Activist investors appear to have won at least a reprieve from new regulation that would force them to declare their hand earlier when building a stake in a company.

The owner of a specialist City brokerage and his wife are to be sentenced next month after orchestrating "a long-running, sophisticated and very profitable" insider dealing scam using tip-offs ...

Nick Clegg's closest allies have vowed the Liberal Democrats will stick with the coalition for the full five-year term, fearing a backlash from voters and the markets if the party backs out early.

Olympus is expected to reach a £10m settlement with its former chief executive, Michael Woodford, who was summarily fired last year after he raised questions about $1bn in suspicious payments made by the ...

Macquarie, the Australian bank, has increased its footprint in the raw materials business by buying a 42.5 per cent stake in Czarnikow, the London-based sugar merchant.

George Osborne's political roasting over hot pies intensified on Monday after the chancellor was forced into a £40m retreat on his proposed "pasty tax", as the Budget showed new signs of unravelling....

One of Ireland's oldest stockbrokers has been forced to cease trading after the Central Bank of Ireland discovered financial irregularities.

Diageo is to pay $450m for a Brazilian maker of cachaça, the sugarcane-derived liquor, as it continues its drive to source half of all sales from emerging markets by June 2015.

Spain's prime minister has insisted his country will not need an international rescue for its banks as investors recoiled at a €19bn rescue of Bankia, sending the country's borrowing costs over Germany's ...

The discovery of a malicious computer program that appears to be collecting sensitive information from Iran and others indicates the global cyberwar has moved to a new level, warn security experts.

Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays (NYSE:BCS), has accused the government of inflicting "unnecessary damage" on its reputation when it retrospectively outlawed a £300m tax deal in a move ...

Never a match made in heaven, BP's partnership with the Russian oligarchs of AAR is on the rocks. And to hear AAR tell it, it is time to call the divorce lawyers.

Sackings are much in the air in Britain - whether it be civil servants, teachers or, as some wish to see, a broader relaxation of rules preventing employers from firing underperformers at will. Notebook ...

As you read this article, little files called cookies may track your reading pattern to select ads that match your interests. You should have the choice whether to accept this or not. EU law now rightly ...

While artworks are always and everywhere subject to criticism, it is rare for them to become the target of political protest. Yet, such is the anger caused by Brett Murray's "The Spear", that ...

Britain is proud of its reputation as an open, competitive place for business. But this image is threatened by the chaos plaguing its immigration services.

US stocks are poised to remain on uneven ground as the second-quarter enters its final month this week against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty and resurgent eurozone woes.

Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman has resigned as chief executive of BP's Russian joint venture TNK-BP, plunging relations between the UK oil group and its local partners into fresh turmoil.

Is this the moment when the world moves from "we can't do anything" to "we have to do something"? The shock of the massacre of more than 100 people in the Syrian town of Houla, accompanied ...

The crisis in the eurozone is once again rightly fuelling concern over youth unemployment. The numbers are shocking, but no business or political leader in the developed world can be surprised. "If ...

"Luis is an engineer, his passion is to build things," began a television advert used by Bankia to sell shares in its stock market listing last year. "Today he is finishing one of his new ...

Mea culpa. I had thought that the 2012 Olympics were destined to descend into chaos. I now know that the games will be a triumphant celebration of London's place as an unrivalled global hub. My first error ...

Client: Prada; Director: Roman Polanski; Territory: Cannes Film Festival/global;Verdict: 4/5

The story. Rob Masri set up Cardagin Networks in 2010 to develop an app targeted at smaller, local merchants that offered rewards to customers via smartphones and other mobile devices.

Now we know what people mean when they say merger integration is torture. Former staff at Autonomy, the UK software company bought by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) less than a year ago, say submitting to ...

In February, the EU's two most senior officials arrived at a Beijing summit with an expensive favour from their host in mind: tens of billions of euros to help douse the flames of the continent's debt ...

Todd Kozel, executive chairman and chief executive of Gulf Keystone, has issued a strong defence of his £13m pay package arguing that his success in transforming the Kurdistan-focused oil explorer into ...

The ties that bind the eurozone's tottering banking system to its weakest governments are growing ever-tighter. The region would clearly be better off if its banks owned no government debt. But the banks ...

Luxury is a relative concept. In Poland just over two decades ago, it was the height of luxury to have a steady supply of toilet paper, a washing machine and a few US dollars to buy some stick deodorant ...

Jailed Bahraini activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja will end a more than three-month-long hunger strike on Monday evening as he had succeeded in drawing attention to the issue of imprisoned activists, his lawyer ...

Spain's prime minister has insisted his country will not need an international rescue for its banks as investors recoiled at a €19bn rescue of Bankia, sending the country's borrowing costs over Germany's ...

Turkey has begun the prosecution of four top Israeli commanders over the deaths of nine Turkish activists at the hands of Israeli forces in 2010, a move that marks the increasingly antagonistic relationship ...

BAA has won the right to appeal an order to sell Stansted airport in the first big break for the airport operator for two years in its fight against the original ruling.

Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." This line from The Outlaw Josey Wales, the classic Clint Eastwood western, is self-explanatory. In contending that the fiscal treaty will solve our ...

Just another day in the eurozone. Spain's stock market tumbles to nine-year lows, its borrowing costs soar, and shares in one of the country's biggest banks fall nearly 30 per cent after Madrid announces ...

Housing associations are piling into capital markets to raise billions of pounds to fill the vacuum left as banks withdraw from the sector, and ramp up interest rates on their historic loans.

Brendan Sarsfield, chief executive of Family Mosaic, is feeling relaxed about the prospects for the housing association he runs, which borrowed large amounts of long-term debt before the credit crunch ...

The day after Memorial day in the US is not a bad one to ask how much money the country spends on national defence. It is a simple enough question and, given the state of public finances, certainly an ...

When Walmart shareholders gather in Arkansas this week, any investor dissent at a company still controlled by the family of its founder is likely to have little immediate impact.

US public pension funds have used loose regulation to camouflage their liabilities and take on risks as they have matured, according to a new study by academics from Yale and Maastricht universities.

The clatter of falling dominoes echoes through the mining sector. Slowing growth rates in China have contributed to weakening commodity prices. This has led big mining companies, such as BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP), ...

It is possible, in both life and business, for something to be too finely balanced. Exhibit A is TNK-BP. The Russian oil company ought to be a model to be emulated. In less than a decade it has become ...

Fenchurch Advisory Partners has poached Cliff Hampton to be its chairman from rival independent advisory group Evercore to bolster its client relationships.

Greece's four largest banks received a €18bn transfer on Monday as the first instalment of a recapitalisation plan agreed as part of the country's second bailout by the EU and the International Monetary ...

Vector Capital, a US private equity technology specialist, has launched an offer to become the main shareholder in Technicolor, the troubled French maker of digital TV kit and movie production software, ...

Dinner parties rarely go well in drama. In Matthew Dunster's sharp new play, the roast lamb hasn't even made it out of the oven before the assembled guests are first fighting among themselves and then ...

"Love will set you free." It sounds more convincing in Cannes, where the Palme d'Or victory for Michael Haneke's deserving Amour will ensure the film's release into a thousand world arthouses, ...

The world economy has become more resilient to rising oil prices, according to the International Monetary Fund, although it warned that a supply shock could still derail global growth.