Your commercial news round-up: inflation, Gulf trade deal, TikTok legal battles, SpaceX

Bethany Wren (she/her) is head of content and events at LawCareers.Net

Reading time: three minutes

From a brief respite in inflation rises for the UK economy, to a ‘David and Goliath’ legal battle involving Lord Alan Sugar and TikTok, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to list on the stock market – this week’s commercial news round-up has it all! Read on for our picks of this week’s top commercial stories and take some time to think how this might impact the legal industry.

• Firstly, some short-lived good news: UK inflation has fallen to 2.8% in the year to April, down from 3.3% in March, driven mainly by lower gas and electricity bills, according to the Office for National Statistics. This is due to the government’s energy bill support package and previously lower wholesale prices. However, analysts expect inflation to rise again to around 4% by the end of 2026 due to the ongoing conflict in Iran pushing up global costs.
   
• Next, the UK has agreed a trade deal with six Gulf states, expected to add £3.7 billion to the economy and remove around £580 million a year in tariffs on British exports once fully implemented, the government said. The agreement with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates aims to ease market access for UK firms and support jobs. Tariffs will be lifted on British goods including cheddar cheese, butter and chocolate.
  
  This is the third trade agreement under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and the first between a G7 country and the Gulf Co-operation Council. While Chris Southworth, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce described the deal as “a boost to business confidence”, activist organisations have criticised it for lacking detail on human rights, labour protections and climate issues, warning it could deepen ties with countries with poor records in these areas.
   
• In what’s been described as a ‘David and Goliath’ battle, Lord Alan Sugar has won a trademark dispute involving TikTok after supporting an Isle of Man-based trading company, TickTickTrader, in a legal challenge against the social media firm. The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) rejected TikTok’s claim that the company’s name infringed its trademark and could cause confusion, stating there was “no link” between the two and ordering TikTok to pay £1,700 in costs.
  
  TickTickTrader, which provides a simulated trading platform, had faced a cease-and-desist letter from TikTok after registering its trademark in 2023. TikTok argued the name risked diluting its brand, but the IPO concluded that differences in services meant consumers were unlikely to confuse the two.
  
  The company was supported by Trademark Wizards, where Lord Sugar is a director and investor. In a statement, he said: “You don’t get to own every name that sounds vaguely similar to your own just because you’re a big brand.” The ruling is one of several recent cases where smaller firms have successfully challenged larger companies in trademark disputes.
   
• Finally, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has announced plans to go public on the US stock market in what could become the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) in Wall Street history. The company, currently valued at $1.25 trillion, makes rockets, runs the Starlink satellite service and owns Musk’s AI firm xAI. The listing could push Musk’s net worth beyond $1 trillion due to his majority stake.
  
  Financial disclosures show that SpaceX generated $18.6 billion in revenue last year but recorded a $4.9 billion net loss. In the first quarter of this year, it reported $4.7 billion in sales and a $4.3 billion loss. The company has $102 billion in assets and $60.5 billion in debt. Despite these losses, investors view the IPO as significant given SpaceX’s leading position in rockets and satellite services.
  
  The filing also highlights over $500 million in expected legal costs from multiple ongoing cases, including lawsuits linked to xAI’s controversial chatbot Grok. Meanwhile, the details of SpaceX’s recent surprise collaboration with AI competitor Anthropic were outlined, with Anthropic paying $15 billion a year to use xAI’s data centres.

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