Business
Rachel Reeves said the UK government is closing in on a trade pact with six Gulf nations, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as its next major deal.The chancellor told the BBC the agreement would be the government’s “next deal” as it looks to boost trade ties following Brexit.Reeves suggested economic growth would be strengthened through recent trade deals with the United States, the EU and India, all inked within a fortnight.
Britain is in a better place than any other country in the world in terms of deals with those countries.
The first deal and the best deal so far with the US, we’ve got the best deal with the EU for any country outside the EU, and we’ve got the best trade agreement with India.
The chancellor also said the UK was “not looking to have trade negotiations with China”.In early April, foreign secretary David Lammy said Labour was continuing discussions with the Gulf over a trade deal, which were started by the previous Conservative government.Reeves’ comments come after a new trade deal with Brussels was struck on Monday.The Prime Minister hailed his deal, set out at a summit in London, as a “win-win” for both parties, which would be the start of a “new era” in the UK-EU relationship.The wide-ranging deal will allow more British travellers to use passport e-gates when going on holiday to Europe, while farmers will get swifter, easier access to trade on the continent as a result of an agreement on animal and plant product standards.A “youth experience scheme” allowing young Britons to study and live in Europe, and a new security and defence partnership were also agreed.But the deal has been met with criticism after the UK agreed to grant European fishing trawlers a further 12 years’ access to British waters.Sir Keir Starmer hailed a “mood change” in the relationship with the bloc, saying: “The EU and the UK wanting to work together, all of us prepared to say let yesterday be yesterday, we are looking forward to tomorrow.
We are not going to litigate old arguments, we are going to go forward in the spirit of what we do together, we do better.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch said, however:
This deal will mean Britain becoming a rule-taker, accepting dynamic alignment, giving up fishing rights and paying new money to the EU.Nobody has lost more than the fishermen.
One of BT’s biggest unions has rejected a “derisory” pay offer that it says would result in almost 30% of its members receiving no rise at all.Prospect, one of the largest unions representing BT workers, said that 96% of those who voted rejected the offer.The union, which said the turnout for the vote represented 68% of its BT members, said the telecoms giant’s pay offer worked out at just a 1.28% rise six out of ten managers.Under the offer 28% of BT managers would not receive any pay rise, while the current rate of inflation stands at 2.6%.Rachel Curley, deputy general secretary of Prospect, said:
This overwhelming rejection of what is a derisory and insulting pay offer shows the strength of feeling among our members. We have notified the employer of our rejection. It is now time for BT to negotiate a fair award for Prospect members and show more respect for their managers.
Prospect has previously accused BT of targeting older, long-serving staff in its drive to cut jobs.Rachel Reeves has backtracked on plans to reduce the tax-free ISA savings allowance, as she bowed to growing pressure from the City.The chancellor has confirmed that she will not change the £20,000 annual limit on popular cash ISAs, a move that will benefit millions of savers.The boss of Shell has once again played down media reports that the oil major is considering a takeover of its beleaguered rival BP.Wael Sawan faced shareholders on Tuesday at the company’s annual general meeting where a shareholder questioned the chief executive on the prospects of a Shell-BP takeover.He said the bar for acquisitions was very high, which was especially true given that Shell’s current share price made it very attractive for the company to continue with its buyback programme.Sawan was spared from facing trickier questions from protesters who were forced to gather outside the company’s central HQ after Shell decided to hold its AGM in a Heathrow hotel protected by a court injunction against environmental protesters.Activists from Amnesty International UK, Fossil Free London, and the Justice 4 Nigeria poured fake oil onto a giant map of the Niger Delta, representing the impact of Shell’s activities in the area, while wearing T-shirts reading “Decades of Oil Spills”, “Polluted Waters”, and “Devastated Communities”.The UK’s biggest pig meat producer, Cranswick, is to instigate a “fully independent, expert veterinarian review” of its welfare policies and livestock operations across the UK after secretly filmed footage revealed abuse of animals at one of its farms.Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons suspended supplies from Cranswick’s Northmoor farm in Lincolnshire after campaigners released footage of workers grabbing piglets by their hind legs and smashing them on to the hard floor – a banned method of killing known as blunt force trauma or “piglet thumping”.The campaigners had also recorded evidence of a sow being kicked and beaten with metal bars, as well as a botched killing that left an animal writhing in agony.Cranswick suspended operations at the farm immediately but said today that it was now carrying out a wider review of its operations which include 400 pig farms as well as poultry facilities. It said:
We have always placed the highest importance on animal health and wellbeing and continuously aim to have the most stringent standards in the sector. We take seriously any instance, anywhere in our supply chain, where behaviour fails to meet those standards.
