British Prime Minister Theresa May’s position in the Conservative party would be “difficult” if she agreed in Brexit negotiations to anything that resembled a customs union with the European Union (EU), a former U.K. trade minister said Wednesday. Francis Maude, senior adviser at Covington and once a Tory lawmaker, said that a customs union with […]

Standard Chartered remains under U.S. supervision six years after accusations that the lender had breached Iran sanctions. The New York State Department said the British bank hid $250 billion worth of transactions with the Iranian government for nearly 10 years. Following an agreement in 2012, it has been under the care of an independent monitor […]

Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, the world’s biggest maker of diabetes drugs, reported first-quarter operating profit above expectations on Wednesday and raised the lower end of its 2018 sales and profit forecast. Operating profit fell 8 percent to 12.4 billion Danish crowns ($2.00 billion) in the January to March quarter compared with a year ago, hit by […]

European markets are expected to open higher Wednesday as investors keep their focus on earnings and monitor an upcoming Federal Reserve meeting. The FTSE 100 is seen up by 23 points at 7,541; the DAX is set to start higher by 50 points at 12,577; and the CAC 40 in Paris is seen up by […]

Security experts have named “lone jihadi” attacks the biggest terror threat during the 2018 World Cup in Russia this summer. Sunni Islamist militants, particularly Russian jihadists returning from conflict zones, are the primary source of concern for Moscow, according to a report released Tuesday by Jane’s, the defense and security wing of IHS Markit. The […]

Britain is set to enforce greater transparency in tax havens after a minister for the U.K. government announced Tuesday it would not oppose a legal amendment proposed by a cross-party alliance of lawmakers. Some overseas British territories that are notorious for being tax havens for the world’s wealthiest, such as the Cayman Islands and the […]

The United States is failing to keep up with Europe in regulating technology corporations like Facebook and Google, a congressman told CNBC on Monday. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Maryland, said that he was concerned about the U.S.’s lack of tools for dealing with tech companies that fail to prevent the misuse of users’ data. Facebook has […]

Iran’s fragile economic recovery is in jeopardy with President Donald Trump widely expected to scrap an internationally-brokered nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions against the regime. Trump has given the European nations that helped broker the 2015 nuclear deal — which he called “terrible” — until May 12 to change it, but that is looking increasingly […]

Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut around 792 jobs and shutter 162 branches following a review of its branch network in England and Wales, the state-backed lender said on Tuesday. RBS, which is more than 70 percent owned by the British taxpayer following a 2007 bailout, said the redundancies and closures were necessary […]

Plans by central bankers to reduce monetary stimulus could create market shocks, but these are unlikely to happen in 2018, the chairman of Banco Santander told CNBC Wednesday. As global growth picks up and inflation recovers from its crisis levels, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the U.S. Federal Reserve have started […]