LONDON / Reuters Britain’s financial watchdog said that firms offering services linked to cryptocurrency derivatives must meet all relevant rules in the regulator’s handbook or could face sanctions. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) does not currently regulate cryptocurrencies. But it said that dealing or arranging transactions in, advising on or providing other services related to derivatives referencing cryptocurrencies or tokens ...

LONDON / Reuters Britain recorded its strongest productivity growth in more than a decade in the second half of 2017, helped by a strong fourth quarter, but economists said the improvement was unlikely to prove a turning point for one of the economy’s key weak spots. Productivity growth in most advanced economies has been poor since the 2008 financial crisis ...

Bloomberg Revelations that data belonging to as many 87 million Facebook Inc. users and their friends may have been misused became a game changer in the world of data protection as regulators are looking to raise awareness about how to protect information. Elizabeth Denham, the UK privacy regulator leading the European investigations into how user data ended up in the ...

BERLIN / Reuters German industrial output fell by the most in more than two years in February and the sector is losing momentum, the Economy Ministry said, as factories in Europe’s largest economy throttle back in the face of the rising threat of protectionism. Output fell by 1.6 percent after rising by a revised 0.1 percent in January, data from ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc. said it has hired technology executive Jon McCormack as a vice president working on software. McCormack previously led software for HP Inc., according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was an executive in Google’s Advanced Technology and Products group. He spent several years at Amazon.com Inc. as chief technology officer of the devices group and a ...

Bloomberg The US demanded an immediate international response to reports of a chemical attack outside Syria’s capital that rescue workers and activists said killed dozens. The allegations emerged amid renewed government fire on Douma, the last rebel stronghold in the Eastern Ghouta suburb, after a truce in the area unraveled on April 06. A chemical weapons attack last April provoked ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva turned himself in to the police, finally ending a tense stand-off with authorities after ignoring a court-ordered deadline to begin a prison sentence. Lula left the metalworkers union headquarters, where he had hunkered down since last week, and is in police custody, TV footage showed. He ended up leaving by foot, ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will attempt a pincer movement on Donald Trump, with China emerging as the likely target of their joint effort to avert a trade war with the US. The leaders of Europe’s two biggest economies will visit the president in Washington within days of each other this month as the clock ...

Bloomberg Italy’s euroskeptic League leader Matteo Salvini sees a “real” chance that Italy’s next government will be between the center-right coalition and the populist Five Star Movement, according to an interview in Corriere della Sera. The coalition’s policy differences with Five Star “are less pronounced than people think,” Salvini said in the article. “There’s a real possibility to build a ...

Bloomberg Sixteen years ago, Viktor Orban refurbished a palace overlooking the Danube River in Budapest as a new office to mark his re-election as Hungary’s prime minister. Then a surprise defeat prevented him from moving in and he spent the rest of the decade in opposition. The older, grayer, and heavier Orban is now the ringleader of Europe’s nationalist insurgence ...