The company said it had yet to appoint the reviewers but they would be fully independent. The statement was released alongside full year financial results for Cranswick which revealed the group increased sales by almost 5% to £2.7bn while pre-tax profits rose almost 15% to £181.6m.The number of construction projects started in the UK rose by a third in the past three months, despite a lack of major schemes.Project starts increased by 33% in the three months to April compared with the previous quarter, according to construction data firm Glenigan.The number of projects receiving detailed planing consent rose sharply again, by 52% year on year and 51% higher than in the previous three months, because of the approval of the Lower Thames Crossing.Glenigan’s economic director, Allan Wilen, said:
The results are superficially impressive, but a closer look reveals a sector still struggling to reestablish its foothold. It’s hardly surprising. UK construction is continuing to adjust to mercurial market conditions, sometimes having to respond in the moment to the constantly shifting international and domestic economic landscape. Particularly, higher operational costs, likely to keep rising in the near future, mean clients are delaying investment decisions. Likewise, contractors are lukewarm to putting shovels in the ground right now when funding is not forthcoming.
There’s no denying US tariff policy has definitely exacerbated the uncertainty. However, steps to de-escalate trade tensions may go some way to improving the current situation, with steps like the US-UK tariff deal going some way to improving confidence over the coming months. Furthermore, the government clearly setting out its strategic store will also help to boost momentum as more promised public works are greenlit.
Fewer companies went out of business in England and Wales last month than a year earlier, according to official figures.The Insolvency Service said 2,053 companies were declared insolvent in April, 5% lower than in April last year, but 3% higher than in March 2025.Company insolvencies over the past 12 months have been slightly lower than in 2023, when the annual number hit a 30-year high, but have remained high compared to historical levels.In April, there were 379 compulsory liquidations – the highest monthly number since September 2014 – 1,544 creditors’ voluntary liquidations (CVLs), 105 administrations, 24 company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) and one receivership appointment.The number of CVLs was similar to both March and the 2024 monthly average. Administrations were lower than in March, while CVAs were higher.One in 190 companies on the Companies House register entered insolvency between 1 May 2024 and 30 April 2025, a rate of 52.5 per 10,000 companies. This was down from the 57.0 per 10,000 companies that entered insolvency in the 12 months ending 30 April 2024.While the insolvency rate has increased since the lows seen in 2020 and 2021, it remains much lower than the peak of 113.1 per 10,000 companies seen during the 2008-09 financial crisis and recession. This is because the number of companies on the effective register has more than doubled over this period.Jo Hewitt, a senior managing director in the corporate finance & restructuring segment at FTI Consulting, said:
The number of compulsory liquidations was 24% higher than March 2025, and remained significantly higher than the 2024 monthly average, suggesting that the climate remains challenging for businesses.
Whilst corporate insolvency rates showed a slight increase of 3% compared to March 2025, it is too early to tell if businesses in England and Wales will be resilient to the recent market volatility and tariff uncertainty as the full impact on companies and their supply chains will take a while to play out. Although this month’s interest rate cut may provide a welcome reprieve for over leveraged borrowers, we anticipate that external headwinds, such the rise in employer’s National Insurance Contributions and falling oil prices, together with the continued geopolitical uncertainty will drive financial distress in certain sectors over the coming months.
European stock markets are pushing cautiously higher, following modest gains in Asia.The UK’s FTSE 100 index has advanced 45 points to 8,745, a 0.5% gain, while Germany’s Dax is 0.25% ahead, France’s CAC edged up 0.1% and Italy’s FTSE MiB added nearly 0.5%.Oil prices have fallen slightly, with Brent crude down by 0.26% to $65.37 a barrel. In currency markets, sterling has gained 0.1% to $1.3373 against the dollar.The dollar is generally on the backfoot amid ongoing concerns over the US economy, and has lost 0.2% against a basket of major currencies.JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, warned last night that investors were being too complacent as markets shook off news that the US has lost its last triple-A credit rating amid fresh concern over the federal government’s burgeoning debt pile.Credit ratings agency Moody’s dealt a blow to Washington on Friday when it stripped the US of its top-notch rating, downgrading the world’s largest economy by one notch to AA1 and become becoming the last of the big three agencies to drop its triple-A rating for the US.The announcement unnerved markets on Monday morning, but stock markets had recovered by the end of the day.Speaking at JP Morgan’s annual investor day meeting in New York, Dimon warned against complacency. “We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks. You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think [they can],” he said.Dimon said he saw an “extraordinary amount of complacency” and added that he believes the possibility of stagflation – a recession with rising prices – was far higher than investors believe.Moody’s downgrade came as Donald Trump struggles to push his “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill through Congress, Moody’s said it expected the US budget deficit to keep rising.More on Australia’s interest rate cut, the second reduction this year – partly designed to protect indebted households from Trump’s tariffs, which have spooked consumers and businesses, and created the potential for a protracted trade war.The Reserve Bank of Australia’s governor, Michele Bullock, said inflation was coming down, and the jobs market was robust, but characterised the global backdrop as a “complete rollercoaster”.Hundreds of former post office operators will be compensated by the Post Office after it accidentally leaked their names and addresses last June.The Post Office has confirmed that individual payouts will be capped at £5,000, although higher claims may still be pursued.It comes almost a year after 555 victims of the Horizon IT scandal had their personal details published on the Post Office’s corporate website.The Post Office said victims would receive £5,000 or £3,500 depending on whether the address published was current.In a statement, it said:
We have written to all named individuals either directly, or via their solicitors.
If there are any individuals whose name was impacted by last year’s breach, but who have not received information about the payment for some reason, they can contact us or ask their solicitors if they have legal representation.
