Astrazeneca’s shares rise, as cancer drug uptake offsets fall in sales of pharma giant’s Covid-19 vaccine February 9, 2023 Astrazeneca has posted what it claimed were “strong” financial results for the full year 2022 as surging demand for cancer medicines offset a fall in Covid vaccine revenues. Shares in Astrazeneca jumped on the news as the firm said it expects another year of double-digit revenue growth in 2023. The British firm’s strong results came [...]
Pub firm Fuller’s sues insurance giants Aviva and Liberty Mutual in fight over ‘business interruption’ claim February 9, 2023 Fuller’s pubs has filed a lawsuit against insurance giants Aviva and Liberty Mutual in a dispute over a “business interruption” claim. Fuller Smith & Turner confirmed to City A.M. it is suing the two insurers “in relation to a claim under our business interruption insurance” but refused to comment further. Fuller’s filed its claim against Liberty [...]
Three Brits arrested over £29m PPE fraud during Covid-19 February 8, 2023 The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested three Brits over claims they ran a fraudulent company that brokered $35m (£29m) worth of PPE procurement deals at the height of Covid-19. Investigators believe that one of the three individuals – a man in his 50s – set up a UK company with the sole purpose [...]
Covid loan crisis as taxpayers foot £4.4bn bill to cover losses with more still owed in arrears or defaults February 8, 2023 The cost of Covid-era loan losses to the taxpayer could total £11bn, according to figures released by the British Business Bank British banks have already been paid £4.4bn to cover losses including fraud with more in arrears or default. Of the £77bn issued across three different loan schemes, according to figures published , £4.4bn has [...]
UK unemployment figures could be three times higher than official figures with an ‘army of missing workers’ not accounted for – report January 31, 2023 The UK’s unemployment rate could be three times higher than government figures show due to widespread “hidden unemployment,” a report has warned. Official figures published by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) show there are just 1.2m unemployed people in Britain, leading to an unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent. However, the Centre for [...]
Boris Johnson paid £500K advance for memoirs – as public foot £222K bill for his partygate legal fees January 27, 2023 Boris Johnson has picked up an advance of more than £500,000 for his forthcoming memoir, as it emerged taxpayers face a bill of £222,000 for his legal fees to defend himself in the partygate inquiry. The former prime minister’s latest entry in the Register of Members’ Interests says that he “received £510,000 as an advance [...]
US-China tensions, tariff hikes and Russia sanctions force firms to look at ‘onshore’ supply chains January 16, 2023 Logistics executives increasingly believe top companies should look to bring their supply chains closer to home to avoid being impacted by trade wars, sanctions and other global shocks, a new survey has found. Supply chain managers increasingly see ‘onshoring’ and ‘near-shoring’ as a means of hedging against disruption to global trade caused by the Covid-19 [...]
Partygate: Boris Johnson joked staff were at ‘the most unsocially distanced’ gathering according to bombshell report January 11, 2023 Boris Johnson allegedly joked at a boozy No 10 leaving do during the coronavirus pandemic that staff were at “the most unsocially distanced party in the UK”. The claims will put the former prime minister under further pressure as he faces a parliamentary investigation into whether he misled MPs over the so-called partygate scandal. A spokesman for [...]
Clawback: How Barclays is chasing down Covid-19 business loan cash January 10, 2023 Barclays has teamed up with a specialist insolvency practitioner to recover money loaned to small businesses through the UK’s Covid support schemes. The British bank has joined forces with insolvency firm Manolete Partners to recover emergency loans paid through the UK government backed Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), the Financial Times first reported. The UK’s [...]
Data on firms that took UK Covid loans to remain secret, tribunal rules January 5, 2023 Information on thousands of small businesses that received taxpayer-backed loans during Covid-19 will remain confidential, a tribunal has ruled. The decision to keep the names of companies that took support during Covid a secret comes after a tribunal blocked an anti-corruption campaign group’s bid to obtain the data through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request. [...]