Could group action claims explode in post-coronavirus crisis litigation boom? May 7, 2020 Lawyers and litigation funders are increasingly looking at group action lawsuits in England and Wales as a way of holding major companies to account. After the last financial crisis litigation spiked as contractual counterparties fell out and consumers and shareholders pursued banks for wrongdoing. The litigation landscape in the English legal system has changed over [...]
O2 and Virgin Media confirm merger to create £31bn telecoms player May 7, 2020 O2 and Virgin Media have confirmed a merger to form a multi-play broadband giant that would be valued at a combined total of £31.4bn. The pair pledged to invest £10bn into the UK over the next five years while saving £6.2bn through combined synergies, or £540m a year five years after the merger completes. But [...]
BT scraps dividend as Covid-19 and full-fibre rollout hit profit May 7, 2020 BT today scrapped its dividend as the coronavirus crisis and full-fibre broadband costs weighed on profit. The telecoms giant said it had taken the “exceptionally difficult” decision to suspend the payout until 2022, when it will be reduced 50 per cent to 7.7p per share. It came as BT posted a two per cent dip [...]
Boohoo’s understanding helps it avoid lockdown tears May 6, 2020 Fashion retailer Boohoo operates its namesake brand, menswear edition Boohooman, PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, Miss Pap and high street brands Karen Millen and Coast. Despite its many names Boohoo follows an online-only model, meaning that the nationwide lockdown in response the coronavirus crisis has led to minimal disruption. Boohoo’s chief financial officer reported that customer acquisition [...]
Norman Lamont: Britons not prepared for the economic hardship ‘around the corner’ May 6, 2020 Former chancellor Lord Norman Lamont has warned the government’s furlough scheme has made people complacent and unaware of the coming economic hardship. Lamont, chancellor under Conservative Prime Minister John Major, said the scheme had lulled “people into a false sense of security” and that many do not realise “their jobs have disappeared or are about [...]
Work will change, but the office is here to stay May 5, 2020 As the coronavirus crisis continues to unfold and much of the population adjusts to remote working, many are heralding the end of the office as we know it and trumpeting working from home as the ‘new normal’. But just how viable is the prospect of an office-free future? History tells us that any vision of [...]
Real Estate: COVID-19 may permanently quarantine inflexible leases May 5, 2020 Real estate leases have long represented a point of disagreement between accountants and financial analysts. This disagreement was the primary reason why the London-headquartered International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) went separate ways in finalising lease accounting standards. Figure 1. Lease Accounting Survey Report (October 2013) For a [...]
Office Politics: Six ways the world of work will change May 4, 2020 It has been months now since knowledge-workers worldwide began working from home in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. At first, businesses were understandably focused on the short and medium-term fallout. Now that we can begin, cautiously, to anticipate a post-pandemic world, it’s time to look at the situation we’ve found ourselves in, the adjustments we’ve [...]
Back to work: The office will change forever May 4, 2020 After over a month of lockdown and with the Prime Minister announcing we are “passed the peak” of the virus, the UK is starting to consider what comes next. Understandably in such a complex situation, concrete details of phase two remain sparse. However, for many ministers, members of parliament, businesses and the public, the burning [...]
Trade minister Conor Burns resigns after ‘intimidating’ member of the public in dispute May 4, 2020 Trade minister Conor Burns has resigned after it was found he had abused his position to “intimidate a member of the public” in a dispute concerning his father. An investigation upheld a complaint that Burns, a long-standing ally of Boris Johnson, used parliamentary stationery to “deal with a purely personal family interest and that Mr [...]