Millions more Brits in debt as debt pile owed to HMRC balloons to £42bn November 17, 2021 Around 2.4m more taxpayers are in debt to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as tax debt is at more than double its pre-pandemic levels, according to a spending watchdog. In fact, tax debt ballooned by £26bn between January 2020 and September of this year. Staffing levels at HMRC are unlikely to be enough to manage [...]
Miramax sues Quentin Tarantino as studio tries to stop Pulp Fiction NFT auction November 17, 2021 Director Quentin Tarantino has been sued by Miramax over the director’s plans to create and auction off a series of NFTs based on Pulp Fiction. The entertainment company alleges that Tarantino’s planned offerings violate the copyrights it holds to the director’s 1994 film, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles. Tarantino [...]
Bear Grylls, Robbie Williams and Holly Willoughby join consumer guru Martin Lewis in fight against scam adverts November 17, 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson is urged this morning to include paid scam adverts in the upcoming Online Safety Bill. The call comes from a range of celebrities, including Robbie Williams (pictured above), Bear Grylls and Holly Willoughby, who have signed a joint letter led by Martin Lewis. The consumer guru has long campaigned against bogus [...]
Lynch case takes another turn after co-defendant takes aim at key City witnesses November 17, 2021 THE continued fight over Mike Lynch’s proposed extradition to the US to face fraud charges has taken another turn after his co-defendant’s legal team attempted to discredit the evidence of two City analysts who have testified against Autonomy executives in previous court cases. In legal documents filed in Northern California, Lynch’s co-defendent Stephan Chamberlain alleges [...]
Darktrace backer Balderton unveils new early-stage $600m fund November 17, 2021 Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s most active venture capital firms, this morning announced it has raised its eighth fund focused on early-stage startups in Europe. At $600m, it’s the largest fund for investing in early-stage startups that the Kings Cross-headquartered firm has raised since it began placing its bets on Europe’s fledgling businesses in 2000. [...]
Blockchain start up Starkware valued at $2bn in latest funding round November 16, 2021 An Israeli start up that provides scalable blockchain technology for apps has secured $50m (£37m) in a Series C round led by Sequoia Capital. Starkware aims to solve the scaling issues faced by legacy blockchains in the crypto space by allowing companies to build apps on top of an ultra-fast chain capable of processing a [...]
Spotify and Snapchat among apps hit by network outages November 16, 2021 Social media sites and internet services including Snapchat, Spotify, Discord and Amazon have reported network downtime this evening. Google Cloud, which provides web hosting services, emerged as the culprit for site outages across the internet and while most sites are back online the company’s status page is still registering an outage to networking services. Amid [...]
Daily Mail publisher DMGT announces leadership shakeup November 16, 2021 The chief executive of dmg media is stepping down after 25 years triggering a leadership shakeup. Kevin Beatty is stepping down as of today and DMGT has announced plans to hand over leadership to internal hires with experience at the company. Rich Caccappolo, the current chief operating officer of the Mail Online will take over [...]
Lucrative for luxury: Metaverse could untap $50bn for brands by 2030 November 16, 2021 Opening the door to the Metaverse to meet the growing digital demand for luxury goods will present brands with a $50bn revenue opportunity within the decade, according to a new analysis by Morgan Stanley. In projections that are slightly difficult to compute right now, considering revenue streams for digital mediums for luxury brands are currently [...]
Revealed: £1.7bn worth of Covid-related contracts went to 47 Tory-referred companies November 16, 2021 A leaked list today shows that dozens of firms were given contracts worth a total of £1.7bn after being referred by Tory party insiders, even though the Government has insisted fast-tracked offers to supply PPE went through the same due diligence as any other route. The list shows that former health secretary Matt Hancock referred [...]
