Business

Microsoft will on Wednesday lodge a formal appeal against British regulators’ decision to block its $75bn takeover of Activision Blizzard, the Call of Duty maker. Sky News understands that the technology behemoth will file its complaint with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) within hours, sparking the next phase of its fight to secure one of

Netflix has expanded its crackdown on password sharing, telling users worldwide their accounts cannot be shared for free outside their households. The streaming service has been looking for new revenue streams amid fears of market saturation, with efforts including limits on password borrowing and a new advert-supported option. On Tuesday, the company said it was

Britain is no longer expected to suffer a recession this year, nor will it have the weakest economic growth in the group of seven leading industrialised economies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said today. Unveiling a dramatic upgrade to its outlook for Britain, the Fund, which previously predicted Britain would face the worst 2023 of

Falling milk prices have helped drive grocery inflation lower for a second consecutive month, according to industry data. Kantar Worldpanel, which tracks supermarket sales and prices, measured the annual rate of grocery inflation at 17.2% over the four weeks to 14 May. That was down from 17.3% in the previous four-week period but still at

A growing number of skilled workers from Africa and Asia are moving to Britain to plug crippling staff shortages, according to new figures that reveal the changing picture of migration. Businesses are making use of the new post-Brexit migration system to bring in IT professionals, nurses and accountants. Since January 2021, the new system has

Meta is expected to face a record fine later over its transfer of Facebook’s European user data to US servers, according to reports. Reuters news agency cited two anonymous sources familiar with the matter as saying that the penalty from EU regulators will be higher than the previous record – a €746m (£647m) fine for

The government is to begin the hunt for a new boss of its flagship trade and cultural promotion campaign after the incumbent decided to step down after two years in charge. Sky News understands that Andy Pike OBE resigned as director of GREAT earlier this month, and will leave the post in September. Mr Pike

Executives including a former director of world motorsport’s governing body and the Nectar loyalty scheme founder Sir Keith Mills are in talks to raise $100m (£80m) to finance the rebirth of A1GP, the motor racing series contested by national teams from around the globe. Sky News has learnt that heavyweight names from the sporting and

Adidas has announced it will start selling some of the shoes from its defunct Yeezy partnership with Kanye West at the end of this month. The company said it will donate the proceeds to organisations fighting antisemitism and racism when it first outlined the plans last week. The German sportswear maker was left with Yeezy

The energy price cap is set to remain more than £1,000 higher than the average bill before the COVID pandemic, according to a closely-watched forecast. Ahead of the industry regulator’s determination on the price cap level due next week, energy research specialist Cornwall Insight said it saw the cap for a typical household at the

Tesco chair John Allan is to leave next month after the supermarket giant said allegations over his personal conduct “risk becoming a distraction” to the chain. The UK’s largest retailer said he would be “stepping down” from his role as chair of the board and as a director at the company’s AGM on 16 June.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife lost an average of £500,000 a day over the past year, according to The Sunday Times Rich List. The couple are estimated to be £201m poorer due a fall in the value of Akshata Murty’s stake in her father’s IT firm – but are still worth a reported

The government must act to prepare for artificial intelligence (AI) to hit the workplace “like a freight train”, the boss of one of Britain’s leading energy companies has told Sky News. Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus, says the adoption of AI across industry will ultimately improve the workplace and spawn new roles, but the startling

Royal Mail’s parent firm has reported £748m in annual operating losses, driven by the crisis within the UK business that was dogged by strikes and poor performance. International Distributions Services (IDS) laid the blame squarely at the foot of Royal Mail, which was in the red to the tune of just over £1bn during the

Britain has now missed its window of opportunity to build a battery industry, and the government, including Rishi Sunak, is largely to blame, the head of collapsed cell manufacturer Britishvolt has told Sky News. The company was feted as the jewel in Britain’s manufacturing crown – the first home-grown gigafactory, co-financed by the government and

Vauxhall’s parent company has called for the government to renegotiate its Brexit deal with the EU to correct elements that place the future of UK plants at risk. Stellantis, which also has Citroen, Fiat and Peugeot among its stable of brands, used a submission to a parliamentary committee’s inquiry on electric vehicle (EV) production to

The owner of the largest pipeline system in the North Sea has warned the future of domestic production is in doubt due to the severity of UK windfall taxes. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who is Britain’s richest man and whose Ineos business owns the Forties oil and gas pipeline, said the tax rate applied to North

One in five taxpayers will be paying higher-rate income tax by 2027, in what the Institute for Fiscal Studies describes as a “seismic shift” since the 1990s. Higher rates of tax were previously thought of as being for the most wealthy, but the six-year freeze in income tax allowances and thresholds that began last month

Royal Mail is again being investigated by the communications regulator over its missed delivery targets. Ofcom announced the inquiry after Royal Mail said on Monday it did not meet its 2022 to 2023 quality of service targets. The targets require Royal Mail to deliver 93% of first-class mail within one working day of collection; deliver

Britain is at risk of forgetting “how to do things for ourselves”, the home secretary will warn, as she increases pressure on Rishi Sunak to cut net migration. The home secretary will use a speech at the National Conservatism Conference today to call for the Conservatives to renew their 2019 manifesto commitment, which promised “fewer