The law firm Freeths said that 348 clients, out of the total 420 it represented, who had their data breached had already received payment. Freeths said it had been told most of those affected would receive a “significant interim compensation payment”.Here’s our full story on Greggs.Sales at Greggs have picked up after the UK’s biggest bakery chain branched out into iced drinks, pizza boxes and a macaroni cheese that has gone viral on social media.The bakery, which is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, reported a 2.9% rise in comparable sales in the first 20 weeks of the year.New beverages and food on the shelves helped step up sales growth, including a new peach iced tea, mint lemonade, and a mac and cheese that has amassed thousands of views on TikTok.Shares in Greggs rallied in early trading on Tuesday, up by as much as 7%. However, the stock has suffered this year, losing about a quarter of its value since January, amid broader concerns around slowing sales growth.Responding to the protests, a Shell spokesperson said the oil spills in the Niger Delta were being cleaned up.
These are important issues and we respect the right of people to express their view. But for many years the vast majority of spills in the Niger Delta have been caused by third parties acting unlawfully, such as oil thieves who drill holes in pipelines, or saboteurs.
These challenges are managed by a joint venture which Shell’s former Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC, operated, cleaning up every spill from the joint venture’s facilities.
Back to Shell’s annual meeting, and the protests over the Niger Delta outside its headquarters.A Shell spokesperson said:
We agree that society urgently needs to take action on climate change. We are reducing our emissions, helping customers reduce theirs, and investing in the low-carbon energy system of the future.
In the last two years, this has totalled $8bn in the development of solutions including electric vehicle charging, low-carbon fuels, renewable power generation, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage. Added to previous investments, that’s $20bn in lower carbon options.
But as the world continues to use oil and gas to heat homes, deliver goods and transport people, we must also carry on investing in the secure and affordable energy the world needs today.
The company has built Holland Hydrogen, slated to be one of Europe’s largest green hydrogen plants; bought Nature Energy, Europe’s biggest biogas producer, for $2bn; and invested in the Northern Lights joint venture in Norway for CO2 transport and storage.However, according to Dutch media, Shell’s €1bn Holland Hydrogen I project has been plagued by financial concerns, shifting regulations, and an uncertain market – and may never open.Shell’s response did not address activists’ concerns over the environmental damage in the Niger Delta. They say oil spills and leaks have devastated the health and livelihoods of many of the 30 million people living in the area.Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill said the quarterly pace of interest rate cuts had been “too rapid” given the inflation outlook, but added that the path for interest rates remained “downward”.The central bank lowered interest rates by a quarter point to 4.25% to cushion the UK economy against the impact of rising economic uncertainty.Giving a speech entitled The courage not to act at a briefing hosted by Barclays, he said he thought the pace of rate cuts since mid-2024 had been “too rapid given the balance of risks to price stability we face”.This is in line with his preference for “cautious and gradual” cuts in Bank Rate expressed over the past 12 months, he said.
I would therefore characterise my dissenting vote [in May] as favouring a ‘skip’ in the quarterly pattern of Bank Rate cuts intended to slow the pace at which monetary restriction is withdrawn. It should not be seen as favouring a halt to (still less a reversal of) that withdrawal of restriction.
I believe that the underlying disinflation process remains intact and – conditional, as always, on the information and analysis available today – that the prospective path of Bank Rate from here is downward.
Shell is holding its annual meeting today, and faces protests from activists calling for a full clean-up of the damage caused in the Niger Delta.Activists from Amnesty International UK, Fossil Free London, and the Justice 4 Nigeria coalition are staging a protest outside Shell’s global headquarters in London, just hours before the oil giant holds its AGM at a hotel in Heathrow where protests are barred by a court injunction. The meeting is due to start at 10am.The campaigners say:
For nearly 70 years Shell’s oil spills and leaks – arising from poorly maintained pipelines and wells and inadequate clean-up efforts – have devastated the health and livelihoods of many of the 30 million people living in the Niger Delta. The pollution has contaminated water sources, killed fish and crops, destroyed mangrove forests, and caused serious health issues, including respiratory illnesses, increased rates of miscarriage and infant mortality.
According to research, babies born to women who lived near oil spills before pregnancy are twice as likely to die in their first month than elsewhere in the country.
Despite making billions in profits, Shell has consistently failed to adequately clean up or compensate affected communities. From just one area – Ogoniland – the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People estimates Shell earned $30bn over 30 years, while ruining local lives and livelihoods.
Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s business and human rights director, added:
Despite numerous court rulings ordering Shell to clean up and compensate the people it has harmed, the company continues to drag its feet. Shell has made huge profits at the expense of the Niger Delta’s people without taking any responsibility, it must now be held accountable.
For decades communities have demanded justice and the right to live in a safe, healthy environment. Shell has created a living hell in the Niger Delta – now it must clean up and pay up.
Dominic Twomey from Amnesty International said on X:Shell has been contacted for comment.More on Britain’s biggest bakery chain Greggs, whose trading has improved in recent weeks. The share price jumped by 7%.John Moore, senior investment manager at RBC Brewin Dolphin, said:
Greggs has been going through a tougher period recently, with the shares down around -30% in the year to date. Recent price increases of around 2% suggest the company is trying to right-size in the aftermath of the National Insurance increases, recalibrating its roll out and growth ambitions.
