Mike Lynch’s estate and business partner owe HP £700m, court rules

The estate of Mike Lynch, who died a year ago when his superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily, and his business partner owe Hewlett-Packard more than £700m, a court has ruled.The US technology company has been seeking damages of up to $4.55bn (£3.37bn) from the estate of the late tycoon, once hailed as the UK’s answer to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, over its disastrous takeover of his British software company Autonomy.Lynch’s estate has been estimated to be worth about £500m and paying its share of the £700m damages could leave it bankrupt

Coca-Cola to launch Coke with cane sugar in the US after Trump post

Coca-Cola has laid out plans to launch a product made with US cane sugar this year, days after Donald Trump claimed the company had agreed to replace high-fructose corn syrup.The company announced the change in a quarterly earnings report released on Tuesday.On a conference call with investors, Coca-Cola’s chairperson and CEO, James Quincey, said the company planned “to expand our trademark … product range with US cane sugar to reflect consumer interest in differentiated experiences”.Quincey said the new offering would “complement” Coca-Cola’s core portfolio of drinks, suggesting it could arrive as an alternative, rather than a replacement, for its flagship Coke product.“This is really an ‘and’ strategy and not an ‘or’ strategy,” Quincey said, according to the Wall Street Journal

BoE governor warns Reeves weakening banking rules risks repeat of 2008 crisis

The governor of the Bank of England has warned the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, against a radical watering-down of City banking rules because it would risk repeating the mistakes that led to the 2008 financial crisis.Andrew Bailey said that while some changes to the rules could be helpful, wholesale reforms to unleash risk-taking in the City of London in the name of economic growth would be counterproductive.“There isn’t a trade-off between financial stability and growth. We’ve had that experience,” he told MPs on the Treasury select committee.Reeves last week used her annual Mansion House dinner to announce sweeping changes to banking industry rules, telling City bosses she believed that in too many cases regulation was a “boot on the neck” of business

GM says Trump tariffs knocked $1.1bn off its operating income last quarter

General Motors announced on Tuesday that Donald Trump’s tariffs knocked $1.1bn off its operating income in its last quarter.The US automaker’s second-quarter core profit fell 32% to $3bn and said it expected the tariff impact to worsen in the third quarter. The company stuck to a previous estimate that trade headwinds threaten to hit the bottom line by $4bn to $5bn. GM said it could take steps to mitigate at least 30% of that impact

Britons ‘turning to simpler meals’ as grocery bills head for £275 annual rise

Consumers are expected to switch to cooking simpler meals at home to save money, as rising food prices threaten to add nearly £300 a year to household grocery bills, according to research.Shoppers are increasingly picking up supermarket own-label products to help manage their budgets, according to the research company Worldpanel, as grocery inflation stepped up from the 4.7% reported in June to 5.2% in July, the highest level since January 2024.If food prices remain elevated, it could add £275 to the average household grocery bill – now £5,283 a year – analysts at Worldpanel estimated