Opinion-in-brief: a big day for Google’s lawyers November 11, 2021 Yesterday, Google both won, and lost. The tech giant avoided a £3.2bn claim over alleged unlawful tracking and selling of users’ data. In another breath, the EU courts rejected an appeal to overturn a €2.8bn fine. In cash terms, let’s call it even. An important door was left open in the UK case. The Court [...]
Whole Foods was Amazon’s grocery debut, now it’s time for a main course November 11, 2021 Amazon took its first major step into grocery when it bought Whole Foods Market in 2017 for $13.7bn. The purchase sent shockwaves through the retail world at the time. It marked Amazon’s first step into brick-and-mortar retail and analysts interpreted the move as an effort to muscle in on the supermarket sector. But Amazon’s Whole [...]
Heathrow’s constant queues are more than a nuisance – they’re undermining London November 11, 2021 First impressions count. The truism applies to countries as well as people. When entering a new country our first impression of it will be its border control. I remember fondly arriving in Paphos, Cyprus before and after they joined the European Union and the development was remarkable. It told a story of a country on [...]
The minefield of virtual court hearings and delays put victims at greater risk November 11, 2021 Family court hearings are being pushed back until Spring 2023 as the court system falters under the weight of the backlogs. Covid has been a driving force – but the judicial process has been fraught with delays long before the pandemic. Any court appearance is sensitive but the emotional nature of the family courts adds [...]
Just-in-time Sleaze buster: Boris Johnson, the part-time prime minister November 10, 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson has finally plucked up the courage to speak about the sleaze row that has shaken through Parliament. Unfortunately, he hasn’t said much. Johnson commented on the poor performance of Sir Geoffrey Cox, who has spent most of last year advising the British Virgin Island for the modest sum of £1m. The [...]
You Meta believe it: we need to figure out how to regulate the metaverse before we’re inside it November 10, 2021 The metaverse has been on everyone’s lips after Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of Facebook, now made fresh into Meta. “All of our products, including our apps, now share a new vision: to help bring the metaverse to life”, said Zuckerberg in his melodramatic Founder’s letter. Almost two weeks have gone by since the announcement, [...]
Meta exec: Interacting in (not on) the internet will transform our society November 10, 2021 There’s a poster on the wall of our offices which asks the question “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” It’s a brilliant question which encourages us to think bravely and confidently about the future. Last month, Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage virtually at Facebook’s annual conference to answer that question. He unveiled [...]
Britons squeamish to spend their savings are jeopardising our economic recovery November 10, 2021 The economic recovery is under threat. British consumers are saving and not spending. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that during lockdown, households accumulated a massive £180bn of so-called “excess savings”. Earlier in the year, most economic forecasts assumed that these would be run down. Lockdown had constrained people’s normal behaviour and with the [...]
If billionaires can decide to pay tax with a Twitter poll, something is badly wrong November 10, 2021 There’s something darkly amusing about one of the richest men in the world using Twitter to poll his 60 million followers about whether he should pay tax. It wasn’t just the flippant way Tesla’s Elon Musk (@edgeLorde) asked his followers to vote on whether he should sell $21bn of stock and in doing so pay [...]
Forget second jobs, ministers should do start with the grunt work of their first ones November 9, 2021 In a storm of sleaze allegations, it was an unfortunate day for Sir Geoffrey Cox to publish details of his £400,000 a year job at Withers LLP. For the pleasure of being paid almost half a million pounds, he offers “international legal services”. Sir Geoffrey, is, after all, a QC. To borrow a lawyer’s phrase, [...]