Financial news

• Serious Fraud Office drops 10-year corruption inquiry into Kazakh miner ENRC

  24-08-2023 20:19
  
  UK agency also shuts other high-profile cases including Rio Tinto investigationThe UK’s Serious Fraud Office has abandoned a criminal investigation into the Kazakh mining group ENRC, ending a decade-long corruption inquiry mired in controversy.The SFO updated its website on Thursday with a notice that it had closed the case after concluding there was “insufficient admissible evidence” to prosecute the company. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Carbon credit speculators could lose billions as offsets deemed ‘worthless’

  24-08-2023 20:00
  
  Many credits in the voluntary market going unused, with study finding some offsetting could make global heating worseCarbon credit speculators could lose billions as scientific evidence shows many offsets they have bought have no environmental worth and have become stranded assets.Amid growing evidence that huge numbers of carbon credits do nothing to mitigate global heating and can sometimes be linked to alleged human rights concerns, there is a growing pile of carbon credits equivalent to the
  
  Read more

• US sues Elon Musk’s SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees

  24-08-2023 19:50
  
  Justice department alleges rocket company refused to consider asylum seekers and refugees for jobs because of citizenship statusThe US justice department on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and asylum seekers.SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status” from at least September 2018 to
  
  Read more

• OnlyFans owner pays himself $1.3m a day from UK-based adult content site

  24-08-2023 19:36
  
  Company’s 2022 accounts show pre-tax profits up by 22% to $525m, while Leonid Radvinsky took $338m in dividends The owner of OnlyFans, the mostly pornographic subscriber platform, paid himself $338m (£267m) in dividends last year as the UK-based company made pre-tax profits of $525m.Leonid Radvinsky, 41, the site’s Ukrainian-American owner, is the sole shareholder in the company, which was founded by the Stokely family in Essex in 2016. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Elliott Management paid UK staff average of £1.3m each in 2022

  24-08-2023 18:39
  
  Figure is similar to 2021 after profits, pay pot and headcount increase at world’s largest activist hedge fundThe US hedge fund and notorious activist investor Elliott Management paid its 124 UK staff a combined £160m last year, after a 10% rise in annual profits.The pay pot is higher than the £137m shared by employees the previous year, and comes after its UK operation, Elliott Advisors UK, reported pre-tax profits up by a tenth to £10m. Turnover for the firm, which made
  
  Read more

• Travelodge hotels sold out for Taylor Swift’s 2024 UK Eras tour

  24-08-2023 18:23
  
  Hotel chain says rooms in Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff already fully booked ahead of pop star’s summer performancesTaylor Swift fans have already booked out hotels near several of the venues for the UK leg of the Eras tour next summer.The budget hotel chain Travelodge said all of its hotels in Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff were sold out for the days around the concerts in June 2024. A number of its hotels near Wembley Stadium – where Swift will perform on six nights in June an
  
  Read more

• A letter has laid bare the scale of poverty in Britain – but will Rishi Sunak be moved? | Polly Toynbee

  24-08-2023 17:33
  
  Life’s essentials cost £120 a week, far short of what benefits provide. The cash is there, but tax cuts may be higher on the prime minister’s agendaThere never was an official description of dereliction and destitution. The social security “safety net” is whatever sum the government of the day pays, with no definition of what it’s supposed to cover. Even though Labour’s tax credits greatly raised the level, no minister ever got trapped into defining the
  
  Read more

• A US growth-inflation ‘soft landing’ is vital to solving the global economy puzzle | Mohamed El-Erian

  24-08-2023 16:46
  
  Fed’s performance over next six months is key but challenges may be bigger than many analysts expectThe global economy this year is full of puzzling surprises. Japan’s GDP growth is currently surpassing that of China, and July retail sales in the US were double the consensus forecast, despite the US Federal Reserve pursuing one of the most concentrated rate-hiking cycles in decades.In the UK, wage growth has risen to an annualised rate of 7.8% and core inflation has remained high, ev
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Mary Earps goalkeeper shirts to go on sale after Nike U-turn

