The U.K. may be on the verge of an unprecedented experiment in public accountability. The courts may soon be invited to consider the following question: Should government officials face prosecution if the actions they took to support the financial system during the credit crisis stink in hindsight? In late 2007 and early 2008, with markets in a meltdown and ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Gulf stock markets saw lacklustre trade on Wednesday as low oil prices and weak earnings weighed on investor sentiment. Crude prices declined for a third day, hovering near $50 a barrel for the first time in three weeks, amid doubts that OPEC members will agree to a cut output. “Investor sentiment appears to be weak in ...

London / AFP World stock markets mostly retreated on Wednesday, weighed down by miners’ shares and oil prices, while Apple dragged Wall Street lower, traders said. After declines for the bulk of Asia’s stock markets, Europe’s top indices were showing losses of up to 1.2 percent compared with Tuesday’s closing levels. The heaviest faller on London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index ...

  Bloomberg Airbus Group SE promised a year-end sprint to meet its 2016 earnings and delivery goals after a switch to new planes weighed on profit and output in the first nine months. The European company plans to pull out the stops to ship almost as many A350 wide-body jets in the final quarter as it did between January and ...

  Bloomberg British regulators fined Vodafone Group Plc 4.63 million pounds ($5.63 million) for failing to credit customers who bought mobile-phone minutes and data, and then mishandling complaints that came in afterward. Over 17 months, more than 10,000 customers lost 150,000 pounds, one investigation found, the regulator Ofcom said in a statement. The mistakes resulted from a new billing system, ...

  Bloomberg Line Corp. reported third-quarter profit and revenue that missed analyst estimates as the company pushes into advertising to offset slowing growth in the user base. Operating profit was 4.9 billion yen ($47 million) in the period ended Sept. 30, according to calculations based on nine-month numbers released by Line on Wednesday. That’s less than the 5.1 billion yen ...

  Bloomberg Last year, Delta Air Lines Inc. unveiled a unique experiment in upgrades. It gave its very frequent flyers a chance to book a seat most can only dream of—on a private jet. For a few hundred dollars more, the dream could become reality. The carrier later backed away from the offer and is now transforming it into the ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s decision to build a third runway at London Heathrow airport by 2025 gives airlines what they have been demanding for decades, providing the 16 billion-pound bill for lifting the hub’s capacity to 135 million passengers a year doesn’t fall on them. While carriers were unanimous in welcoming Tuesday’s government backing for the expansion of Europe’s busiest airport, ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank will face renewed probing on Thursday, as investors pore over its third-quarter results after being hit with a multi-billion-dollar fine by the US Department of Justice. “It will be important to keep an eye on growth in provisions for legal risks,” Equinet analyst Philipp Haessler said. News of a $14-billion demand ...

  Bloomberg China’s central bank is conducting a trial monitoring of banks’ off-balance-sheet wealth-management products under its macro-prudential assessment system, according to people familiar with the matter. The WMPs will be included in calculating broad-based credit, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing non-public information. Currently, the products aren’t included in the assessment framework, and it’s not clear ...