United Kingdom

Irish regulator fines Facebook owner €390m after EU rejects argument for use of data to drive personalised ads The business model of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta empire has been dealt a blow following a ruling that its legal justification for targeting users with personalised ads broke EU data laws. Campaigners said the move could force the Facebook and Instagram owner to ask users …

The online retail giant’s boss is on a mission to make employee inclusivity a ‘moral obligation’ and to help his company adapt to a difficult post-pandemic marketplace hen corporate executives start discussing their efforts to influence company culture, a healthy amount of scepticism is advisable. But Murray Lambell, the UK boss of US online retail giant eBay, can draw on personal …

Pay package is drop of about £35m on previous year but she still ranks as one of world’s best-paid executives The multibillionaire boss of gambling company Bet365 has collected annual pay and dividends of more than £260m – one of the world’s biggest-ever pay awards but less than the record-breaking £471m she collected in 2020. Denise Coates, who set up Bet365 …

When the news broke at the start of month that Netflix had cancelled 1899, their genre-juggling supernatural horror series, after one seemingly well-received series, it sent a shudder through the streaming industry. Shows get axed all the time in Hollywood, but 1899 seemed pretty cancel-proof. After all, its creators, Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, were also behind Dark, the German …

Currys has a claim to being the UK’s most infuriating retailer – not for the customers, but for its shareholders. This is a company that generates £10bn of annual revenues and enjoys No 1 positions in all its territories – the UK and Ireland, Greece and the Nordics, which means everywhere from Finland to the niche market of Greenland. It …

Arsenal are closing in on a deal to sign Mykhaylo Mudryk from Shakhtar Donetsk for an eventual fee of up to £80m, meaning their long pursuit of the player is on the verge of a successful conclusion. Mudryk has been Mikel Arteta’s top winter target but negotiations with the Ukrainian champions, who drive a notoriously hard bargain, have not been straightforward. Nor are they …

The Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy has been found not guilty of raping four women and sexually assaulting another during alcohol-fuelled parties at his Cheshire mansion. The former French international slumped with his head in his hands as he was cleared unanimously of six counts of rape and one of sexual assault after a five-month trial at Chester crown court. …

People selling their homes have typically had to settle for below the asking price in recent weeks, according to Zoopla, which is predicting house prices will fall by about 5% next year. The average price achieved in recent weeks has been 3% below a seller’s asking price, when for much of 2021 and the first half of this year it …

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has snapped up a basket of 15 brands including former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green and 1980s brand Tessuti in a £47.5m cash deal with JD Sports. JD, which owns Size?, Finish Line in the US and Spain’s Sprinter as well as its main retail chain, said the sale of the “non-core” brands would allow it to …

Lidl, Zara’s owner Inditex, H&M and Next have been accused of paying garment suppliers in Bangladesh during the pandemic less than the cost of production, leaving factories struggling to pay the country’s legal minimum wage. In a survey of 1,000 factories in the country producing clothes for UK retailers, 19% of Lidl’s suppliers made the claim, as did 11% of …