  24-08-2023 16:45
  
  Company to sell ‘limited’ England, US, France and Netherlands jerseys in response to outcry after Women’s World CupThe England goalkeeper Mary Earps’ penalty save in the Women’s World Cup final was one of the most nail-biting moments of the tournament and there was a public outcry from fans when Nike refused to sell replicas of her green jersey.But that shouldn’t be the case for much longer after the global sports firm responded to a backlash by agreeing to re
  
  Read more

• UK retailers plan to cut jobs as spending slump deepens, says CBI

  24-08-2023 16:11
  
  Barometer of retail activity falls for fourth consecutive month to lowest level since March 2021Business live – latest updatesBritain’s retailers are planning to axe jobs and cut investment over the coming months as signs emerge of a deepening slump in spending by consumers, the latest snapshot of high street and online activity has shown.In yet another sign of the impact of high interest rates on household budgets, the CBI said its barometer of retail activity had fallen for a fourt
  
  Read more

• Sunak to hold AI summit at Bletchley Park, home of Enigma codebreakers

  24-08-2023 14:26
  
  Global summit on AI safety planned for autumn, as UK tries to cement image as being home of ‘transformative technologies’Rishi Sunak’s global summit on the safety of artificial intelligence this autumn will be hosted at Bletchley Park, the home of top-secret codebreakers during the second world war.The first major gathering on the technology will bring together governments, leading AI firms and experts to discuss how its risks can be mitigated through internationally coordinate
  
  Read more

• Why did chip-maker Nvidia’s profits soar and is it living in a tech bubble?

  24-08-2023 14:00
  
  Firm’s relentless focus on AI paid off in spades, with analysts optimistic of further successBusiness live – latest updatesThe stock market darling on everyone’s lips is Nvidia, which makes the processing chips that power everything from home computers to industrial machinery to cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology.On Thursday, the company stunned Wall Street with results that blew the roof off analysts’ expectations, reporting $13.5bn in quarterly profits, $2b
  
  Read more

• Record number of Britons heading into winter with energy debt, says charity

  24-08-2023 12:55
  
  Number seeking help with debts in first half of 2023 up 17% compared with last year, says Citizens AdviceBusiness live – latest updatesA record number of people in the UK are heading into the winter with energy debts as they borrow to pay bills, Citizens Advice has said, as it urged the government to step in with fresh support for gas and electricity bills.The charity says 2023 has been its busiest year, with the number of people struggling with debts and the amount of money they owe &ldqu
  
  Read more

• Tell us: do you live in a UK city with a low emission zone?

  24-08-2023 10:44
  
  Ahead of the Ulez expansion, we want to hear about people’s experiences of low emission zones in the UKLondon’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) — a plan to fight toxic air in the city — will on Tuesday expand to Greater London.The policy, drawn up under Boris Johnson’s mayoral term and extended by Sadiq Khan in 2021, sees the oldest, most polluting vehicles pay a daily charge starting at £12.50. The majority of cars are exempt. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• BT has cut off my mother’s care home

  24-08-2023 08:00
  
  The landlines are not working and the manager can’t get hold of anyone at the companyMy 93-year-old mother is in a care home in Truro. Two weeks ago, I was talking to her on the phone when I got cut off. I phoned back and was informed that BT was working on the line. The care home’s landlines are still not working and the manager tells me that it is almost impossible to get hold of anyone from BT. The lack of service has effectively isolated the residents. My mother suffers from deme
  
  Read more

• Ofcom urged to investigate Virgin Media broadband contracts

  24-08-2023 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Terms and conditions allow firm to raise bills at any time and by an unlimited amount, Which? claimsVirgin Media is facing calls for the telecoms watchdog to urgently investigate the legality of its broadband contracts, under which it can increase bills at any time and by unlimited amounts.The consumer champion Which? has concluded that Virgin Media’s terms and conditions may amount to unfair contract terms and could be in breach of the Consumer Rights Act. It has written to Ofcom calling
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!