International News

Bloomberg British shopkeepers slowly emerging from three months of forced closure have a new problem on their hands: the rent is due. Third quarter rents on the country’s commercial properties are billed with about $3.1 billion owed by retailers alone, according to the British Property Federation. While mall landlords eventually got about half the rent owed for second quarter, government ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG is exploring an offer for Europcar Mobility Group, according to people familiar with the matter. Shares of the rental-car company soared. Volkswagen’s considerations are at an early stage, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. The carmaker could opt to not proceed with an offer, they said. Europcar shares rose ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. suffered a setback in a key challenge to its business model as Germany’s highest civil court said it has “no doubt” that the social network misuses its dominant market position. Judges at a hearing ruled that Facebook must comply with a strict order curbing the network’s leeway in tracking users’ browsing and smartphone apps even as it ...

Bloomberg French business confidence surged in June, rebounding from the lockdown damage as the economy continues to reopen. The improvement follows figures showing a pickup in measures of activity in the euro area and data last week that indicated the slump in France wasn’t as bad as initially expected and consumption is returning quickly. A closely watched measure of business ...

Bloomberg A Missouri appeals court refused to toss out a $4.7 billion jury verdict against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) over cancer claims linked to talc-based products including baby powder but agreed to cut the total payout to $2.1 billion to the women who sued the company. In a unanimous 83-page opinion, a three-judge panel said 2018 trial testimony by plaintiffs’ experts ...

Bloomberg Spain is weighing plans to significantly increase the size of its 100 billion-euro ($113 billion) loan-guarantee fund after the program attracted huge demand from businesses struggling to weather the coronavirus pandemic, according to people familiar with the matter. Officials are considering pledging as much as 50 billion euros in additional guarantees, one person said. Others said the ultimate size ...

Bloomberg German private-sector activity pointed to further signs of a turnaround from the virus slump, with output contracting in June by the least in four months. Both manufacturers and service providers saw a gauge for activity improve, even as production remained in decline overall. That suggests both sectors “were seemingly over the worst, but far from firing on all cylinders,” ...

Bloomberg Wirecard AG’s former chief executive officer was arrested by Munich prosecutors after $2.1 billion went missing from the digital-payment company, in a scandal that has rattled Germany’s financial industry. Markus Braun, who resigned last week, was arrested in Munich as part of a probe into the company’s accounting practices, prosecutors said. The company is fighting for survival after acknowledging ...

Bloomberg The French economy’s revival from the coronavirus lockdown appears stronger than anticipated, with a measure of private-sector activity showing growth for the first time in four months. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers Index jumped to 51.3 in June from 32.1 in May, beating economists’ expectations for 46.8. The individual gauges for both manufacturing and services also climbed above the 50 ...

Bloomberg The UK economy started to bounce back from the coronavirus this month as an early indicator of activity jumped. IHS Markit’s composite Purchasing Managers Index climbed to 47.6 from 30 in May. While that’s still below the critical 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction, the size of the monthly gain was the biggest since the survey began in ...