Qantas confirms cyber-attack exposed records of up to 6 million customers

Qantas has suffered a major cyber-attack, potentially exposing the records of up to 6 million customers.The airline said on Wednesday that the affected system had now been contained and its systems were secured. The system in question was a third-party platform used by the airline’s contact centre, which contains the records of 6 million customers.The data includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers. It did not contain credit card details, financial information or passport details

EU may as well be ‘province of China’ due to reliance on imports, says industrialist

The EU may as well “apply to be a province of China” such is its inability to wean itself off that country’s supply of critical raw materials used in everything from electric vehicles to smartphones and wind turbines, a leading German industrialist has said.As chief executive of AMG Lithium, the EU’s first factory to make the lithium hydroxide used in many car batteries, Stefan Scherer sits at the centre of what has been dubbed a new gold rush.But the chemist said China will continue to dominate battery technology and undercut EU rivals unless temporary protections on components are put in place, arguing that current Brussels policy and laws are failing to deliver results on the ground.“Europe has to become independent of China, otherwise it’s just blah blah blah,” said Scherer, speaking at the AMG plant in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, a town in the former east Germany.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, promised as recently as March that the EU would “will promote domestic production to avoid strategic dependencies, especially for batteries”

Owners of collapsed oil refinery Prax Lindsey took £11.5m in pay and dividends

The married couple behind the Prax Lindsey oil refinery awarded themselves at least $15.9m (£11.5m) in pay and dividends in the years leading up to its collapse, it has emerged, as the government urged the company’s boss to “put his hand in his pockets” to help workers.Winston Soosaipillai, who goes by his middle names Sanjeev Kumar, jointly owned the refinery with his wife, Arani, until it plunged into insolvency on Monday.The failure of the refinery, which is one of only five left in the UK, has put 625 workers at risk and raised fears about disruption to supplies of customers such as petrol retailers and Heathrow airport

Santander to buy TSB for £2.65bn amid fears of branch closures and job losses

The Spanish bank Santander is buying the British high street lender TSB for £2.65bn, raising fears of job cuts and branch closures across the combined group.The proposed deal, announced on Tuesday evening, is the result of a takeover tussle in Santander’s home base of Spain, with the lender Sabadell having decided to sell TSB as it faces an €11bn (£9.4bn) hostile approach from a rival, BBVA.The deal will still have to be approved by Sabadell’s shareholders, but could result in TSB changing hands in early 2026, the third major ownership shake-up for the lender in just over 12 years

AstraZeneca boss ‘wants to shift stock market listing to US’

AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has reportedly said that he would like to shift the company’s stock market listing from the UK to the US.The boss of Britain’s most valuable listed company has spoken privately about a preference to move the listing to New York, the Times reported. It added that he had also considered moving the company’s domicile.The FTSE 100 company’s share price rose by 2.8% on Tuesday, with most of the increase happening after the story was published

Macquarie digs deeper for redemption at Southern Water. There was no alternative | Nils Pratley

Many took the view in 2021 that Macquarie should have been run out of town, rather than be allowed to own another English water company.The giant Australian financial outfit’s former outing, remember, was at Thames Water from 2006 to 2017, which was when the absurd games of financial leverage began at the UK’s biggest water company. The then-chair of Ofwat later told MPs he asked himself the question “What do we do here, with that reputation?” when Macquarie made the best financial offer to rescue Southern Water.The deal was done eventually with Ofwat’s blessing. Macquarie-managed funds injected £1bn to take control and its infrastructure boss declared in an open letter that the firm would be “a responsible long-term steward of Southern Water and believes it can help the company deliver the transformation it requires”