Financial news

• EU signs landmark trade deal with Vietnam

  30-06-2019 15:55 via theguardian.com
  Agreement to cut 99% of tariffs is first with developing country in Asia and swiftly follows deal with South American blocThe European Union has signed a landmark free trade deal with Vietnam, the first of its kind with a developing country in Asia, paving the way for tariff cuts on almost all goods.The EU has described the deal as “the most ambitious free trade deal ever concluded with a developing country”. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Amazon's Jeff Bezos pays out $38bn in divorce settlement

  30-06-2019 15:52 via theguardian.com
  Ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos will become world’s fourth-richest woman but has promised to give away half of awardThe world’s biggest divorce settlement will be made official this week as Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos hands over a 4% stake in the online shopping giant to his soon-to-be ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos.A judge is expected to sign legal papers transferring the Amazon shares – worth $38bn (£29bn) – into MacKenzie Bezos’s name. It is by some distance the largest
  
  Read more

• Serious Fraud Office faces questions over decision to drop bribery investigation

  30-06-2019 14:19 via theguardian.com
  SFO halted inquiry into Unaoil while another firm implicated the consultancy in a US federal bribery probeThe Serious Fraud Office is facing questions over its decision to drop an investigation into a trio of executives accused of paying multimillion-pound bribes in the energy industry.On Tuesday, it was revealed that the SFO had terminated its investigation into the three businessmen, who formerly owned and controlled the consultancy firm Unaoil. The SFO declined to say why. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• 'Things are changing so fast': the benefits and dangers of robots in the UK workplace

  30-06-2019 14:04 via theguardian.com
  Politicians, trade unionists and experts have set out to learn more about the new industrial landscape“We are under the threat of closure all the time,” says Andrew Peters without a hint of fear in his voice.As though repeating himself for the hundredth time, the managing director of Siemens’ Congleton factory in Cheshire explains his workers are battling for survival. Competition in this historic market town at the foothills of the Pennines, where lush green hills rise to the
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Network Rail bids for parts of British Steel

  30-06-2019 13:49 via theguardian.com
  Firm makes bid to safeguard supply of track rails as up to a dozen entities make moves for stricken steelmakerNetwork Rail has made a bid for parts of British Steel ahead of a deadline for offers for the company, which collapsed into liquidation last month putting 4,500 jobs at risk.Potential bidders had until the end of Sunday to make offers. About a dozen were thought to have expressed interest in buying all or parts of the business, after 80 parties made preliminary enquiries. Continue readin
  
  Read more

• Corporate debt could be the next sub-prime crisis, warns banking body

  30-06-2019 12:31 via theguardian.com
  Group for central banks says borrowing by firms with low credit scores is growing alarmingly, especially in US and UKCorporate borrowing poses a danger to the global financial system and could trigger a crisis in the same way US sub-prime mortgages sparked the 2008 banking crash, the organisation that represents the world’s central banks has warned.Citing the US and the UK as the worst offenders, the Bank of International Settlements said in its annual health check of the global financial
  
  Read more

• Johnson says he is prepared to increase public borrowing

  30-06-2019 11:27 via theguardian.com
  Favourite to be PM is challenged over how he would invest in services and cut taxesBoris Johnson has said he would be willing to increase public borrowing to pay for infrastructure projects as he was pressured over how a government he led could invest heavily in new schemes and public services while also cutting taxes.Johnson, the overwhelming favourite to replace Theresa May as prime minister in just over three weeks, said that while there was fiscal “headroom” to spend more, if nee
  
  Read more

• Under new rules for selling solar power, is it still worth it?

  30-06-2019 09:00 via theguardian.com
  With a big outlay and a six-month wait before the launch, do you invest now, wait or skip it?Householders keen to install solar panels are weighing up their options after the government unveiled new plans for the way people will be paid for supplying renewable energy. The scheme, which will be launched in January next year, works in a different way to its predecessor – and is likely be less lucrative. With solar photovoltaic (PV) panels – the most popular domestic option – cost
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Catch-22 and the real and immediate danger of Brexit

  30-06-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  The increasing absurdity of the Tory party’s march towards isolation would need Joseph Heller to do it justice‘There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.” As explained in Joseph Heller’s great novel, one had to be crazy to want to do combat duty, but “anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy
  
  Read more

• The Observer view on the urgent need to reform the water industry | Observer editorial

  30-06-2019 07:00 via theguardian.com
  If the private sector cannot develop a water system fit for a dry future it could be time to reconsider the business modelA smelly sewage works in Southampton was the least of Southern Water’s misdemeanours. Almost all of the record-breaking £126m fine imposed on the company last week by Ofwat, its regulator, was attributed to the dirty, untreated water that flowed from the taps of as many as 4.3 million residents.Southern’s managers, who covered up leaks at treatment plants fr
  
  Read more

• PPI claim deadline: FCA urges consumers to act NOW to reclaim - average payment is £1,700

  30-06-2019 05:01 via feedproxy.google.com
  PPI - or Payment Protection Insurance - has been mis-sold to some people in recent years. It’s possible to claim back mis-sold PPI, but the deadline for doing so is fast-approaching.
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!