Michel Barnier tells EU that UK has ‘blocked’ Brexit trade deal progress November 6, 2020 The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier reportedly told the bloc’s diplomats that the UK has “blocked” progress in key areas of trade deal talks. At a confidential meeting yesterday afternoon, Barnier briefed representatives from the EU’s 27 member states, saying that “fundamental differences” remain between the two sides, Sky News reported. According to [...]
Building business resilience for a better future November 5, 2020 The standout figure from EY’s latest profit warning analysis is the 34% of companies that have issued a profit warning in the first nine months of 2020. That’s over a third of companies that have materially downgraded their earnings forecasts at least once, compared with 23% in the whole of 2001 and 18% in 2008. [...]
US giant Caterpillar to axe 700 jobs in Northern Ireland November 5, 2020 US manufacturing giant Caterpillar has announced that it will cut 700 jobs across its Northern Irish operations. It is understood that the majority of the redundancies will affect workers at its plant in Larne in Country Antrim. The losses will come from plant workers and logistics staff at the Larne factory, as well as management [...]
HMRC urges traders to prep for end of Brexit transition period to avoid disruption November 5, 2020 HMRC has sent 250,000 letters and emails to traders urging them to act now to avoid Brexit-related disruption when the transition period comes to an end. New border controls will come into force at the end of the transition period on 1 January 2021. Some customs processes are complicated and can take several weeks to [...]
Chancellor’s furlough extension ‘the right call’, say business bodies November 5, 2020 Business bodies have welcomed the chancellor’s extension of the furlough scheme until the end of March as “the right call”, but warned there was “more to do” to help businesses through winter lockdowns. Rishi Sunak today announced additional financial support for employees across the UK unable to work amid national lockdowns. The government will pay up [...]
Bank of England goes big with £150bn stimulus amid second lockdown November 5, 2020 The Bank of England will inject £150bn more stimulus into the UK economy to help it handle a new England-wide lockdown, and predicted that growth would go into reverse in the final three months of the year. The big increase in bond-buying – which came as the BoE left interest rates untouched at 0.1 per [...]
The polls failed again, and blindsided businesses are crying out for better corporate intelligence November 5, 2020 So Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States. Or Donald Trump will squeeze home (though, at the time of writing, that seems less likely). It has been a nerve-wracking 48 hours for anyone who watches US politics — and one of the reasons for that is that commentators and pollsters got [...]
Car sales fall again in worst October in nine years November 5, 2020 Sales of new cars declined again last month in the weakest October in nine years for the UK car market. New figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that sales dropped 1.6 per cent to 140,945. More than half of the decline came as a result of Wales’ two week “firebreak” [...]
EU finance ministers agree to set up anti-money laundering body for bloc November 4, 2020 Finance ministers from European Union member states have agreed to establish an EU body to fight money laundering across the bloc. At a meeting held today, the council of finance ministers expressed their support for the creation of the new supervisory body, first proposed by the EU Commission in May. The ministers also gave their [...]
‘Markets got what they really did not want’: The City reacts to knife-edge US election November 4, 2020 Investors didn’t want this to happen. They had bet on a Joe Biden win in the US presidential election that they hoped would unleash a big stimulus, but found themselves rapidly adjusting their positions as the race became too close to call. Bonds and the dollar rose as investors sought safety. US stocks were volatile, [...]