Bloomberg Having just persuaded France to hold off on a digital tax that would hurt its biggest technology firms, the US is facing a similar threat from another part of Europe. The Czech Republic is debating plans to impose one of the world’s highest levies on global internet companies — albeit as a stop-gap measure — brushing aside possible US ...

Bloomberg A year ago, Uber Technologies Inc hiked the price of rides in London and placed the surcharges into a fund that would help drivers switch to electric vehicles. Uber said drivers would be able to start tapping into that fund in the form of discounts on electric cars made by Nissan Motor Co. The two companies agreed to offer ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess is preparing to muscle Elon Musk out of the electric-car lead. While Tesla Inc is paving the way in sustainable mobility, the world’s biggest automaker is buying software companies and ramping up investments in electric vehicles and battery cells, Diess said at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “It’s an open race,” ...

Since Watergate, presidents and their aides have warned that impeachment is destabilising to foreign policy. But history suggests otherwise. Presidential scandals create uncertainty abroad, but the impeachment process itself seems to bring clarity and resolution. Keep this lesson in mind as the Senate begins its trial of Donald Trump. The president’s advocates will argue (as he himself has already) that ...

Sergio Ermotti is facing a painful reality. For the third time in three years, UBS Group AG’s chief executive officer is resetting his ambitions for the world’s biggest wealth manager. A big fine in France is clouding the outlook for investor returns because it will make payouts uncertain. The pressure on profit margins is forcing the $2.6 trillion manager to ...

Investors aren’t waiting for a definitive deal to end the mass of lawsuits against Bayer AG before snapping up the shares. The German life sciences group’s 75 billion euro ($83 billion) market value is up some 26 billion euros in seven months on hopes that thousands of claims related to its glyphosate-based Roundup weedkiller, accused of causing cancer, might be ...

Since the 19th century, temperatures have been falling. I was as surprised as you. As it turns out, this isn’t about the climate for once, but about human body temperatures. On average, millennials in the US today run 1.06 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than Americans did in the 1800s, if they’re male, and 0.58 F cooler if they’re female. The reason ...

In most places, government ministers would be happy to hear that someone intends to invest a billion dollars in their country. Not in today’s India. Late last week, Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos announced that he would be pumping another billion into the online retailer’s India arm; in response, India’s commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, said that “it is not as if ...

This time, it might just work. Telenor ASA and Kuala Lumpur-based Axiata Group Bhd. are back at the negotiating table. Joining forces in South and Southeast Asia still makes sense for both carriers. Options including a mooted minority investment from Norway’s $27 billion telecoms heavyweight could be enough to get them started, with sales and spinoffs to follow. Talks for ...

The world’s largest car market is cratering and there are few signs of a recovery. It was never supposed to get this bad — and even if it got close, a helping hand from Beijing would steer things out of any prolonged trouble. Or so people thought… Instead, passenger car sales in China fell 9.5% last year, more steeply than ...