Bloomberg Google’s decade-long antitrust fight with the European Union is set for more twists and turns this week as the internet giant battles the first in a trilogy of fines that cost the company nearly $9 billion. The EU’s General Court in Luxembourg will host a three-day hearing starting on February 12 as the Alphabet Inc unit seeks to topple ...

Bloomberg France’s central bank is expecting a punchy rebound by the economy at the start of the year after disruption by strikes and a surprise contraction at the end of 2019. The Bank of France business indicators for January show economic growth resuming the pace it set for most of 2019, until December when prolonged protests over pension reform disrupted ...

Bloomberg China warned France against treating Huawei Technologies Co differently from European competitors when it comes to future 5G network equipment contracts, as the US mounts a campaign to keep the Chinese tech giant at bay. In a lengthy statement issued on its website, the Chinese embassy in Paris urged France to establish “transparent criteria and treat all companies in ...

Bloomberg Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the world’s biggest private foundation, said fighting climate change and promoting gender equality will be prominent issues in their philanthropy going forward. In a letter marking the 20th anniversary of the foundation’s inception, the couple said that climate has emerged as a key issue for the Microsoft Corp co-founder, while gender equality has ...

Bloomberg The race to lead Germany was thrown wide open on Monday when Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she will step down as leader of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and won’t run as the party’s candidate for chancellor in the next election. Kramp-Karrenbauer, widely known by her initials AKK, has struggled to stamp her authority on the party since ...

Bloomberg A cruise ship in Japan was reported to have about 60 more coronavirus infections, adding to the 70 already confirmed, according to TBS. The global death toll from the coronavirus outbreak reached 910, as the World Health Organization’s chief voiced concern over the spread of the disease from people with no travel history to China. Coronavirus cases traced to ...

Bloomberg Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon vowed to maintain pressure on the UK for another referendum on independence and said the standoff with PM Boris Johnson over the issue is just a “phony battle.” In an interview with Bloomberg Television in Brussels on Monday, she also repeated the possibility of asking the courts to decide whether the Scottish Parliament already ...

Bloomberg The Department of Justice announced charges on Monday against four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the 2017 hack of Equifax Inc, according to US Attorney General William Barr. Barr said the charges stem from “breaking into the computer systems” of the credit-reporting company and stealing intellectual property and sensitive personal information at a unprecedented scale. At ...

Bloomberg Attorney General William Barr acknowledged for the first time on Monday that President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been giving the Justice Department (DOJ) information he collected in Ukraine, bringing what was a stealth campaign into official government channels. Barr said, however, that information coming from Ukraine must be carefully vetted to ensure it is accurate and ...

Bloomberg Just as it looked like Beijing was starting to get a handle on its regional banking crisis, a much more severe threat is engulfing the world’s largest banking system as a deadly new virus hits the country’s economy. The impact of the spreading coronavirus risks bringing to life the worst-case economic scenarios contained in China’s annual banking stress tests. ...