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A decade ago, while attending a conference in an unprecedentedly prosperous and westernised Moscow, I went to interview the British KGB double agent George Blake in his dacha outside town. It was meant to be just a newspaper article, but it spiralled out of control, and my biography of him appeared last year. Other recent

EY Germany is planning to cut workloads as it overhauls its auditing practices following the failure to spot that half of Wirecard’s revenues and billions of corporate cash did not exist. The German arm of the Big Four accounting firm on Thursday promised staff “an improvement of working conditions” after receiving the recommendations of an

Miner and commodity trader Glencore has suffered a rebuke from some shareholders over its climate transition plan, highlighting the increased scrutiny of corporate proposals to tackle global warming. Almost 24 per cent of votes cast at the group’s annual general meeting in Switzerland on Thursday were opposed to a resolution seeking approval for the company’s climate

Hello, this is Kenji from Hong Kong. I have been involved in the #techAsia newsletter since its inception in April 2019, and am excited to continue my engagement in its latest incarnation. Despite the changes in the format, the mission of the newsletter remains the same: to deliver the latest and deepest stories from the

The Bank of Japan has driven the yen to a new multi-decade low, defying a global shift towards higher interest rates and vowing to keep bond yields at zero. Within hours of the BoJ’s policy decision on Thursday, the yen fell 1.7 per cent to ¥130.62 against the dollar as the central bank promised to

Volvo Cars has begun sourcing alternatives to its Chinese-made parts as coronavirus lockdowns now spreading across the country add a new supply chain threat to an auto industry that has been beset by them over the past year. The company started double sourcing components that are obtained in China in a bid to shield its

Barclays’ profits fell 18 per cent in the first quarter and the bank had to delay a promised £1bn stock buyback as a jump in litigation and conduct provisions overshadowed a surge in trading revenue. Net income fell to £1.4bn, down from £1.7bn in the same period last year, the British bank said on Thursday.

J Sainsbury warned underlying profit would be lower than expected this year amid “significant external pressures and uncertainties” including cost inflation and a squeeze on household incomes. The UK’s second-largest supermarket on Thursday forecast underlying profit of between £630mn and £690mn. Analysts’ consensus forecast, as compiled by the group, had been for £703mn. Chief executive

Good morning. Wall Street rallied yesterday, then faded. Sentiment is poor, and surprisingly solid results from Facebook (still boycotting “Meta” around here) after the bell seem unlikely to change that. But readers have suggested plenty of good reasons to be cheerful: it’s spring, Trump is out of the White House, and Russia is losing. Keep

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express. Russia fired the first warning shots yesterday in a looming energy war when it halted gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria. But the EU called the Kremlin’s bluff: it can use reverse flows, alternative supplies and storage to help the two countries. The European Commission insisted that other

Throughout her career as an economist, Lise Vesterlund has been struck by the number of male colleagues who were exceptionally good at teaching and writing research papers, yet “somehow when it comes to doing any kind of service work, they [have some defect] that somehow makes them never serve on a committee”. So the work

It might seem like business-as-usual in the post-pandemic western art world, but some of the alternative models initiated during the lockdowns are finding their footing. One is the Fair Art Fair (FAF), an app launched last September by the London artist-gallerist Stacie McCormick, with some Arts Council backing. Despite its name, the platform operates more

Every now and again, a news reporter will encounter a story where none of the explanations provided makes sense. Instinct will suggest a more complex and interesting story is lurking in the tapestry of obfuscations. Dead in the Water is a triumphant example of what happens when editors give reporters the time to pull at

The writer is the founder and managing director of capital markets think-tank New Financial In the latest round of self-flagellation over the state of the UK stock market and the City of London, it is worth remembering the words of American writer HL Mencken that “for every complex problem there is an answer that is

Twitter is rushing to reassure advertisers that it will remain a safe place for brands after Elon Musk takes over the company, as the campaign groups that organised a Facebook advertising boycott in 2020 warn that the Tesla chief’s focus on freedom of speech could increase toxicity and abuse. The San Francisco-based company has written

The UK’s new online safety bill threatens to weigh down small businesses with new costs, according to the new chief executive of a group of online watchdogs which are gaining increased powers to compel tech companies to protect users on the internet. Gill Whitehead, the first head of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF), a

One thing to start: The UK Serious Fraud Office deployed investigators to sites connected with Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance on Wednesday to demand documents as it steps up its probe into the industrialist’s empire. A Tiger cub risks losing his stripes In May 2020, a scathing report from short seller Muddy Waters alleged Chinese online

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. Russia raised the spectre of nuclear war this week as it struggles to make headway in Ukraine. How seriously should this threat be taken and can Vladimir Putin rely on his friendship with China’s Xi Jinping?

It barely took half an hour to gravely wound the chances of an alliance on France’s far right that could turn the movement into a serious player in government instead of a token opposition presence. On Sunday night after Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election to Emmanuel Macron but achieved a historic score for

Accounting firm RSM has bought out most of the shares in the business held by its former UK partners, consolidating the power of its new management team two years after the entire board was ousted following an investor coup. The UK’s seventh-largest accounting firm by revenue was thrown into chaos in 2019, when its chief

Rishi Sunak has hinted that he could perform a U-turn and introduce a windfall tax on UK oil and gas companies unless they ramp up investment in new energy projects. The UK chancellor has long argued against such a levy, which is backed by the Labour party, on the grounds that it would deter investment