ReportWire

Tag: United Kingdom

  • UK blocks Microsoft takeover of Activision Blizzard | CNN Business

    UK blocks Microsoft takeover of Activision Blizzard | CNN Business


    London
    CNN
     — 

    The UK antitrust regulator has blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, thwarting one of the tech industry’s biggest deals over concerns it will stifle competition in cloud gaming.

    The Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement Wednesday that it was worried the deal would lead to “reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come.”

    The acquisition would make Microsoft

    (MSFT)     “even stronger” in cloud gaming, a market in which it already holds a 60%-70% share globally, the regulator added.

    Activision Blizzard is one of the world’s biggest video game developers, producing games such as “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft,” “Diablo” and “Overwatch.” Microsoft, which sells the Xbox gaming console, offers a video game subscription service called Xbox Game Pass, as well as a cloud-based video game streaming service.

    The deal to combine the businesses has been met with growing opposition by antitrust regulators worldwide. In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the takeover over similar competition concerns. A hearing is scheduled for August. The European Union is also evaluating the transaction

    Microsoft could seek to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own platforms and then increase the cost of a Game Pass subscription, the Competition and Markets Authority said.

    “The cloud allows UK gamers to avoid buying expensive gaming consoles and PCs and gives them much more flexibility and choice as to how they play. Allowing Microsoft to take such a strong position in the cloud gaming market just as it begins to grow rapidly would risk undermining the innovation that is crucial to the development of these opportunities,” it added.

    “The evidence available… indicates that, absent the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future.”

    Both companies plan to appeal the decision. “Alongside Microsoft, we can and will contest this decision, and we’ve already begun the work to appeal to the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement.

    Microsoft President Brad Smith added: “This decision appears to reflect a flawed understanding of the market and the way the relevant cloud technology actually works.”

    The Competition and Markets Authority, which launched an in-depth review of the blockbuster deal in September, said Microsoft’s proposed remedies to its concerns had “significant shortcomings.”

    “Their proposals… would have replaced competition with ineffective regulation in a new and dynamic market,” explained Martin Coleman, chair of the independent panel of experts conducting the investigation.

    “Microsoft already enjoys a powerful position and head start over other competitors in cloud gaming, and this deal would strengthen that advantage, giving it the ability to undermine new and innovative competitors,” Coleman continued. “Cloud gaming needs a free, competitive market to drive innovation and choice.”

    The UK cloud gaming market is expected to be worth up to £1 billion ($1.2 billion) by 2026, around 9% of the global market, according to the Competition and Markets Authority.

    -— Josh du Lac and Brian Fung contributed reporting.

    Source link

  • Apple faces $1 billion UK lawsuit by app developers over App Store fees | CNN Business

    Apple faces $1 billion UK lawsuit by app developers over App Store fees | CNN Business

    More than 1,500 app developers in the United Kingdom brought a £785 million ($1 billion) class action lawsuit against Apple Tuesday over its App Store fees.

    Revenues at Apple

    (AAPL)    ’s services business, which includes the App Store, have grown rapidly in the last few years and now hover around $20 billion per quarter.

    However, the commissions of 15% to 30% that the company charges some app makers for using an in-app payment system have been criticized by app developers and targeted by antitrust regulators in several countries.

    Apple has previously said that 85% of developers on the App Store do not pay any commission and that it helps European developers access markets and customers in 175 countries around the world through the App Store.

    The UK lawsuit at the Competition Appeal Tribunal is being brought by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, on behalf of 1,566 app developers.

    He is being advised by law firm Geradin Partners.

    “Apple’s charges to app developers are excessive and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhones and iPads,” Ennis said in a statement.

    “The charges are unfair in their own right and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers and also app buyers.”

    Source link

  • Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts | CNN Business

    Google workers in London stage walkout over job cuts | CNN Business



    Reuters
     — 

    Hundreds of Google employees staged a walkout at the company’s London offices on Tuesday, following a dispute over layoffs.

    In January, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced it was laying off 12,000 employees worldwide, equivalent to 6% of its global workforce.

    The move came amid a wave of job cuts across corporate America, particularly in the tech sector, which has so far seen companies shed more than 290,000 workers since the start of the year, according to tracking site Layoffs.fyi.

    Trade union Unite, which counts hundreds of Google’s UK employees among its members, said the company had ignored concerns put forward by employees.

    “Our members are clear: Google needs to listen to its own advice of not being evil,” said Unite regional officer Matt Whaley.

    “They and Unite will not back down until Google allows workers full union representation, engages properly with the consultation process and treats its staff with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

    A Google employee attending the protest, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, told Reuters that talks between employees and management had been “extremely frustrating.”

