Category Archives: Regulators

Scale of bullying and harassment of women in City ‘shocks and alarms’ MPs

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Cross-party Treasury committee says its private hearings suggest there has been no improvement in 20 years

MPs on the cross-party Treasury committee have been “shocked and alarmed” to hear about the scale of bullying and sexual harassment against women in the City of London, which suggests there has been “no improvement whatsoever” over the past 20 years.

The Labour MP and committee member Angela Eagle said private hearings held as part of the committee’s sexism in the City inquiry had raised significant concerns about the conditions women were forced to endure in the UK’s financial services sector.

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Brexit-backer Richard Desmond invokes EU law to sue Gambling Commission

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Ex-Express owner is expected to claim regulator made errors during bidding war for national lottery contract

Richard Desmond, the Brexit-backing media tycoon, is invoking EU law to sue the gambling regulator after it rejected his “fanciful” bid to run the national lottery, in a suit that could deprive good causes of millions of pounds.

The former owner of the Daily Express has vowed previously to seek damages from the Gambling Commission after his company Northern & Shell missed out on a 10-year contract, worth £6.5bn, to run the lottery from next year.

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Norfolk care home accused of waking residents with loud music to save money

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Staff at Iceni Care Home say vulnerable residents were treated as if they were ‘on a farm’ to reduce workload

Care workers at a private care home forced dementia sufferers out of bed as early as 5am and woke them by blasting loud radio music to save money, whistleblowers have alleged.

The management of Iceni Care Home in Swaffham, Norfolk, received repeated complaints about the practice this summer, as concerned staff said vulnerable residents were being treated as if they were “on a farm” in order to reduce the workload on daycare staff.

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Iceland boss hits out at parent ‘exploitation’ in baby milk market

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Richard Walker calls for price cap on infant formula as competition watchdog finds evidence of greedflation

The boss of Iceland has hit out at “exploitation” of new parents and joined calls for a price cap on baby formula after the competition watchdog found evidence of greedflation by leading manufacturers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Wednesday revealed manufacturers had increased prices by more than their costs during the inflation crisis, fattening profit margins and imposing an average 25% increase on shoppers in two years. It warned competition could be hampered because the market is dominated by two companies, Danone and Nestlé, which between them account for 85% of sales.

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‘They thought I had cancer’: painkiller banned in UK linked to Britons’ deaths in Spain

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Patients’ group says reactions to metamizole can cause sepsis and organ failure – and British and Irish people are at higher risk

A patients group representing several British victims has launched legal action against the Spanish government over claims it failed to safeguard people against the potentially fatal side effects of one of the country’s most popular painkillers, involved in a series of serious illnesses and deaths.

The drug metamizole, commonly sold in Spain under the brand name Nolotil, is banned in several countries, including Britain, the US, India and Australia. It can cause a condition known as agranulocytosis, which reduces white blood cells, increasing the risk of potentially fatal infection.

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Energy bills in Great Britain to rise by 5% from January as cap hits £1,928

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Ofgem increases minimum price for energy suppliers to charge customers after rise in global gas prices

Households will begin the new year with a 5% increase in energy bills after the regulator raised the price cap to an average of £1,928 a year for the typical gas and electricity bill.

Ofgem raised the maximum price that energy suppliers can charge their customers from £1,834 a year for the typical household between October to December, after a rise in global gas market prices after the start of the Israel-Hamas war last month.

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Collapsed hospital operator NMC Health misled markets over £3.2bn of debt, says watchdog

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FCA censures former FTSE 100 company but stops short of a fine as no funds are expected to be left

The financial watchdog has found that collapsed hospital operator NMC Health committed market abuse by understating its debts by as much as $4bn (£3.2bn).

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) censured the former FTSE 100 company on Friday for misleading the market but stopped short of fining it as no funds are expected to be left at the business once outstanding debts to creditors are paid out.

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Regulator vows crackdown on ‘squeamish’ charities rejecting donations

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Chair of Charity Commission says funds should not be rejected due to the views or preferences of donors

The head of England’s charity regulator has promised to crack down on “squeamish” charity boards who reject large cash donations from corporations or wealthy philanthropists on moral grounds.

Orlando Fraser, the chair of the Charity Commission, said the regulator may intervene where trustees have rejected or returned donations simply because their “personal worldviews or preferences” were incompatible with those of the donor.

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Private health firm Sciensus fails to fix defects that led to UK patient’s death

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Exclusive: Regulator extends part suspension of licence to July 2024 after IT blunder led to incorrect dosage of cancer treatment

A private health company paid millions by the NHS has failed to fix safety defects that led to the death of a cancer patient, the Guardian can reveal.

Three patients were hospitalised and a fourth died when they were given the wrong doses of a powerful chemotherapy drug after a catastrophic IT failure at the medicine manufacturing unit of Sciensus in April this year.

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Was crypto on trial with Sam Bankman-Fried?

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Binance and Coinbase are under investigation – but Bitcoin was trading at highest value in a year as FTX founder convicted of fraud

As the trial of the former crypto star and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried began last month, headlines declared cryptocurrency was on trial too.

But when Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of wire fraud and money-laundering conspiracy Thursday evening, after less than five hours of jury deliberations, Bitcoin was trading at its highest price in a year.