There are tentative signs that Greggs is making progress in today’s update, with sales continuing to rise, the shop portfolio growing, and expectations for the year unchanged. Slowing growth will still be a concern, as well as the wider question about whether we have reached ‘peak Greggs’ in the UK. Nevertheless, the baker is a resilient and innovative business that has proven its ability to bounce back from tricky times.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at the trading platform interactive investor, said Vodafone is “beginning to ring the changes”.Shares in the FTSE 100 company rose by less than 1%, despite a €4bn share buyback.
Turning around a super tanker is never an easy task, especially when the company is in the midst of a highly competitive arena, but there are some signs that Vodafone is beginning to ring the changes.
The group had quite simply been fighting fires on too many fronts while dealing with an increasingly onerous debt burden, leading to the need for a significant transformation. What should now emerge from the turnaround is a smaller and less geographically diverse, but more focused operation…
One particular area of promise is the Africa operation, which now accounts for 20% of group income. Service revenue grew by 11.3% over the year, with the group well positioned to benefit further from some potentially explosive growth in the region, particularly given the more widespread availability and use of the services which the industry provides, and of which Vodafone is an established player.
Turning to the UK and Germany, he said:
The UK business is another region which the group is aiming to strengthen, and its planned mega-merger with Three UK should complete imminently. The merger should truly change the domestic landscape, while also providing new revenue opportunities at scale as well as cost synergy savings of around £700 million per year on completion. In the meantime, the unit accounts for 19% of group income and saw total revenue growth of 1.9% for the period.
The most obvious thorn in the group’s size remains the German operation, which is the group’s largest and accounts for 35% of overall service revenue, which declined by 5% for the year. The unit is still suffering from customer losses which were largely attributable to enforced price increases last year, competitive activity elsewhere and the lingering effects of the change to German TV law which resulted in a recontracting of customers, where the previous number of 8.5 million has been reduced to 4.2 million households.
More broadly, the telecoms sector is one which is of course based on reliability, but equally importantly on price, where there remains ferocious competition. Recent years have also required huge investment as the industry moves on, such as being part of the new 5G network, with the benefit of any payback not being felt for any number of years. This becomes especially pertinent when margin protection tends to come with sheer volumes as opposed to the ability to raise prices indiscriminately.
Rachel Reeves said the UK government is closing in on a trade pact with six Gulf nations, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as its next major deal.The chancellor told the BBC the agreement would be the government’s “next deal” as it looks to boost trade ties following Brexit.Reeves suggested economic growth would be strengthened through recent trade deals with the United States, the EU and India, all inked within a fortnight.
Britain is in a better place than any other country in the world in terms of deals with those countries.
The first deal and the best deal so far with the US, we’ve got the best deal with the EU for any country outside the EU, and we’ve got the best trade agreement with India.
The chancellor also said the UK was “not looking to have trade negotiations with China”.In early April, foreign secretary David Lammy said Labour was continuing discussions with the Gulf over a trade deal, which were started by the previous Conservative government.Reeves’ comments come after a new trade deal with Brussels was struck on Monday.The Prime Minister hailed his deal, set out at a summit in London, as a “win-win” for both parties, which would be the start of a “new era” in the UK-EU relationship.The wide-ranging deal will allow more British travellers to use passport e-gates when going on holiday to Europe, while farmers will get swifter, easier access to trade on the continent as a result of an agreement on animal and plant product standards.A “youth experience scheme” allowing young Britons to study and live in Europe, and a new security and defence partnership were also agreed.But the deal has been met with criticism after the UK agreed to grant European fishing trawlers a further 12 years’ access to British waters.Sir Keir Starmer hailed a “mood change” in the relationship with the bloc, saying: “The EU and the UK wanting to work together, all of us prepared to say let yesterday be yesterday, we are looking forward to tomorrow.
We are not going to litigate old arguments, we are going to go forward in the spirit of what we do together, we do better.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch said, however:
This deal will mean Britain becoming a rule-taker, accepting dynamic alignment, giving up fishing rights and paying new money to the EU.Nobody has lost more than the fishermen.
Vodafone has fallen into the red after taking a €4.5bn hit from writedowns on its businesses in Germany and Romania, but said it expected to return to top-line growth in Germany, its biggest market.The mobile phone giant made a pre-tax loss of €1.5bn in the year to 31 March, against a profit of €1.6bn the previous year. It took impairment charges of €4.4bn on its struggling German division and €165m on its Romanian business. Revenues rose by 2% to €37.5bn.Chief executive Margherita Della Valle was upbeat, though.
We have reshaped Europe, we are seeing the positive impact of our drive for customer satisfaction in all our markets – most noticeably in the UK and Germany – and we have delivered strong operational improvements across the business. Clearly there is much more to do, but this period of transition has repositioned Vodafone for multi-year growth.