    “It has been difficult for those involved. We have a redundancy process for a reason, so that employees can make their voice heard,” they said. “But it feels as if our concerns have fallen on deaf ears.”

    Google’s senior management has been engaged in redundancy talks in many parts of Europe, in line with local employment laws.

    Last month, workers at the company’s Zurich office in Switzerland staged a similar walkout, with employee representatives claiming Google had rejected their proposals to reduce job cuts.

    “As we said on January 20, we’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles globally. We know this is a very challenging time for our employees,” a Google spokesperson said.

    “In the UK, we have been constructively engaging and listening to our employees through numerous meetings, and are working hard to bring them clarity and share updates as soon as we can in adherence with all UK processes and legal requirements.”

    Google employs more than 5,000 people in the United Kingdom.

    Source link

  • UK citizen extradited to US pleads guilty to 2020 Twitter hack | CNN Business

    UK citizen extradited to US pleads guilty to 2020 Twitter hack | CNN Business



    Reuters
     — 

    A citizen of the United Kingdom who was extradited to New York from Spain last month has pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and computer hacking schemes, including the 2020 hack of the social media site Twitter, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.

    Joseph James O’Connor, 23, was charged in both North Dakota and New York. The North Dakota case was transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

    O’Connor pleaded guilty to charges including conspiring to commit computer intrusions, to commit wire fraud and to commit money laundering.

    O’Connor, who was extradited to the U.S. on April 26, will also forfeit more than $794,000 and pay restitution to victims, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum of 77 years in prison at sentencing on June 23.

    “O’Connor’s criminal activities were flagrant and malicious, and his conduct impacted multiple people’s lives. He harassed, threatened, and extorted his victims, causing substantial emotional harm,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said in a statement.

    Prosecutors said the schemes included gaining unauthorized access to social media accounts on Twitter in July 2020 as well as a TikTok account in August 2020. Along with his co-conspirators, O’Connor stole at least $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency.

    The July 2020 Twitter attack hijacked a variety of verified accounts, including those of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who now owns Twitter.

    The accounts of former President Barack Obama, reality TV star Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Kanye West were also hit.

    The alleged hacker used the accounts to solicit digital currency, prompting Twitter to prevent some verified accounts from publishing messages for several hours until security could be restored.

    Source link

  • “Alfastreet is very positive about ICE London, and we expect a huge turn-out of our customers and partners” | Yogonet International

    “Alfastreet is very positive about ICE London, and we expect a huge turn-out of our customers and partners” | Yogonet International

    ICE London 2023 is just around the corner. The showcase, which will kickstart the year for many of the major players in the gaming sector, will see companies from all over the world exhibit their latest products and solutions at ExCeL London, providing a glimpse into the future of the industry. Alfastreet is no stranger to this yearly event. 

    In conversation with Yogonet, CEO Tjasa Luin Peric spoke about this upcoming edition, and explained that the pre-ICE month is always the busiest one for the business. “This year we will have to make some additional efforts,” she pointed out, as some of the products are currently being built. However, most of the new developments were finalized in the past months. 

    Peric further tells Yogonet that Alfastreet will be showing a new key single terminal named Verso. “This product will be unique in its class, offering absolutely competitive solutions to satisfy even the most demanding operators,” the CEO noted.

    The development process began with Verso’s design, combined with different materials and solutions to guarantee long-time successful operation, according to the executive. Alfastreet also updated its R5 product and will showcase it along with new wall displays, signages and software solutions.

    Alfastret's stand at ICE 2022.

    “New cabinets, new software solutions, new graphics and new video content are in the second phase of development, preparing to be unveiled at the ICE gaming exhibition. Alfastreet is very positive about the upcoming event, and we expect a huge turn-out of our customers and partners,” Peric commented. 

    The company is also preparing a special, extended lounge area in its stand, adding to the environment that they usually provide. “After almost three years of reduced travels and face-to-face meetings, the Alfastreet sales staff can’t wait to meet everybody in the upcoming gaming shows,” she added. 

    When it comes to the current demands from the industry and its clients, Peric explained that the company has diversified according to each market. “Alfastreet needs to adapt its solutions to a vast range of requirements to keep its competitiveness and offer unique solutions to its customers,” the CEO noted. 

    “Due to the increasingly stringent regulations worldwide it is not always possible to satisfy every wish from the customers, but they still manage to come very, very close,” the executive assured. “The highly capable and knowledgeable staff in dedicated departments has the wealth of 30-year experience and the drive to implement future solutions and technologies into products that keep setting the standard in the industry.”

