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BRUSSELS / Reuters The European Union plans more powers for consumers to sue firms like Volkswagen after the Dieselgate scandal showed the limits of consumer protection authorities to curb corporate cheating. Wednesday’s proposal by the EU executive would give consumer groups the ability to launch collective action on behalf of clients and hand consumer protection authorities stronger powers to sanctions ...

Bloomberg The French economy may have just had its worst quarter in more than a year and there could be further pain ahead if planned strikes opposing President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms go forward. Industrial sentiment fell to the lowest in more than a year in March and manufacturing output unexpectedly declined in February, according to reports this week. A broad ...

Reuters Alexion Pharmaceuticals has agreed to buy Sweden’s Wilson Therapeutics for 7.1 billion Swedish crowns ($855 million), boosting its line-up of rare disease drugs as a wave of deal-making in the biotechnology sector continues. The US group is acquiring the business through a cash tender offer worth 232 crowns per share, a premium of 70 percent compared to the closing ...

Bloomberg US antitrust enforcers are set to conclude their case against AT&T Inc.’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Inc. as their economic expert — a critical witness for the government — is scheduled to take the stand on Wednesday. Professor Carl Shapiro from the University of California at Berkeley will testify that AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner would raise costs ...

BERLIN / Reuters Volkswagen will give labour leaders a management board seat as part of a broad agreement to win approval for Herbert Diess as the German carmaker’s new chief executive, sources said on Wednesday. Europe’s largest automotive group is poised to replace group chief executive Matthias Mueller this week with Diess, a cost-cutter hired in 2015 from BMW as ...

The trade fight between the US and China is posing a dilemma to the European Union: Should the world’s largest trading bloc pick a side? And, if so, which one? In theory, the US is the more natural ally for Europe: The two have cooperated closely since the end of World War II, building the multilateral institutions which are now ...

Don’t relax yet: A potential yuan devaluation is still very much on the table. Currency traders sighed with relief after Chinese President Xi Jinping moved to ease trade tensions with the US, reiterating pledges to open the country’s economy further and cautioning against a cold-war mentality and zero-sum thinking. The yuan had weakened for the four previous days, with jitters ...

European regulators are breaking something that didn’t need fixing. By pushing banks to issue senior non-preferred debt instead of traditional senior bonds, they risk inadvertently shutting many of the region’s neediest lenders out of the funding market. The securities are senior in name only — they can be turned into equity in the event of a catastrophe in the same ...

The European Commission’s proposed tax on digital services is intended to make companies such as Google and Uber pay more. The idea is that such firms are gaming the rules at the expense of other taxpayers. The issue is real and needs to be addressed — but the answer under discussion breaks with both established international practice and plain common ...

The recent Bitcoin bubble wasn’t the first, and it might not be the last. Once in 2011 and twice in 2013, the price soared and then crashed: And again: One more time: Each peak was bigger than the last. If you think there will be another, even bigger bubble somewhere down the line, then maybe any losses you took in ...