Looking ahead, we expect to see broad-based momentum across Europe and Africa, and for Germany to return to top-line growth during this year. This is reflected in our guidance for profit and cash flow growth for the year ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.China’s and Australia’s central banks have both cut interest rates to stimulate their economies and cushion the impact of US trade tariffs.China cut its benchmark lending rates for the first time since October, following Beijing’s sweeping monetary easing measures. The People’s Bank of China reduced the one-year loan prime rate by 10 basis points to 3.0%, and the five-year loan prime rate was cut by the same amount to 3.5%.The lending rate cut was announced just after five of China‘s biggest state-owned banks trimmed their deposit interest rates. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of China reduced their deposit rates by 5-25bps.Global investment banks have upped their forecasts for China’s economic growth this year, after Beijing and Washington agreed to a 90-day pause on tariffs, despite ongoing uncertainty around the trade negotiations.China’s president Xi Jinping called for continuous efforts to build a stronger manufacturing industry, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Xi stressed the need for the country to be self-reliant and to master key technologies, as he visited a bearings manufacturer in China’s central Henan province.Marco Sun, chief financial market analyst at MUFG Bank, said the rate cuts were aimed at boosting credit lending and stimulating consumption.
The central bank is likely to switch to a wait-and-see approach in coming months unless external geopolitical risks deteriorate enough to extinguish hopes that the economy can stabilise.
The Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges rose by 0.4% and 0.8%, while the Australian stock market advanced by 0.6% and Japan’s Nikkei was little changed.The Reserve Bank of Australia cut its cash rate by 25bps to a two-year low of 3.85% at its May meeting, the first rate cut since January. The Australian dollar fell after the decision was announced. The central bank said:
Inflation is in the target band and upside risks appear to have diminished as international developments are expected to weigh on the economy.
The board assesses that this move will make monetary policy somewhat less restrictive. It nevertheless remains cautious about the outlook.
Britain’s biggest bakery chain Greggs said sales growth picked up in the past five months, as its newly launched Mac and Cheese went viral on TikTok.The company, famous for its sausage rolls and vegan alternatives, said like-for-like sales (at outlets open at least a year) rose by 2.9% in the first 20 weeks of 2025. In the first nine weeks sales had disappointed with a 1.9% rise, its worst performance since the pandemic, for which it blamed bad weather and a tough macroeconomic backdrop.After an initial trial last year, its made-to-order range, including chicken burgers, wraps and fish finger sandwiches is now sold in more than 300 shops across the country.Greggs opened 66 new shops, which means it now has 2,638 outlets, as it aims to launch up to 150 over the year.The Agenda
Coinbase on Monday became the first cryptocurrency exchange to join the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, marking a pivotal moment for the digital assets industry.The inclusion on the S&P 500 also was a point of pride for Coinbase, which consumers use to buy, sell, transfer and store various cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. The S&P 500 tracks the stock performance of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the United States.“This milestone represents what the true believers, from retail investors to institutional investors to our employees and partners, knew all along. Crypto is here to stay,” said Coinbase Chief Executive Brian Armstrong in a post on the social media platform X.Coinbase first made its public debut in 2021, when it listed its shares on the Nasdaq. Initially based in San Francisco, Coinbase became a remote-first company and isn’t headquartered in one city. The move comes as the Trump administration bolsters an industry that backed the Republican president’s return to the White House. While cryptocurrency companies expect to face a more friendly regulatory environment under Trump, who also launched his own meme coin, they’re still encountering familiar hurdles over data security and privacy that are putting a damper on their shining moment. Last week, Coinbase revealed it was hit with a cyberattack that could cost it $180 million to $400 million, according to a filing last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said that cybercriminals bribed customer support agents overseas to steal data from its customers so they could trick Coinbase users into handing over their crypto.The criminals obtained information such as names, phone numbers, emails, the last four digits of people’s Social Security numbers and other valuable data for less than 1% of its users. Coinbase has refused to pay a $20-million ransom demand by hackers. Instead, it is offering a reward for that amount to anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.The cyberattack isn’t the only problem Coinbase is still tackling. The New York Times first reported that the SEC is also investigating Coinbase, which says it has more than 100 million verified users, over whether the company misstated that figure. And Coinbase is facing a lawsuit in Illinois over whether it illegally collected, stored and kept biometric data, such as the face scans users provided for identity verification. Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a statement that the SEC’s inquiry was a “holdover” from the Biden administration and involved a metric the company no longer uses.“While we strongly believe this investigation should not continue, we remain committed to working with the SEC to bring this matter to a close,” Grewal said.Wall Street has not been rattled by the controversy around the company.Coinbase’s stock surged 24% when it announced last week that it would join the S&P 500. On Monday, the company’s shares closed $263.99 per share, virtually unchanged.Mark Palmer, an tech industry analyst for Benchmark Equity Research, said in a note that while the data breach is concerning, it appears to be an “one-off event rather than a symptom of more pervasive security issues.” The firm views the SEC investigation “as little more than noise that is highly unlikely to have any material impact on any of the drivers of the bullish thesis on the company’s stock,” Palmer wrote in the note.Coinbase’s first quarter revenue reached $2.03 billion, up 24% year-over-year, but slightly missed analyst’s expectations. The company’s net income was $66 million down, from $1.8 billion during the same period last year. More to Read
JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, warned on Monday that investors were being too complacent as markets shook off news that the US has lost its last triple-A credit rating amid fresh concern over the federal government’s burgeoning debt pile.Credit ratings agency Moody’s dealt a blow to Washington on Friday when it stripped the US of its top-notch rating, downgrading the world’s largest economy by one notch to AA1 and become becoming the last of the big three agencies to drop its triple-A rating for the US.The announcement unnerved markets on Monday morning, but stock markets had recovered by the end of the day.Speaking at JP Morgan’s annual investor day meeting in New York, Dimon warned against complacency. “We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks. You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think [they can],” he said.Dimon said he saw an “extraordinary amount of complacency” and added that he believes the possibility of stagflation – a recession with rising prices – was far higher than investors believe.Moody’s downgrade came as Donald Trump struggles to push his “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill through Congress, Moody’s said it expected the US budget deficit to keep rising.“Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s said, announcing its downgrade. “We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.”Trump administration officials sought to play down the significance of the setback. “Moody’s is a lagging indicator,” Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told Meet the Press on NBC on Sunday.The US president has himself remained silent on the downgrade. On Monday morning, he used posts on his Truth Social platform to criticize celebrities including Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen, who castigated Trump on stage in Manchester last week, for supporting his political rivals.During a rare Sunday night vote, House Republicans advanced Trump’s tax cut and spending package out of a key committee. It has been estimated that the proposed bill could add as much as $5tn to the US’s $36.2tn debt pile over the next decade.On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 fell during early trading, before recovering its losses to close marginally higher, while the tech-focused Nasdaq also closed broadly flat after reversing early declines. The FTSE 100 rose 0.2% in London.Bond markets also came under pressure, with the yield on 30-year US treasury bonds climbing 13 basis points to 5.026%. Yields rise as bond prices drop; an increase signals that investors are seeking a higher return for holding US debt. The dollar weakened against a basket of currencies.“Over the next decade, we expect larger deficits as entitlement spending rises while government revenue remains broadly flat,” said Moody’s. “In turn, persistent, large fiscal deficits will drive the government’s debt and interest burden higher. The US’s fiscal performance is likely to deteriorate relative to its own past and compared with other highly rated sovereigns.”
James Earl Jones’ voice of Darth Vader is one of the most recognizable sounds in movie history — and now it’s at the center of a fight over the use of artificial intelligence. On Monday, Hollywood actors guild SAG-AFTRA filed an unfair labor charge over the use of an AI-powered version of the iconic “Star Wars” villain’s voice in the massively popular video game “Fortnite.”Last week, “Fortnite” started allowing players to recruit Darth Vader to their teams and take turns talking to him using conversational AI technology that replicates Jones’ tone and speech patterns for the George Lucas-created character. “Fortnite” is owned by developer Epic Games. SAG-AFTRA filed the complaint against Llama Productions, a subsidiary of Epic that works on “Fortnite.” “Fortnite’s signatory company, Llama Productions, chose to replace the work of human performers with A.I. technology,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement. “Unfortunately, they did so without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms.”Epic Games did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jones had allowed Lucasfilm and Disney to use AI and archival recordings to replicate the actor’s voice as Darth Vader for future “Star Wars” projects. Jones died in September. “Fortnite” said it had received permission from Jones’ estate to include his voice in the game. “James Earl felt that the voice of Darth Vader was inseparable from the story of Star Wars, and he always wanted fans of all ages to continue to experience it,” the family of James Earl Jones said in a statement posted on the “Fortnite” website last week. “We hope that this collaboration with Fortnite will allow both longtime fans of Darth Vader and newer generations to share in the enjoyment of this iconic character.”SAG-AFTRA said in a statement that it celebrates the rights of its members and their estates to control digital replicas. “However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members, including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader’s iconic rhythm and tone in video games,” the performers guild said. AI remains a controversial topic in Hollywood, as actors and writers have raised concerns about the fast-growing technology harming their jobs. In 2023, actors and writers went on strike to fight for more protections in their contracts that addressed their concerns about artificial intelligence.“Fortnite’s” use of Darth Vader’s voice wasn’t without other hiccups. Business Insider pointed to an example of where the voice was seen saying the F-word in the game and an Epic Games spokesman told Business Insider that a fix was made to stop Darth Vader from cursing within 30 minutes of it happening in-game. More to Read
