A giant advertising-clad sphere in London’s former Olympic Park backed by US tycoon James Dolan is at risk of being blocked after ministers forced a holding order on a development that critics claim will be an eyesore for much of the UK capital. This week, Michael Gove, levelling-up secretary, temporarily halted the taking of any
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“I am a bad passenger,” says the six-time Grand Slam champion and undischarged bankrupt, as he tips the hotel valet and heads for the driver’s side of his Porsche. In his playing days, he drove to and from matches. “Can you imagine Djokovic or Federer doing that?” I get it, I say, he wants to
HM Revenue & Customs has launched a crackdown on the booming short-term lettings market by initially targeting about 1,000 property owners that it suspects have not paid enough tax. Based on information received from online bookings platforms such as Airbnb, the UK tax agency is sending its first so-called “nudge” letters this month to those
Trafigura failed to require analysis certificates, ignored incorrect customs codes and missed other “red flags” that alarmed its bankers on nickel shipments it later discovered to be fraudulent, according to court documents obtained by the Financial Times on Friday. The alleged nickel fraud, which has caused Trafigura to take a $577mn writedown, is poised to
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago reverberated through global markets. With no end in sight to Europe’s most intense conflict since the second world war, the effects are still being felt. Financial Times reporters look at what has occurred in key markets and what might happen next. Putin’s energy war backfires Running almost in
When the US drugs company Abbott Laboratories acquired a small division of the German chemicals group BASF for $6.9bn 23 years ago, its shares fell on fears that it had overpaid. But the deal was an amazing bargain. Humira, the promising medicine that came with it, is now the industry’s biggest blockbuster, with cumulative revenues
“Time to buy Europe” is one of the hardiest perennial trade ideas that somehow never properly takes off. It is a nailed-on certainty that every few months, strategy notes or articles will appear outlining why investors think now is the time to invest in Europe, and not long after that, European stocks will tank. I
In retrospect, we shouldn’t have wasted that lettuce on Liz Truss. The hapless vegetable, monitored by webcam to see if it would outlast the doomed prime minister, could have fed one of the shoppers now staring at bare shelves, as supermarkets ration salads. Metropolitan society rarely gives much thought to agriculture. But the shortage of
Rishi Sunak is preparing to face down his Conservative critics and push ahead with reforms to post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland, with allies saying the vast majority of Tory MPs just want to settle the issue. The UK prime minister spoke to Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, on Friday, in a new
Shell, ExxonMobil and the Dutch government earned €429bn from exploiting the Groningen gasfield, but left thousands of residents with cracked homes and health issues, a parliamentary investigation has found. The geological destabilisation caused by drilling at Groningen, Europe’s largest natural gas reserve, resulted in 1,594 earthquakes and damaged more than 85,000 buildings, a Dutch parliamentary
Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani was just 28 when he joined the board of Credit Suisse in 2010, tasked with representing Qatari interests after investors from the Gulf emirate poured billions into the Swiss bank. He arrived at the Zurich-based lender with a low profile, and after seven years with a seat at the top
Ten years have passed since a fresh-faced British prime minister David Cameron promised a referendum on Brexit, a gamble that sowed the seeds of his political destruction. Now, four prime ministers later, Rishi Sunak is taking the biggest wager of his political career: trying to clear up the mess. Sunak is already in a precarious
Ukraine’s western allies have unveiled a swath of new sanctions targeting Russia’s military, industrial capacity and financial sector as they vow to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin. As Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the invasion on Friday, the UK and US announced new measures against hundreds of groups and individuals including Russian banks and
The writer is an FT contributing editor and writes the Chartbook newsletter In the first 12 months of the war in Ukraine, the condemnation of Russia and rhetorical backing of Kyiv by the governments of Europe and the US has been intense and largely unanimous. But the economic numbers tell a different story. Judged against
Students and academics at Oxford university have called for a sweeping review of policies around its relationship with donors, following revelations that the elite institution courted the Sackler family even after others cut ties. A Financial Times investigation on Monday showed that over the past two years Oxford extended exclusive invitations to a Sackler family
US stock futures dropped on Friday after the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation came in higher than expected, the latest in a run of hotter-than-expected economic data that has fuelled expectations of further interest rate rises from the central bank. S&P 500 futures fell 1.4 per cent while Nasdaq 100 futures were 1.7 per
The Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin often brags about his supposedly fearless exploits on Ukraine’s battlefields, but his most reckless manoeuvre may have been at home: flying too high in the Kremlin. For months, the founder of the Wagner group has been sparring with Russia’s military over a series of calamitous defeats in Ukraine, in
“The glory and freedom of Ukraine have not yet died.” Scarcely has the first line of a national anthem proved so apt. Russia’s assault on its neighbour on February 24 2022 brought large-scale war, with all its bloodshed, misery and mass dislocations, back to Europe. A year later there are grounds for solace. Ukraine has
Germany’s economy shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter according to revised figures, raising doubts over the ability of Europe’s biggest economy to escape recession and recover swiftly from its energy crisis. High inflation drove sharp falls in German consumer spending and investment in buildings and machinery in the final quarter of 2022, the
On February 24 last year, the world awoke to news that Russian tanks had rolled into Ukraine from the east and north. Troops had been massing on Ukraine’s borders for months and Russian leader Vladimir Putin had made a series of fiery speeches on the long-running conflict in the Donbas region. There were fears that
China has called for a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine and a return to negotiations as Beijing attempts to position itself as a peacemaker in the conflict on the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The Chinese foreign ministry on Friday released a 12-point paper on its position on a “political settlement” to the war