    However, Peric deems these times as difficult: “Managing is challenging since we are coping with huge delays in the material supply.” The company expects this situation to improve in the coming months to allow it to complete all the orders and deliveries to its customers. 

    “For this ICE show, we expect our customers from different parts of the world, surprisingly this year we will also have more operators from LATAM and Asian markets,” she stated. 

    Peric added that the company’s ambitions for 2023 are higher compared to last year’s as it is expecting at least a 30% improvement in sales results. “2023 will be very intensive and challenging because of all the ongoing development and novelties planned for January 2024,” the Chief Executive tells Yogonet.

    Alfastreet has achieved a strong position in the global gaming market as it always prioritizes new developments, a practice that will remain unchanged, according to the company’s CEO. Therefore, Peric assures there is a “massive investment” of resources and time into new projects, some of which will be already prepared “for the beginning of next season.”

    The company is planning several private presentations and exhibitions in the coming months, but the final marketing plan will be confirmed by the end of January. The company will also be exhibiting at major regional gaming shows, and it will attend this year’s Singapore showcase in May. 

    Source link

  • Britain’s ‘profound economic crisis’ gives Rishi Sunak only unpleasant choices | CNN Business

    Britain’s ‘profound economic crisis’ gives Rishi Sunak only unpleasant choices | CNN Business


    London
    CNN Business
     — 

    Rishi Sunak, Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks, took office on Tuesday with a pledge to fix the “mistakes” of predecessor Liz Truss and tackle a “profound economic crisis.”

    The task won’t be an easy one, he acknowledged.

    “This will mean difficult decisions to come,” Sunak said in his first speech from No. 10 Downing Street.

    The United Kingdom was already sliding towards a recession when Truss took office in September, as soaring energy bills ate into spending. Now, Sunak has another headache: He must restore the government’s credibility with investors after Truss’ unfunded tax cuts sparked a bond market revolt, forcing the Bank of England to intervene to prevent a financial meltdown. Borrowing costs, including mortgage rates, shot higher.

    Accomplishing this goal will require delivering a detailed plan to put public finances on a more sustainable path. (A government watchdog warned in July that without major action, debt could reach 320% of the UK’s gross domestic product in 50 years.)

    The problem? There’s little appetite for government spending cuts after years of austerity in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Plus, failing to help households deal with surging living costs could prove politically devastating and further weigh on the economy.

    “It’s not a particularly pleasant economic hand to be dealt [as] a new prime minister,” said Ben Zaranko, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    Finance minister Jeremy Hunt got the ball rolling last week when he reversed £32 billion ($37 billion) in tax cuts that formed the bedrock of Truss’ plan to boost growth.

    Yet Sunak and Hunt — who will stay in his job — still need to find between £30 billion and £40 billion in savings to bring down public debt as a share of the economy in the next five years, according to calculations by IFS, an influential think tank.

    “It is going to be tough,” Hunt said in a tweet. “But protecting the vulnerable — and people’s jobs, mortgages and bills — will be at the front of our minds as we work to restore stability, confidence and long-term growth.”

    Sunak and Hunt won’t have the option of going light on the details. If investors don’t buy into their plan and borrowing costs shoot up again, getting the situation under control would only become trickier, as interest payments on government debt rise.

    “If markets don’t [see] the plans as credible, then filling the fiscal hole could become even harder,” said Ruth Gregory, senior UK economist at Capital Economics.

    One area Sunak may be tempted to tap is the social welfare budget. Questions have swirled about whether the Conservative government may try to avoid boosting state benefits in line with inflation, as is customary. (American recipients of Social Security will receive the biggest cost-of-living adjustment in more than four decades next year.)

    Most UK working-age benefits would typically go up by 10.1% next April based on inflation data. But there’s speculation the increase could be linked instead to average earnings, which are growing at a much slower rate than inflation. That could save £7 billion ($8 billion) in 2023-24, according to IFS.

    Such a move would prove controversial, however — especially since benefits have not kept up with rampant inflation in 2022.

    “I would like to see if we could find a way to increase benefits by inflation, but what I will say is that trade-offs are involved,” former Conservative cabinet minister Sajid Javid told ITV this week.

    A more palatable option, at least for households, would be extracting more taxes from corporations.

    Hunt has already said that corporate taxes will rise from 19% to 25% next spring. The Financial Times has reported that Hunt could also target earnings from oil and gas companies by extending a windfall tax on profits.

    In an interview with the BBC earlier this month, Hunt said he was “not against the principle” of windfall taxes and that “nothing is off the table.” Higher taxes on the financial sector are also under consideration, according to the Financial Times.

