Waitrose has admitted to blocking rivals from opening supermarkets in close locations for close to a decade, according to the market watchdog. During an investigation between 2010 and 2019 into supermarket practices, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that Waitrose had conspired with landlords to prevent competing companies from opening stores. The practice, which […]
Bus journeys in England will be capped at £2 between January and March next year to help people deal with the rising cost of living. The Department for Transport said the plan could see some passengers save more than £3 per single bus ticket. The average fare for a three-mile journey is around £2.80, the […]
After a summer rife with industrial action, Britons face even more uncertainty after it was announced tens of thousands of firefighters and control room staff will be balloted on whether to strike over pay. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said 32,500 of its members across the UK will vote in the next few weeks on […]
Instagram owner Meta has been fined €405m (£349m) by the Irish data watchdog for letting teenagers set up accounts that publicly displayed their phone numbers and email addresses. The Data Protection Commission confirmed the penalty after a two-year investigation into potential breaches of the European Union’s general data protection regulation (GDPR). Instagram had allowed users […]
Half of UK SME’s have had an application for a loan rejected in the past year with one in ten owners remortgaging their homes to keep trading, new research suggests. A survey of UK business owners and managers found a 14 per cent increase in those saying they had been rejected for government loans since […]
Oxford University’s start-up incubator, opened by the Apple chief executive Tim Cook, has closed its doors to students after only five years and even though it received £3.2 million in launch funding. High-profile donors to the centre, called the Oxford Foundry, included Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder, who gave £1 million, as well as Biz […]
The resilience of Britain’s technology infrastructure is under scrutiny because of fears of winter blackouts and the impact of the soaring cost of energy. Data centre operators have asked for short-term priority for energy use should electricity be restricted, to ensure that critical services, from banking to public services, can keep running. They will present […]
Jacob Rees-Mogg has accused civil servants of using flexible working to skive off as he demands an audit of the practice across Whitehall. In one of his last acts as government efficiencies minister before a new prime minister takes office, Rees-Mogg has warned departments against the “overuse” of flexi-time and called for detailed lists of […]
Energy UK has called for nuclear plants and electricity generators to ditch their lucrative renewable obligation certificates (ROC) in favour of long-term deals with lower returns. The industry body is backing proposals first outlined by the UK Energy Research Centre for a voluntary shift from ROC’s to an agreement mirroring the newer contracts for difference […]
OnlyFans has paid out more than $500m (£433m) to its reclusive owner in the last two years, as the British-based subscriber platform synonymous with pornography reported record profits. Leonid Radvinsky, the site’s Ukrainian-American 40-year-old owner, is the sole shareholder in a business that has seen its profits boom, as users spent $4.8bn on the site […]