Financial news

• British pet shops to be banned from selling puppies and kittens

  23-12-2018 19:54
  Crackdown will prohibit all third-party sales of dogs and cats under six months old Pet shops are to be banned from selling kittens and puppies by the government in a crackdown aimed at stopping puppy farming.Third-party sales of cats or dogs under six months old will be prohibited, meaning buyers will have to deal directly with the breeder or an authorised rehoming centre. Continue reading...
  
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• Virgin Trains gets one-year extension to run west coast mainline

  23-12-2018 19:12
  Decision to extend operation comes after failure of Virgin Trains East Coast franchiseVirgin Trains has been granted another year to run the west coast mainline, months after the government had to renationalise another line in which the rail operator had a stake.The route, connecting London with Birmingham, Chester, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh, will remain under Virgin Trains’ operation until March 2020. Continue reading...
  
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• British care company fines workers £50 for calling in sick

  23-12-2018 19:00
  Newcross Healthcare charged employees even after absence for car crash injuriesOne of Britain’s biggest providers of agency care workers has been fining staff who phone in sick £50, raising concerns that frontline employees are being forced to turn up for shifts when they are not fit for work and risk spreading illnesses to vulnerable patients.An investigation by the Guardian has uncovered evidence of cases in which Newcross Healthcare Solutions has failed to pay its employees if the
  
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• Deliveroo criticised for sacking 100 couriers days before Christmas

  23-12-2018 18:14
  Firm accused of terminating contracts over alleged fraud with no right to contest claimsDeliveroo has offered to review individual cases after being criticised for sacking more than 100 drivers days before Christmas.The food delivery company terminated a raft of driver contracts last week over alleged fraud, where food orders were marked as complete but went undelivered. Continue reading...
  
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• Drug firms preparing for no-deal Brexit told to sign 'gagging orders'

  23-12-2018 15:38
  More than 60 non-disclosure agreements in force across Whitehall as part of planningPharmaceutical organisations working with Whitehall to maintain medicine supplies in the event of a no-deal Brexit have signed 26 “gagging orders” that bar them from revealing information to the public.Figures show that 16 drug companies and 10 trade associations have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) which prevent them from revealing any information related to contingency plans draw
  
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• Netflix to overtake Sky's satellite TV subscriptions by end of year

  23-12-2018 13:56
  Streaming giant predicted to hit 9.78m UK subscribers, with its rival on 9.64m households The number of subscribers to Netflix in the UK will overtake the number of homes who are signed up to Sky’s satellite TV service by the end of the year, in a milestone moment for Britain’s growing love affair with streaming services.By the end of 2018, Netflix UK is forecast to hit 9.78 million subscribers hungry for fare from The Crown to Stranger Things, according to the consultancy Ampere Ana
  
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• Downton Abbey-style employment makes a modern-day comeback | Larry Elliott

  23-12-2018 12:20
  Equivalents of Lord Grantham and his family are hedge fund financiers and City lawyersChristmas Day telly has not been quite the same since there stopped being a Downton Abbey special to savour. For many families, it was part of the yuletide ritual to watch the soap opera centred on the lives of the Crawley family and the servants who waited upon them.Downton was an idealised high-Tory view of the world. The aristos – Lord Grantham in particular – were paternalists, seeing it as thei
  
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• US prepares to hit the wall as reckless Trump undoes years of hard work

  23-12-2018 09:00
  The president’s $1tn tax cuts gamble hasn’t worked – the House of Representatives has been lost, the economy has imploded and the stock market has tankedThe accomplishments of a US president’s first year in office can be credited to his predecessor, at least where the economy is concerned. And Donald Trump was handed the best performing economy on the planet. All the tough decisions – to refinance the banks, rescue the car companies and deflate the real-estate bubbl
  
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• Global markets are desperate for some Christmas spirit after a dismal year | Jasper Jolly

  23-12-2018 09:00
  Investors hoping for a ‘Santa rally’ look set to be disappointed, as many fear the strong run of recent times is overInvestors are entering the Christmas holidays hoping for some respite from a brutal few months in which stock markets have sold off across the world, with little sign of the customary “Santa rally” in December.The UK’s FTSE 100 is on track for its worst performance in a decade in 2018 – barring dramatic moves in the three days of trading left on
  
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• Consumer rights in 2018: from petty fines to outrageous bills

  23-12-2018 09:00
  We round up some of the worst cases in rip-off and cock-up BritainIt’s been a hair-raising year. There’s the prospect of that eye-watering “divorce” settlement required to end the relationship, the isolation as we are cut off from essential services, the panic when flights are grounded and the fallout from an unregulated free-for-all. Yes, life on the British high street, real and virtual, has been predictably alarming for Observer readers – and that’s before
  
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