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British scientists on Monday welcomed the prospect of the UK’s long delayed re-entry into Horizon Europe, the EU’s €96bn science programme, following the deal between the two sides over post-Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland. At a press conference setting out the “Windsor framework”, Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, described the accord as
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Since Britain’s exit from the EU in 2020, special trading rules for Northern Ireland have been the source of rancour and division. The so-called Northern Ireland protocol was poorly negotiated, then partially disowned, then nearly overridden by the UK, threatening a trade war with the EU. Reforms to the protocol agreed by Prime Minister Rishi
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A heart attack, a handwritten note and 1,000 shipping containers full of unknown material — the details of one of London’s biggest commodity fraud cases read like a thriller. Singapore-based trading house Trafigura has accused metals tycoon Prateek Gupta and his companies of selling it fake nickel cargoes worth hundreds of millions of dollars, in
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For only the second time in Goldman Sachs’ 154-year history, investors will gather on Tuesday to ponder the future of a Wall Street giant that seems to have lost its way. The bank whose dominance was once so assured it gained notoriety as the “Vampire Squid” is now more of a damp squib. A nosedive
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The UK energy regulator Ofgem has lowered the energy price cap by almost £1,000 for a typical home, but consumers will still end up with higher bills from April as the government reduces subsidies to households. The price cap, which governs the amount paid for gas and electricity bills for typical usage, will fall to
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Major US employers from fast-food chains to arms manufacturers are reporting a dramatic improvement in hiring conditions despite official data showing unemployment at its lowest level for decades. Senior executives across a host of S&P 500 companies gave optimistic updates on the labour market in recent quarterly earnings reports. Their commentary could reassure investors concerned
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The majority of FTSE 250 bosses believe that UK-listed companies are vulnerable to foreign takeovers this year amid growing expectations that M&A activity will pick up as economic conditions improve. British broker Numis found that “compressed” valuations meant that corporates were increasingly focused on their own vulnerability in the eventuality of a bid, according to
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The world of ETF academia is a rarefied one. But the spats it hosts are no less heated than those in the better known field of macroeconomics. This month, a paper by a quartet of academics from three business schools — Columbia, Chicago Booth and Pennsylvania — set off a row about the niche issue
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Andrew Griffith, City of London minister, has raised concerns that flagship reforms to stop consumers being ripped off by financial services companies could damage the sector and trigger a wave of spurious law suits, putting him on a collision course with the UK’s chief financial regulator. Griffith has criticised the consumer duty, a key measure
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The UK economic outlook for this year has improved, with analysts forecasting a smaller contraction in output than they had previously because of falling energy prices and better than anticipated business and consumer sentiment. In December and January, economists expected gross domestic product to drop 1 per cent this year, according to data from Consensus
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