The multi-billion dollar deal between Walt Disney and 21st Century Fox has been in the headlines this week. Also in the news are concerns over fuel prices this winter after the discovery of a crack in a major pipeline and Uber has had its licence refused in a third UK city. Good news for environmentalists came from an announcement by the World Bank at a conference in Paris.
Walt Disney is to buy Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox for $52.4bn. This will include the 20th Century Fox Film Studio and Disney will add films such as the original Star Wars films, Avatar, and the Marvel films to its back catalogue. This move from Murdoch (86), who was expected to hand the business over to his sons, has come as a surprise to many.
A hairline crack has been discovered in the Forties pipeline in the North Sea which means that several oil companies have ceased production for some weeks. This has led to concerns over rising prices for fuel in the colder weather.
The World Bank announced at a conference in Paris that it “will no longer finance upstream oil and gas”. The decision was made on an environmental basis with the Bank on target to have 28% of lending going towards climate action by 2020.
Uber has been refused a licence to operate in a third city in the UK. The City of York Council’s gambling, licensing and regulatory committee made the decision due to “concerns about a data breach currently under investigation and the number of complaints received”. This follows Sheffield city council’s decision to briefly ban Uber last week and the pending appeal of the company’s London licence.
A US think tank has found that almost all Brexit scenarios will leave the UK worse off. The Rand Corporation published a report on Tuesday which looked at eight different trade scenarios post-Brexit and found that only a trilateral UK-EU-US agreement would leave the UK better off.