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Several hospitalised in Austria after using suspected fake diabetes drug

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Health regulator says serious side-effects possibly caused by insulin in counterfeit versions of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic

Several people have been admitted to hospital in Austria after using suspected fake versions of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic, the country’s health safety body has said, the first report of harm to users as a European hunt for counterfeiters widened.

The patients were reported to have suffered hypoglycaemia and seizures, serious side-effects that indicate that the product contained insulin instead of Ozempic’s active ingredient semaglutide, the health safety regulator Bundesamt für Sicherheit im Gesundheitswesen (BASG) said on Monday.

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Sunak’s global AI safety summit risks achieving very little, warns tech boss

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Big tech firms attempting to ‘capture’ meeting of heads of government, says Connor Leahy

One of the executives invited to Rishi Sunak’s international AI safety summit next month has warned that the conference risks achieving very little, accusing powerful tech companies of attempting to “capture” the landmark meeting.

Connor Leahy, the chief executive of the AI safety research company Conjecture, said he believed heads of government were poised to agree a style of regulation that would allow companies to continue developing “god-like” AI almost unchecked.

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KPMG boss says Carillion auditing was ‘very bad’ as firm is fined record £21m

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Jon Holt says some employees ‘simply didn’t do their job properly’ in run-up to one of UK’s biggest corporate failures

The UK boss of KPMG has said he “simply cannot defend” the firm’s auditing work on the failed government contractor, Carillion, describing it as “very bad,” as the accounting giant was hit with a record £21m fine by Britain’s accounting watchdog.

The fine comes almost six years after the outsourcing firm collapsed with £7bn debts. Carillion had been one of the UK’s biggest construction and facilities management companies, with several major government contracts.

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Childcare fees may need to be capped to curb erosion of subsidies, ACCC says

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Watchdog’s latest report says childcare in Australia is ‘relatively less affordable for households than in most other OECD countries’

Caps on childcare fees may be required to prevent providers hiking prices in response to more generous government subsidies, the competition watchdog has warned.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s second report into childcare, released on Sunday, warns that childcare in Australia is “relatively less affordable for households than in most other OECD countries”. The ACCC said there would be “substantial benefit” in the government considering “direct price controls”.

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City watchdog ex-chair says he faced ‘political pressure’ to let in crypto firms

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Charles Randell says some of the exchanges the FCA was pressed to allow to trade in the UK are now being investigated in the US

The UK’s financial watchdog came under “political pressure” to welcome crypto firms into the British market, its former chairman has said.

Charles Randell, who stepped down as chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the spring, said it was an example of the kind of influence that elected politicians have tried to exert on independent regulators.

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Two in five inpatients in England report health decline while on NHS waiting list

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New CQC report also finds growing number of patients think there are too few nurses to care for them

Two in five people admitted to hospital for planned care in England last year had their health worsen while they were on the NHS waiting list, a major survey reveals.

The finding emerged in a new report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that also found that growing numbers of patients think there are too few nurses on duty to care for them.

39% of patients would like to have been admitted sooner.

Almost one in five (18%) felt they waited “far too long” to get a bed once they had been admitted – a big rise on the 8% who said that in 2020.

Only 52% thought there were always enough nurses on duty.

Discharge was often unsatisfactory for patients, with only 48% given enough notice about when they would leave and only 45% told how their post-hospital care would happen.

Hospital care was less good than before Covid struck in 2020, patients said.

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Costa Coffee recalls sandwiches and wraps amid fears they contain stones

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Retailer warns there may be ‘small stones’ in four products from its range and urges customers to return them for refund

Costa Coffee has recalled some of its range of sandwiches and wraps after it emerged that they could contain small stones.

The chain warned customers that four of its products could be affected, and that they could pose a choking hazard if they were eaten.

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Two-thirds of sexual assault support centres in England branded inadequate

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Inspectors find failures to protect victims and risks of contaminating forensic evidence

More than two-thirds of England’s specialist support centres for victims of sexual assault or abuse have been found to have flaws in the care they offer in their most recent full inspections, the Observer can reveal.

Almost half were found to be breaching their minimum legal obligations to victims in their last full inspection, with problems ranging from a failure to deal with suicide and self-harm risks, cleaning so bad it risked contaminating forensic evidence collected for criminal cases, and failures to do adequate background checks on the staff working with victims.

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Jeremy Hunt requests inquiry into ‘debanking’ of politicians

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Chancellor wants Financial Conduct Authority to investigate whether practice is ‘widespread’

Jeremy Hunt has asked the financial regulator to urgently investigate whether banks are barring politicians from accounts on a “widespread” basis, after Nigel Farage had his account shut down by private bank Coutts.

The chancellor said everyone must be able to express their opinions and people must have access to banking.

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Asda publishes daily petrol prices online after pressure from watchdog

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Other retailers say they are working with government on implementing industry-wide comparison service

Asda has begun publishing local fuel prices at its forecourts online, becoming the first retailer to launch the service following pressure from the competition watchdog and MPs over widened profit margins at the pump.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has called on the government to introduce legislation to ensure fuel retailers provide up-to-date pricing for a new industry-wide comparison service.

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