Inflation is pushing prices up – but anticompetitive cartels could be too April 5, 2022 Tough times prompt more crime. It is a truism which, as usual, contains a measure of fact. Prices have been rising for months and a spike in fuel costs worldwide has created a perfect storm for cartel activity and prompted an unprecedented reaction from the world’s leading competition agencies. One major concern is companies taking [...]
Is the MBA going out of fashion? It might do if it doesn’t adapt for tomorrow’s tech kids April 5, 2022 Go to business school, get an MBA and take the fast track to success in finance or consultancy. It’s been a popular route for students and employers alike for decades, and in 2021 more than half of graduates took this path. But business students have begun to shun this, as the lure of working for [...]
As consumer confidence plummets, we face a cultural reckoning over British pubs April 5, 2022 In the months ahead, people across the country will be tightening their belts and doing all they can to maintain their quality of life despite rising costs all around them. So it wasn’t completely surprising when yesterday, PwC’s new consumer sentiment survey reported the steepest decline in consumer confidence since their tracking began, 14 years [...]
Letters: Digital VAT can be an opportunity April 4, 2022 [Re: Digitalisation of VAT for small businesses, April 1] The next phase of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT came into force on Friday, and it’s fair to say that not every small business will have welcomed it with open arms. Already facing a laundry list of challenges, they now need to comply with HMRC’s [...]
Explainer-in-brief: Behind the upcoming energy strategy April 4, 2022 As we brace ourselves for higher energy bills this month, the energy strategy is expected to finally come out this week. Boris Johnson has made clear that his juice of choice is nuclear, setting the goal of getting a quarter of the country’s electricity from nuclear power. Yet nuclear can’t be the only homemade source, [...]
As we cosy up to Qatar, the West must face the moral maze of the Middle East April 4, 2022 Last month I wrote about the prospect of Dubai challenging London’s place as a great global financial centre. But Britain’s delicate dance with the Middle East does not end there. The emerging relationship between Europe and the United States on the one hand and the oil-rich emirate of Qatar on the other poses a multitude [...]
Impact investing has the power to create social change, but we need to measure it April 4, 2022 As our world faces a myriad of environmental, social and geo-political challenges, there can be little doubt that radical changes must be made to ensure a sustainable and equitable future for generations to come. The UN’s latest report on climate change sends a stark warning: we have passed the point of no return. We must [...]
Fintech was born out of the 2008 crisis: now it will help us navigate another storm April 4, 2022 In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, the financial services industry was in crisis. Silver linings were hard to come by. That period of turmoil led to the emergence of a new wave of financial innovation that would transform the industry and drive a fintech revolution. The crisis created opportunities for new companies to [...]
Explainer-in-brief: A fertiliser win for farmers – even if it stinks April 1, 2022 British farmers have won a battle over manure in a bid to find alternatives to increasingly unaffordable and scarce chemical fertilisers. Fertiliser costs have been steadily going up, with the last spike following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government had previously banned using manure as a fertiliser last autumn. This decision was taken following concerns [...]
European tech laws should tempt the next Silicon Valley to cross the Atlantic April 1, 2022 In the early years of the last century, Louis Brandeis of America’s Supreme Court believed that markets, without regulation, would destroy their most treasured characteristic, competition. It was Justice Brandeis, above all others, whose actions curtailed the oil industry’s “robber barons” and brought about the age of “antitrust”. Today, for the first time since, anti-monopolists [...]