Financial news

• Revealed: $39m cost of defending Australia's tobacco plain packaging laws

  01-07-2018 20:00 via theguardian.com
  Exclusive: Two years after an FOI claim was lodged, the price of the six-year fight with Philip Morris has been revealedThe cost to taxpayers of the Australian government’s six-year legal battle with the tobacco giant Philip Morris over plain packaging laws can finally be revealed, despite the government’s efforts to keep the cost secret.The commonwealth government spent nearly $40m defending its world-first plain packaging laws against Philip Morris Asia, a tobacco multinational, ac
  
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• 'We're righting a wrong,' say the artists taking on YouTube

  01-07-2018 17:36 via theguardian.com
  This week sees the final episode in the battle for the musicians fighting for a fairer dealThe music industry and YouTube are set to go head-to-head this week in a crucial vote in Brussels that could force the digital giant to pay billions of dollars in fees to popular artists such as Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Katy Perry.For years the music industry has argued that YouTube exploits the lack of legal protection around music videos being viewed on its service to pay minimal amounts to artists a
  
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• Banking's revolution

  01-07-2018 16:56 via feedproxy.google.com
  THERE is a quiet revolution going on in banking, so quiet that many will never even have heard about it. It is known as "open banking" and is designed to put people in charge of their own finances, while challenging the dominance of the big high-street banks.
  
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• Waistcoat sales up as Gareth Southgate sets trend at World Cup

  01-07-2018 14:46
  England manager is said to have sparked an increase in sales of formal wear For years, football fans have been able to emulate the look of their idols with replica shirts, but this World Cup something different is happening: supporters are rushing to buy replicas of Gareth Southgate’s England waistcoat.Marks & Spencer, which has been the official suit supplier to the England team since 2007, said demand for waistcoats has risen 35% thanks to what they say is “the Gareth Southgate
  
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• Brexit transition could be extended to help firms, Clark suggests

  01-07-2018 13:27 via theguardian.com
  Business secretary suggests border technology might not be ready by December 2022The business secretary, Greg Clark, has suggested the post-Brexit transition period could be extended to allow companies more time to prepare, as he criticised cabinet colleagues for airing their differences in public.With Theresa May’s bitterly divided cabinet preparing for a showdown at Chequers on Friday over Britain’s future relationship with the EU, Clark urged ministers to listen to business &ndash
  
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• Thameslink operator stands to lose franchise if chaos persists

  01-07-2018 13:24 via theguardian.com
  ‘Final straw’ if GTR’s revised, emergency timetable fails to stem rail disruptionThe operators of the troubled Thameslink train line may be stripped of their franchise should a revised, emergency timetable fail to stem cancellations, according to a government source.Govia Thameslink Railway, which has been backed by the Department for Transport over years of severe disruption on Southern through staff shortages and strikes, could be given notice within weeks, after the chaos re
  
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• Trump will soon find that winning a trade war is not that easy | Larry Elliott

  01-07-2018 12:43 via theguardian.com
  The US president need only look as far as Obama’s experiment with tariffs to see the problemThe trade war is getting nastier. Phase one began when Donald Trump whacked duties on imported steel and aluminium, and announced $50bn (£37.8bn) worth of tariffs on Chinese goods. Beijing retaliated dollar for dollar, while the EU targeted Levi’s jeans, bourbon whiskey and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.Harley-Davidson responded by saying it would shift production of motorbikes for the EU
  
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• Landlords react with fury to three-year tenancy plans

  01-07-2018 11:30 via theguardian.com
  Government says minimum-term proposal offers renters more security, but landlords claim most don’t want itLandlords have reacted furiously to government proposals that will give tenants a minimum three year contract – but allow them to walk away earlier if they wish.The longer tenancies, proposed by the housing, communities and local government secretary, James Brokenshire, in a consultation paper to be published on Monday, would stop landlords forcing tenants out at short notice. Co
  
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• The tiny union beating the gig economy giants

  01-07-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  A grassroots fightback is helping to win basic rights for couriers, cleaners and other workers on zero-hours contracts. And the IWGB is showing how unions can thrive againAt eight o’clock on a recent June morning, outside the University of London’s art deco Senate House, in Bloomsbury, a Latin American wake-up call is blasting away. Horns are blown, samba music bellows, empanadas and coffee are supplied, while the one-day strikers – among them cleaners, porters and receptionist
  
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• Primark success proves cheap and cheerful can still conquer high street

  01-07-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  In a struggling sector, the fashion retailer continues to open new stores successfully and is taking its formula to the USTesco founder Jack Cohen famously said the secret of success was “pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap”.And despite many retailers on the high street struggling to make ends meet – Marks & Spencer shutting stores, House of Fraser striking last-ditch deals with its landlords, Debenhams issuing a profit warning – it seems to be a formula that
  
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• Corbyn is nowhere to be found as Brexit crisis looms

  01-07-2018 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The bad news is mounting but Labour are failing to put the future of the country above narrow political interestsWhat did Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Michael Foot have in common? The answer, obviously, is many things. But my main purpose in bracketing them together today is that they were all leaders of the Labour party who overcame their doubts about UK membership of the European Union and became supporters – in Foot’s case, towards the end of his life, passionately so.I was
  
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• Brexit will make foreign manufacturers in the UK take flight

  01-07-2018 07:59 via theguardian.com
  Big firms will have to stay put for now, but future investment and research will go elsewhereBMW is unlikely to shut its Mini factory in Oxford next year no matter how disastrously the government’s Brexit negotiations conclude.Likewise, Nissan owner Renault won’t walk away from its base in the north-east – where it has built Britain’s single largest car factory – the day after the UK leaves the EU, even if departure means losing access to the frictionless trade area
  
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