Rachel Reeves joked to journalists after Monday’s EU-UK reset that trade deals were coming along “like buses”, given the agreements with India and the US that had also been sealed in the past fortnight alone.The chancellor described the EU deal as the best that had been secured by any non-member country, but she was also keen to talk about the three successful negotiations as a package.That is because the government accepts the EU deal will not be transformational for the UK’s growth prospects in itself – boosting GDP by £9bn, or 0.3%, over 15 years, according to officials – but hopes it will persuade investors to take a fresh look at the UK.“It shows Britain now is the place to put investment and business, because we’ve got preferential deals with the biggest economies around the world. And so I’m confident that these deals will lead to investment coming to Britain,” Reeves said. Labour hopes that will help to underpin the growth it sorely needs to fulfil its promises to voters.Three aspects of the EU agreement have been particularly welcomed by business, and form the core of the economic package – although many details remain to be negotiated.The first is the long-hoped-for agreement to create a common sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) area, under which cumbersome checks on food and agricultural products will be lifted in return for the UK aligning with EU standards in these areas.Boris Johnson, presenting his trade and cooperation agreement with the EU on Christmas Eve 2020, wrongly claimed there would be “no non-tariff barriers to trade”.In practice, these barriers – including veterinary checks – have been hugely damaging, and a SPS deal is aimed at dismantling some of them, for this key sector.The British Chambers of Commerce, which has long drawn attention to the frustrations suffered by UK exporters, called the prospect of an SPS agreement “a huge boost” that would “cut costs, reduce waste and increase sales”.Reeves, when asked whether the UK could take a similar approach to other sectors – aligning on rules in exchange for more frictionless market access – said: “Potentially,” pointing to the fact that the two sides had now agreed to meet annually.The second aspect of the deal that carries economic weight is an agreement to cooperate more closely on energy policy, including aligning the EU and UK emissions trading schemes.That should, the government says, “create the conditions for goods originating in our jurisdictions to benefit from mutual exemptions from the respective EU and UK carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM)”.In practice, the UK government claims that will mean the steel industry escapes £25m a year in levies that the EU would otherwise have imposed, via the CBAM – a policy aimed at ensuring heavily polluting products cannot enter the EU and undercut domestically produced equivalents that have paid to offset their emissions.Government modelling suggests membership of the emissions trading scheme accounts for 0.1% of the 0.3% boost to GDP from the reset, with SPS contributing the other 0.2%.Third, the UK hopes the agreement to negotiate over the possibility of defence industry cooperation will mean UK firms being able to bid for projects procured via the planned EU Security Action For Europe (SAFE) fund, which will allow member states to borrow to pay for weapons.The language on this in the EU-UK agreement is scant: the two sides agree to cooperate on “security and defence initiatives, including on defence industry”, and they commit to “swiftly explore any possibilities for mutually beneficial enhanced cooperation created by the SAFE instrument”.But ministers clearly believe this could open the way for UK defence companies such as BAE Systems to profit, as defence spending ramps up on both sides of the Channel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe fury about fishing rights, which held up the final agreement, has little to do with economics and everything to do with the political symbolism of the sector.Research by the Resolution Foundation found that fisheries had actually been one of the industries worst affected by Johnson’s Brexit deal, with output perhaps 30% lower than it might otherwise have been.Given how rapidly fish needs to get to market, Labour argues that eliminating cumbersome food checks under the SPS deal will benefit the sector more than allowing EU boats access to UK waters for another 12 years. (It may also have the positive political side-effect of preventing regular rows about fish from spilling out into the headlines.)Economists say the limited size of the direct GDP boost from the deal results from the government’s clear determination not to rejoin the single market or customs union, in order to avoid having to sign up to the free movement of people.John Springford of the Centre for European Reform, whose analysis suggests the UK economy is approximately 5% smaller than it would otherwise have been as a result of Brexit, suggests that the government’s 0.3% estimate still looks relatively generous.He recently forecast that an SPS agreement would add less than 0.1%, for example, against the 0.2% upside modelled by the government.However, as Reeves made clear, Labour hopes the economy will gain something more nebulous, which it is harder to plug into a model: a growing acknowledgment from the business sector that the UK is an appealing investment proposition.Before coming to power, Reeves and Keir Starmer hoped the credibility of a steadier hand on the tiller than the Tories’ would win over investors, whose confidence they see as key to the UK’s recovery.Instead, Labour swept into power on a wave of dire warnings about the state of the economy, blindsided businesses with tax rises, and saw GDP continue to flatline.Now, they hope the triumvirate of the India-UK trade deal, the US tariff agreement with Donald Trump and the EU reset will burnish their reputation as calm and competent stewards of the economy, helping to generate a glimmer of optimism, in a highly uncertain world.
