Heathrow expansion, Viagogo, National Express: your commercial news round-up
updated on 27 February 2020
This weekly round-up is designed to help you develop your commercial awareness by being informed about the issues affecting the world of law and business. Let’s get started.
- The planned construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport has been ruled illegal by the Court of Appeal on the grounds that the government did not take the UK’s climate change commitments into adequate account when considering the proposals. The case was brought by local residents, councils, the mayor of London and environmentalists. How will Boris Johnson – previously a long-time campaigner against Heathrow expansion – respond to the outcome? Answers on a postcard, please.
- Ticket seller Viagogo is facing intense criticism for allegedly providing online tools that enable touts to commit fraud. An investigation by the Guardian and further tests by BBC Radio 4’s consumer affairs programme You and Yours found that touts are able to advertise and sell tickets that they do not yet own in a practice known as ‘speculative selling’. It is illegal to sell something that you don’t own, and Labour MP Sharon Hodgson is among those calling for the Competition and Markets Authority to intervene.
- Coach operator National Express has announced record profits of £240 million in 2019, after extending lucrative contracts in North America and Spain, adding new partnerships in Morocco to become the country’s biggest coach operator, and making another nine acquisitions including We Drive U, Silicon Valley’s main employee shuttle bus service.
- Massive levels of investment are needed to “level up” the UK’s regions, according to an independent inquiry by the UK2070 Commission. The Commission said that the government must channel an extra £200 billion to disadvantaged parts of the UK over the next two decades if it is serious about its pledge to improve regional prosperity.
- One of Europe’s most polluting power stations, Drax in Yorkshire, will stop burning coal by 2021, but the move will cost 230 jobs. A government ban on coal-fired electricity will come into force in 2025.
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