London Stock Exchange gets green light for $27bn Refinitiv deal January 13, 2021 EU competition regulators have approved London Stock Exchange’s $27bn (£20bn) takeover of Refinitiv, clearing the way for a major new rival to Bloomberg. The European Commission today said its investigation had raised a number of concerns about the deal, but that these would be addressed by a number of remedies. These include LSE’s €4.3bn sale [...]
HSBC and Santander must repay over £8m in overdraft fees November 29, 2019 HSBC and Santander must refund customers to the tune of millions of pounds after failing to text customers who fell into unarranged overdrafts. HSBC twice broke a legal requirement to text customers before charging them for falling into an overdraft and is refunding £8m to 115,754 customers. Read more: TSB branch closures: Which will close [...]
Why a salary cap and luxury tax are unlikely to succeed where Financial Fair Play failed and make European football more competitive August 21, 2021 It feels symbolic that two of the biggest football transfers of the summer should precede the death knell for Financial Fair Play, the rules designed to rein in spending that now look set to be replaced with a salary cap and luxury tax. Paris Saint-Germain’s signing of Lionel Messi and Manchester City’s Premier League record [...]
China fines Alibaba a record £2bn after competition probe April 10, 2021 Chinese authorities have fined e-commerce giant Alibaba 18.2bn yuan (£2bn) over competition breaches, the largest penalty the country’s regulator has ever handed down. The fine, which amounts to about 4.0 per cent of the firm’s home country revenues, is the latest step in a crackdown on the tech firm after founder Jack Ma criticised China’s [...]
Brexit exclusive: UK firms face refused GB payments due to IBAN discrimination across EU – CityAM : CityAM October 7, 2021 As the clocks turned 2020 into 2021 the UK left the European Union after 47 years. The decision divided the country, and businesses everywhere were forced to adapt to, and comply with, new regulations. Certain industries were more affected than others, and businesses which had some sort of international presence benefited from a smoother transitioning period, [...]
Exclusive: City investors know regulation is on the horizon for buy now pay later firms October 19, 2021 The Buy Now Pay Later sector (BNPL) has seen a surge of activity since the start of the pandemic as consumers turned to online shopping and welcomed the option to purchase trending items of clothing, beauty products and other goods without parting with all of their cash up-front. More and more BNPL options, including Klarna [...]
Pub operator Ei Group reports earnings drop ahead of Stonegate deal November 19, 2019 Ei Group, the pub operator being bought by Slug and Lettuce owner Stonegate, reported that earnings dropped this year after the disposal of 354 venues. The figures Revenue was up 4.17 per cent from £695m to £724m, in the 12 months to 30 September. Read more: Competition watchdog to examine £1.3bn tie-up between Stonegate and [...]
Swiss stocks given all clear to resume trading in London February 3, 2021 Shares in Swiss companies will once again be traded on UK exchanges after Switzerland’s financial regulator gave the move the all-clear this morning. Since June 2019, a spat between the EU and Switzerland has meant that the bloc’s exchanges have been banned from Swiss shares. But with the UK no longer a member of the [...]
How firms are using data-driven diversity March 16, 2022 This article first appeared in ICAS’ CA magazine. It may feel like the diversity and inclusion agenda has gathered momentum in recent years. But while there has been a lot of talk, the data suggests that the pace of change at the top of British business has actually been slow. A July 2021 report by the [...]
Water giants on collision course with Ofwat ahead of crunch ruling October 27, 2019 Some of the water industry’s most prominent investors are said to have complained to the Treasury that regulator Ofwat is becoming politicised. Investors that control suppliers including Anglian, Yorkshire, Affinity, South East and South Staffs reportedly met with officials this month, in a bid to pre-empt Ofwat’s final publication of its financial demands for the [...]