Commercial news round-up: pensions, cyberattack, Amazon, Worldpay takeover
updated on 10 August 2017
One of the few benefits of a summer holiday that feels more like late autumn is that you won’t be tempted to spend all day lying around in the sunshine. Instead, you could cast your eye over this week’s collection of business stories, all designed to help you work on your commercial awareness:
- A recent report from the Office for National Statistics shows that nearly 80% of retired households now receive support from private pensions, compared with just 45% 40 years ago. This highlights the significant gap between those receiving a state pension and those with a private/workplace scheme.
- The government has warned that if firms fail to adequately protect themselves from cyberattacks, they could be fined up to £17 million (or 4% of their global turnover).
- Amazon UK halved its corporation tax to just £7.4 million last year, despite sales reaching a staggering £7 billion. The company stressed that corporation tax is based on profit, not revenue, and insisted that its “profits have remained low given retail is a highly competitive, low margin business and our continued heavy investment”.
- The United Kingdom’s largest payment processing company, Worldpay, has agreed to a deal with US rival Vantiv, which has agreed to pay £9.3 billion to buy the UK company.
Be sure to check the News section every Thursday for this weekly commercial news round-up. Follow @LawCareersNetUK on Twitter and like us on Facebook for instant business news updates.
