.

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City donations worth £15m raise concerns over influence on UK politics

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Total donated to parties by financial firms and individuals tied to the sector over two years, report says

Concerns have been raised over the City’s influence on Westminster, after a report found financial firms and individuals tied to the sector donated £15m to political parties and gave £2m to MPs during the pandemic.

The campaign group Positive Money tallied the gifts, expenses and donations handed to MPs, peers and their parties, as well as the value of income from politicians’ second jobs, saying it contributed to finance’s “oversized influence” on policymaking.

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Ryanair forces South Africans to do Afrikaans test to prove nationality

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Airline accused of discrimination after it introduces test due to ‘high prevalence of fraudulent passports’

Ryanair is facing accusations of racial discrimination after forcing South Africans to take a test in Afrikaans before boarding flights home from the UK and Europe.

The budget airline, which claimed the “simple questionnaire” was part of efforts to tackle fraudulent South African passport holders, is facing criticism for conducting the general knowledge test in a language that is the third most used in the country and had a controversial role in the oppression of black citizens during apartheid.

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Thousands of UK workers begin world’s biggest trial of four-day week

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With work changed for ever by the pandemic, businesses are testing whether pilot represents a recognition that ‘the new frontier for competition is quality of life’

More than 3,300 workers at 70 UK companies, ranging from a local chippy to large financial firms, start working a four-day week from Monday with no loss of pay in the world’s biggest trial of the new working pattern.

The pilot is running for six months and is being organised by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the thinktank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.

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Covid fraud: how bounce back loans paid for cars, watches and even porn

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As details emerge, concerns grow about Treasury’s efforts to recover almost £5bn wrongly claimed

When Keith Hamblett, a fruit and vegetable seller from Tyne and Wear, asked his bank for a government-backed loan in the autumn of 2020, the economy was still in trouble after lockdowns, and coronavirus cases were rising.

The Covid bounce back loan scheme was a welcome relief for many smaller companies, and Hamblett received £28,000.

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Anthony Albanese vows to strengthen Australia’s ties on official Indonesia visit

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PM accompanied by senior ministers and business leaders as Labor’s regional diplomatic offensive continues amid growing China assertiveness

Anthony Albanese has declared he wants to strengthen the Australia-Indonesia relationship while deepening ties with south-east Asian nations amid escalating tensions prompted by China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia’s prime minister touched down in Jakarta on Sunday night accompanied by senior ministers and a high-powered business delegation to pursue a two-day diplomatic full court press in Indonesia.

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PwC told client it could cut Australian tax by $70m, court documents in privilege fight show

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The Australian Tax Office is auditing Brazilian meat processor JBS over tax restructure

Global accounting firm PwC told Brazilian meat multinational JBS it would save about $70m a year in Australian tax if the company followed advice that was deliberately structured as a legal service in order to prevent it being seen by authorities, according to documents released by the federal court.

PwC’s decision to provide tax advice to JBS as legal advice was legal, but the strategy backfired after the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) launched an audit of JBS.

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Neil Woodford investors sue administrators of collapsed fund

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Law firm brings group litigation aiming to recoup at least £18m on behalf of 1,500 people

Investors who lost millions in the collapse of a fund run by the former star stockpicker Neil Woodford have brought group litigation against the administrator in hopes of recouping at least £18m.

The law firm Harcus Parker lodged its first batch of claims on behalf of 1,500 savers at the high court in London on Friday morning. Woodford himself is not the target – the claim is against the administrator of his fund, Link Fund Solutions, which is accused of failing in its duty to protect investors. Lawyers expect to expand the suit to represent at least 7,000 claimants.

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Elon Musk seeks 10% job cuts at Tesla over ‘super bad feeling’ about economy

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Email to executives also calls for hiring freeze at electric car maker, which has 100,000 staff worldwide

Elon Musk is considering a hiring freeze and job cuts of up to 10% of staff at Tesla because he has a “super bad feeling” about the state of the economy, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

Tesla currently has about 5,000 job openings advertised worldwide, and 100,000 employees. The email was sent to Tesla executives late on Thursday with the subject line “pause all hiring worldwide”, and comes days after Musk ordered all employees to return to the office for at least 40 hours a week or face immediate termination.

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Elon Musk’s return-to-office threat to Tesla staff sparks Twitter spat with Australian billionaire

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Atlassian boss Scott Farquhar says he’d be happy to poach Musk’s employees for remote jobs at his software company, which allows staff to work from home

Elon Musk’s order that Tesla workers return to the office has sparked a Twitter spat with Australian billionaire Scott Farquhar, after the Atlassian CEO suggested he would be happy to poach Musk’s staff for remote working positions.

In a memo sent to staff, headlined “Remote work is no longer acceptble” [sic], the Tesla CEO wrote that “anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours a week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers”.

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Unions back minimum wage submission – as it happened

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Labor government recommends minimum wage be increased in line with inflation; Anthony Albanese says stopping new gas projects ‘doesn’t reflect the needs’ of economy; new monkeypox cases reported in NSW and Victoria; nation records at least 50 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

‘Pick up the phone and call your energy retailer’

The CEO of the Australian Energy Council, Sarah McNamara, appeared on ABC News Breakfast this morning to discuss the perfect storm the market is currently facing.

It is not a systemic market failure under way but there is a coincidence of factors occurring in the market, putting pressure on the wholesale price and that will put pressure on retail bills as well.

Most consumers won’t experience the kind of wholesale market price spikes we are seeing at the moment. That is because their retailers have hedging contracts to ensure their supply costs are smoothed out over time. However, because there is general upward pressure on prices, people are going to experience higher bills over the coming year.

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