Law and business: commercial news round-up 10.01.14

Happy new year. Refreshed by the seasonal break, prepare to re-engage the commercial awareness section of your brain. And where better to begin than with this handful of big business stories that came up in the broadsheets this week:

• Minty fresh; an exploration of the MINT economies (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) by BBC Radio 4 correspondent Jim O’Neill and where they sit in the list of the world’s economic powers.
• Linda Yueh makes some predictions about what 2014 may bring, including mention of China, Angela Merkel and the "fragile five".  
• It hasn’t been a great start to 2014 for the troubled Co-op Bank, as two regulators announce formal investigations into the bank, including into the role of its former senior managers.
• The US Senate has confirmed Janet Yellen as the next head of the Federal Reserve Bank, the first woman to hold the role in the bank’s 100 years of existence.
• Sales fall at Tesco, Morrisons and M&S pre-Xmas, and outlook remains grim in 2014 as Morrisons issues profit warning.
• The most successful bank you’ve probably never heard of: Sweden’s Handelsbanken is all about long-termism and a "philosophy of decentralisation".
• Stark warning about personal credit ratings: a man who bought a laptop in 1998 from PC World takes bank to the Supreme Court, alleging that credit black mark left him unable to buy a home.

For instant business news updates, follow @LawCareersNetUK and @CityLawLIVE on Twitter.