    Industry groups are already circling the wagons. Banking trade association UK Finance said its members already pay “a higher rate of taxation overall than any other sector,” and urged the government not to “risk the competitiveness of the UK’s banking and finance industry.”

    Sunak could also walk back Truss’ commitment to boosting defense spending to 3% of the economy by 2030, though that carries its own political risks given Russia’s war in Ukraine. Other countries in the region, such as Germany, have said they will ramp up military investments, and the United Kingdom may be loath to fall behind, Zaranko said.

    Investors and economists expect that the government will announce a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts shortly. Hunt is due to reveal his plans in greater depth on October 31.g

    “Despite the fiscal U-turns, the government will still need to show a fiscally credible path next week in the budget to balance the books,” Sonali Punhani, an economist at Credit Suisse, said in a note to clients this week.

    That could exacerbate the country’s downturn. The Bank of England has projected that the United Kingdom is already in a recession, and a gauge of business activity in October slumped to its lowest level in 21 months.

    “We are seeing quite a dramatic shift in the fiscal outlook from being much looser than we expected just a few weeks ago to being much tighter than we expected,” Gregory of Capital Economics said. “I think the risk is that the recession is deeper or longer than we expect.”

    A weaker economy would present its own complications.

    No one wants to repeat the errors of the brief Truss era, when her gamble that unfunded tax cuts would jumpstart growth backfired spectacularly.

    But business groups are warning that completely abandoning the objective of boosting Britain’s anemic economic growth would create problems, too.

    The austerity of the 2010s produced “very low growth, zero productivity and low investment,” Tony Danker, head of the Confederation of British Industry, told the BBC on Tuesday.

    “The country could end up in a similar doom loop where all you have to do is keep coming back every year to find more tax rises and more spending cuts, because you’ve got no growth.”

    Source link

  • Ladbrokes partners with 02, AEG Presents and NME on new entertainment platform Ladbrokes Live | Yogonet International

    Ladbrokes partners with 02, AEG Presents and NME on new entertainment platform Ladbrokes Live | Yogonet International

    UK bookmaker Ladbrokes has launched Ladbrokes LIVE, a new digital entertainment platform. LIVE is described as set to reward “thousands of fans” with free access to the UK’s “best live shows”, powered by strategic partnerships with O2, AEG Presents and NME.

    The Ladbrokes LIVE digital hub will give both existing customers and new Ladbrokes users the chance to win free access to live music and comedy shows. Users must be eighteen and over to register for the platform. No betting is required to participate.

    The Ladbrokes LIVE launch sees Ladbrokes partner with The O2, a live entertainment, leisure and retail destination; AEG Presents, which promotes and manages concerts and tours; and music news publication NME. 

    Through these partnerships, Ladbrokes LIVE promises to reward with “free access to thousands of tickets and unique live experiences,” including premium tickets to live shows at The O2 within a specially designed Ladbrokes LIVE Private Box.

    Kelly Rose, Head of Brand for Ladbrokes, said: “We’re embarking on an exciting new era for Ladbrokes connecting thousands of fans with free access to artists and talent through the Ladbrokes LIVE platform.”

    “In The O2, AEG Presents, and NME we’re working with three of the biggest and most iconic brands in the entertainment industry and this means we will be able to reward our audiences with the chance to attend some of the most exciting live shows in Britain for free.”

    In addition to music, those signing up on the Ladbrokes LIVE platform will have the chance to win free access to a wide range of live events including the Just For Laughs comedy festival,  the Luno Presents All Points East festival, and other touring shows across the country. 

    The collaboration between Ladbrokes and NME also sees the return of the Club NME nights with a series of dates across the UK featuring “headline talent and unmissable DJ sets”. Fans will be able to win free access to Club NME nights through the Ladbrokes LIVE platform.

    The Ladbrokes LIVE campaign also includes “significant” digital OOH media inventory at The O2 and sponsorship of the NME Awards show. 

    Georgina Iceton from AEG Global Partnerships added: “We are pleased to welcome Ladbrokes as a brand partner, and its customers to our world-famous venues like The O2, and best-in-class festivals with AEG Presents.”

    “The creation of a specially designed guest box at The O2, alongside unique live experiences across AEG Europe’s venues and live events will bring an exciting new dimension of entertainment not just for Ladbrokes customers, but all our visitors.”

    Holly Bishop, Chief Operating and Commercial Officer at NME, said: “We are thrilled to announce the return of the legendary Club NME, once again providing fans with unforgettable live music experiences at some of the UK’s best venues. Thanks to Ladbrokes, all tickets will be completely free, making Club NME more accessible than ever.”

    Source link