A Microsoft employee disrupted a keynote speech by the company’s chief executive with a pro-Palestinian protest at the company’s annual developer conference on Monday.Joe Lopez, a Microsoft firmware engineer who worked on parts of the company’s cloud-computing platform, Azure, was escorted out the Build conference by security nearly immediately after he confronted Satya Nadella.“Satya, how about you show how Microsoft is killing Palestinians,” Lopez yelled. “How about you show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure?”After the disruption, Lopez sent an all-staff email explaining his decision to stage a protest.“As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing: demand an end to this senseless tragedy, or we will cease our technological support for Israel,” read the email, which has also been published on Medium. “If leadership continues to ignore this demand, I promise that it won’t go unnoticed. The world has already woken up to our complicity and is turning against us. The boycotts will increase and our image will continue to spiral into disrepair.”Organizers with a worker-led group called No Azure for Apartheid (Noaa) also organized a protest to coincide with the developer conference. The group has been protesting against Microsoft’s AI and cloud-computing contracts with the Israeli military for over a year. The company’s Azure cloud software has been found to have enabled Israeli surveillance of Palestinians and been used by the Israeli air force’s Ofek Unit, the unit which manages databases of potential targets for lethal airstrikes. Leaked documents also show that Microsoft has a “footprint in all major military infrastructures” in Israel, according to +972 Magazine.“One year ago, workers launched the No Azure for Apartheid campaign and petition in a state of urgency after 7 months of genocide,” wrote Anna Hattle, a Microsoft worker and organizer with Noaa, in an email to company leadership on 15 May. “We are currently witnessing the same crimes committed 77 years ago with one key difference: now, the Israeli Occupation Forces are carrying out this genocide at a much greater scale thanks to Microsoft cloud and AI technology.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLopez’s demonstration is the second of its kind in just the last two months. On 6 April, two Microsoft workers, Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, disrupted a Microsoft AI event and called the company’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, a war profiteer. Both workers have since been fired. The status of Lopez’s job could not be determined. Google saw similar internal protests and mass firings last year over its contracts with the Israeli military and government.In response to the reporting on Microsoft technology’s use by the Israeli military, Microsoft said that a third-party investigation found “no evidence” that its technology was used to harm or target people. The activist group, Noaa, disputes the company’s conclusion. The company did not immediately comment on Lopez’s demonstration.“Leadership rejects our claims that Azure technology is being used to target or harm civilians in Gaza. Those of us who have been paying attention know that this is a bold-faced lie,” Lopez wrote in his all-staff email. “We don’t need an internal audit to know that a top Azure customer is committing crimes against humanity. We see it live on the internet every day.”Lopez’s protest comes just days after Palestinians marked 77 years since the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe used to describe the day when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee or were expelled from their homes in 1948.
France’s lucrative mineral water industry is under scrutiny after a report by the senate found the French government had covered up a scandal over illegal filtering treatments of premium brands.At the heart of the report, released on Monday, is France’s world-famous fizzy water, Perrier. Obtained from a source in southern France and traditionally served on ice with a slice of lemon, Perrier has long been long known as the “champagne of table waters”.But the report said the Swiss food giant Nestlé, which acquired the brand in the early 1990s, had used purification filtering treatments that were not authorised for products labelled as “natural mineral water”.The senators said the “highest levels” of the French government had been alerted to the filtering treatments by Nestlé itself, but had failed to act quickly or to alert legal authorities.The senate report said that President Emmanuel Macron’s office at the Élysée “had known, at least since 2022, that Nestlé had been cheating for years”.Senators stressed there had been “no proven health risk to consumers”. But they said that consumers and local authorities had been misled.The report said: “In addition to Nestlé Waters’ lack of transparency, it is important to highlight the state’s lack of transparency, both towards local and European authorities and towards the French people.”The report found that government advisers handled the issue, but Élisabeth Borne, the then prime minister, appeared “not to have been informed”.EU regulations strictly limit what treatments are allowed for any product marketed as “natural mineral water”. Tap water is filtered and treated. But natural mineral water – which sells for 100–400 times the price of tap water – must be processed naturally and cannot be disinfected or treated in any way that alters its characteristics.France is one of the world leaders in natural mineral water production, with 104 natural sites across the country, a market worth €2.7bn (£2.3bn) and more than 41,000 direct and indirect jobs.But the industry was shaken in 2019 when a whistleblower raised an alert about one producer, Sources Alma – whose brands include Cristaline and Vichy Célestins –allegedly using non-authorised treatments to microfilter the water. A representative of Sources Alma later told the senate committee it had not used illegal treatments and its water was safe.The senate report said that, after the whistleblower’s warning, Nestlé Waters, whose brands include Vittel and Perrier, had voluntarily contacted the French government in 2021 – and later the president’s office – to say it had used filtering treatments. It submitted a plan to tackle the issue, which was later approved by the authorities.Alexis Kohler, then secretary general of Macron’s office at the Élysée, had met Nestlé executives, according to senators. But he declined to give evidence to the senate committee. In February, Macron denied any knowledge of the case.The senate said the relationship between Nestlé and the government became so close that the wording of a state report on water had been altered to fit with Nestlé’s requests. The Socialist senator Alexandre Ouizille, who led the six-month senate committee on mineral water said this was “inexplainable, inexcusable, incomprehensible”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAntoinette Guhl, a Green senator who had also worked on the report, said it was “a state scandal” that damaged trust between politicians and consumers.In 2024, Nestlé Waters admitted using banned filters and ultraviolet treatment on mineral waters. It said it had always defended the safety of its products and had been transparent to authorities. It denied having put pressure on government.The company paid a €2m fine to avoid legal action over the use of illegal water sources and filtering. It said at the time that that the replacement filters were approved by the government and that its water was “pure”.Foodwatch, an independent food monitoring NGO, has filed a complaint against Nestlé Waters, accusing it of deceiving consumers. An investigation has been launched by a judge in Paris.Nestlé Waters’ chief executive, Muriel Lienau, stated during her hearing before the senate committee in March, that all of the group’s waters were “pure at the source”.In a statement to Agence France-Presse, Lienau said she acknowledged the senate report, which “recognises the importance of sectoral issues requiring regulatory clarification and a stable framework applicable to all”.Nestlé Waters also insisted that it had “never contested” the legitimacy of the senate’s work.
