Coronavirus vaccine, Amazon, points-based immigration system, Nestlé, redundancies: your commercial news round-up

As the pandemic continues to thrash local economies, talks of a breakthrough coronavirus vaccine this week offer the world a glimmer of hope.

As aspiring lawyers, staying up to date with recent trends affecting the legal and business worlds – much like the covid-19 vaccine – is vital. So, read this week’s commercial news round-up for useful summaries of some of the week’s news, and don’t forget to check out our Commercial Question page for insights from law firms designed to get you thinking about commercial issues.

For now, here’s your commercial news round-up.

• Following reports of a breakthrough coronavirus vaccine, British chemicals firm Croda International has signed a five-year agreement with US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer to provide additives for the vaccine. It will involve Avanti Polar Lipids, a subsidiary of Croda, manufacturing substances to enable the vaccine to be used on patients in a deal that could be worth around £75.5 million. News of the vaccine, which is said to be 90% effective, also boosted global stock markets and has been described by Bank of England (BoE) governor Andrew Bailey as “very encouraging” for the UK economy.

• E-commerce company Amazon has been charged by the European Commission for taking advantage of its dominant position in the online retail market. The firm has rejected the allegations that it used third-party data to its own benefit, but if found guilty of breaking competition law, it could be fined up to 10% of its global revenue. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner said: “Data on the activity of third-party sellers should not be used to the benefit of Amazon when it acts as a competitor to these sellers."

• From 11:00pm on 31 December 2020, a new points-based immigration system will end free movement into and out of the UK after the Immigration and Social Security Coordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 received royal assent yesterday.

• Multinational food and drink firm Nestlé has reached an agreement with Mindful Chef to become a majority stakeholder. Mindful Chef’s founders Giles Humphries, Myles Hopper and Robert Grieg-Gran – school friends who founded the company in 2015 – will remain minority shareholders. According to Mindful Chef’s CEO Tim Lee, the company has forecasted revenues of more than £50 million this year. “Nestlé’s experience and support gives us the opportunity to build on this success in the UK and beyond”, he added.

• With employers expecting the government’s furlough scheme to be phased out by the end of October, 314,000 redundancies were recorded for the three months to September before the government decided to extend the furlough scheme until March 2021. Since March 2020, the number of employees on UK payrolls has plummeted by 782,000, according to October data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), while the official number for unemployment rose its most since 2009 to 1.62 million in the three months ending in September. The BoE revealed last week that unemployment is expected to peak at 7.75% in the second quarter of next year.

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