Your commercial news round-up: Afghan refugees, Just Eat, FCA, LBR

It’s been a difficult few weeks watching the surge of violence engulf Afghanistan and take many lives, including judges and lawyers. As an aspiring lawyer, part of your job is to be able to watch or read a piece of news that causes distress and analyse the following key factors:

• political;
• economic;
• sociological;
• technological;
• legal; and
• environmental.

Read on to find out what’s been populating the commercial scene.

• Airbnb, this year’s unsung hero, is offering free accommodation for 20,000 Afghan refugees. The host for holiday getaways will temporarily house Afghan refugees free of charge to help them “resettle around the world”. Chief Executive Brian Chesky said he felt “a responsibility to step up” and hopes this inspires “other business leaders to do the same. There's no time to waste." The offer starts immediately and will provide Afghan refugees with “not only a safe place to rest and start over, but also a warm welcome home.”
   
• It seems Just Eat offers more than just food, as it plans to create more than 1,000 jobs in north-eastern England in the next 12 months, according to Sky News. Jobs on offer will range from customer service advisers to team leaders and management roles. This announcement follows news that takeaway orders in the UK grew by 58 million during the first six months of 2021. The fast food growth was due to most of the country being in lockdown and having an appetite for takeaway. More than 4,500 Just Eat couriers are now employed through a new worker model.
   
• The UK’s financial watchdog admits Binance cannot be supervised properly. According to CITY AM, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has raised concerns over Binance – the world’s largest crypto exchange by trade volume. This news follows the FCA’s warning in June that Binance was “not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK”. This prompted big banks to stop UK customers from making payments to the site. The FCA has always maintained that crypto assets are very high risk, speculative investments and warned those that invest in such assets should be “prepared to lose all your money.”
   
• Meanwhile, Law Business Research Ltd (LBR), has acquired Docket Navigator. Headquartered in London with offices in Hong Kong and Washington, DC, LBR is a leading provider of business information, legal analysis tools and networking for the global legal markets. Founded in Austin, Texas, Docket Navigator is a patent litigation intelligence platform for more than 15,000 judges, lawyers and legal professionals. Nick Brailey, CEO of LBR, commented: “Combining Docket Navigator and its rich data tools with LBR’s platforms will further enhance our market-leading information solutions to the global legal community.”

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