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The European Central Bank has warned Brussels against swooping to claim money from custodians of trapped Russian assets, claiming it could dent confidence in the euro as a global currency and hurt financial stability. The Frankfurt-based institution has privately told the European Commission that plans to divert payments on bonds owned by the Russian central

Corporate insolvencies in England and Wales jumped by 40 per cent year-on-year in May to the highest level since monthly reporting began in 2019, as businesses struggled with rising borrowing costs and high prices. Official data published on Friday showed that registered company insolvencies reached 2,552 last month, up from 1,825 in the same month

Eleven minutes before my lunch with Nadine Dorries is due to begin, it is cancelled. The message comes by phone. “I know it’s fucking irritating,” says the ringer of bad news, a chap called Piers, who introduces himself as Dorries’s agent. The problem is that Dorries is finishing a book and would breach her publishing

Carmine Di Sibio, global chief executive of EY, announced his retirement this week after the failure of his effort to split the accounting and consulting firm in two. “We challenged the status quo, we asked tough questions and we were bold in our ambitions,” he declared. That’s one way of putting it; another is that

Veteran Conservative MPs have urged colleagues to endorse the privileges committee report on Boris Johnson in the House of Commons on Monday, as jittery Tories consider skipping an expected vote. The committee condemned the former UK prime minister for contempt of parliament, including lying to MPs over the Covid-19 partygate scandal, in a damning 108-page

Odey Asset Management has suspended trading in a fourth fund following a “sizeable level” of withdrawal requests in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against founder Crispin Odey, which have precipitated the break-up of one of London’s oldest hedge fund firms. The firm said in a letter to investors on Friday that it was temporarily

European stocks rose on Friday following an overnight rally on Wall Street, as signs of an end to the Federal Reserve’s tighter interest rate policy pushed some of the world’s biggest tech stocks to all-time highs. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 added 0.4 per cent at the open, while France’s Cac 40 and London’s FTSE 100

Five months after China’s president Xi Jinping declared victory over the pandemic and relaxed stringent social controls, new data this week revealed that the country’s economy was far from returning to full health. While consumers are venturing out to spend, buyers are shunning property, one of the Chinese economy’s central growth drivers. Exports, another important

Fifty miles north of what is now Edinburgh and nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman empire’s Twentieth Legion began to build a fort near the River Tay. By Roman standards, it was unremarkable, despite its 20-hectare size and earthworks several metres thick. It boasted a forge, hospital and granaries, but lacked baths and aqueducts —

Job cuts at the largest US banks this year are on course to surpass 11,000 as Wall Street contends with the worst recruitment market since the financial crisis following a pandemic-era hiring binge. Citigroup this week became the latest big US bank to announce significant job cuts, telling investors that it planned to complete 5,000

The third time Dhunya De Silva tried to move to London, she hoped it would be different. After she and her boyfriend had been promoted at work, she thought they might be able to afford to rent in the capital. The 23-year-old had previously tried to move from Hertfordshire, just north of the city, first

Wearing helmets marked with Russian flags, the men leap from tanks to a Daft Punk soundtrack made for a sci-fi movie, brandishing Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers. Then comes a Hollywood-style voiceover: “State corporation Roscosmos calls on you to join the Uran volunteer battalion, where you will be trained for victory in this great war.” The

A rogue prime minister has been found guilty of lying to parliament, by a committee containing a majority of his own party. England has seen nothing like this in 300 years — since the role was created. This is our Watergate: and the attempts to trivialise it demonstrate what was wrong with the Johnson regime. 

They have a business concept, prestigious French engineering degrees, stints at US tech groups and now €105mn to play with. Thirtysomethings Arthur Mensch, Timothée Lacroix and Guillaume Lample became the EU’s new AI darlings this week, with a record seed fundraising round. Their spectacular financing success — it was Europe’s largest-ever seed round — values

As champagne flowed in the Denver Nuggets locker room on Monday after the basketball team’s first NBA league title, Josh Kroenke, scion of the Kroenke-Walton families that have owned it since 2000, reflected on what the victory meant for the Colorado city’s residents. “Enjoy it. This is for you,” he told the local Kroenke-owned Altitude

Disney’s longtime chief financial officer Christine McCarthy is stepping down and will take a “family medical leave of absence”, the company said on Thursday.  McCarthy, who has worked at Disney for decades, will stay on as an adviser to help with the succession process that weighs over the Hollywood giant.  “She and I have discussed

The US banking regulator has kicked off the sale of collapsed Silicon Valley Bank’s German operations, seeking bids by July 19 for the $460mn portfolio of loans, leases and other assets. Details of the sale were disclosed in marketing materials sent to large investors in recent days by First Financial Network, the loans specialist handling

NatWest and Nationwide, two of the UK’s largest mortgage lenders, announced on Thursday they were increasing rates, piling further pressure on household budgets and the government as it tries to contain the cost of living crisis. The decision by NatWest is the second time this week it has increased rates, mirroring a similar announcement by

Venture capital firm Molten Ventures has slashed the valuation of its stake in Revolut, the second investor to do so as the UK fintech awaits regulators’ decision on whether to offer it a banking licence in its home market. Molten Ventures, formerly known as Draper Esprit, invested £7.1mn in the fintech in 2018. In its

Three weeks ago, the US Treasury announced the launch of a new oversight committee called the “Cloud Executive Steering Group.” It received almost no public attention. No wonder: compared to the explosive controversies around cryptocurrencies, ChatGPT or Europe’s new drive to break up Google’s dominance of adtech, cloud computing — the public and private data

Rishi Sunak was said to be “too busy” on Thursday morning to read the 108-page report that trashed the reputation of Boris Johnson. He might have enjoyed it. “They really hate each other — it’s personal,” said one cabinet minister. The report by the House of Commons privileges committee, with its litany of findings of