Your commercial news round-up: World Cup, stock market, toilets, tourist tax, EU
updated on 17 August 2023
Reading time: two minutes
England have reached the FIFA World Cup Final for the first time since 1966, Michael Burry has shorted the stock market, the UK government is cracking down on gender neutral toilets and companies aren’t happy about Britain’s tourist tax. Plus, six in 10 British people want to rejoin the EU.
- England have secured their place in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final after defeating Australia 3-1 in Sydney on Wednesday. This is a first for the Lionesses who’ll play Spain in the final on Sunday. Alessia Russo, Ella Toone and Lauren Hemp scored England’s goals during their semi-final match against Australia, with Sam Kerr scoring Australia’s one and only goal that match. Australia will now face Sweden to battle for third place. For England, should they win the final against Spain, they’ll become the first team to win a back-to-back Women’s European Championship and Women’s World Cup since Germany in 2005. Go on Lionesses! But how does this relate to commercial news? Several records have been broken since the world cup began, including:
- the crowd record for a football match (men’s or women’s) in New Zealand being broken twice in 12 days;
- a record 75,784 women’s football fans attended Australia’s opening game against the Republic of Ireland (compared with 25,000 across the entire tournament in the previous FIFA women’s world cup in France); and
- China PR recorded the highest audience for a single match anywhere in the world when 53.9 million viewers watched their match against England.
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Speaking of the early 2000s, Michael Burry, the man who predicted the 2008 financial crash, has shorted the stock market sending the financial side of X (previously known as Twitter) into chaos. Film fans may know the story of Burry best from the film The Big Short, in which Burry (played by Christian Bale) predicts the financial crash and shorts the market making a whopping $2.7 billion. Burry has now bet $1.6 billion on another Wall Street crash by the end of the year.
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The economy may be in the toilet, but what about the toilets you and I use every day? The UK government has announced new building requirements to reverse the rise of gender-neutral toilets. This new policy, which was announced on 13 August, requires all new non-domestic buildings to provide single-sex toilets for women and men. This change is in response to what the government have labelled as “a limitation on privacy and dignity” and falls under the government’s levelling-up scheme. The changes will affect England only and will now be submitted for further consultation.
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Tax-free shopping, one of the many benefits of international travel, has been put on pause since the UK left the EU in 2020 but now brands are feeling the pinch and they’re not happy. More than 350 businesses have signed an open letter to the chancellor urging him to recognise that businesses are suffering and ditch the tax. UK luxury brand Mulberry was forced to close the doors to its main store in London as a direct impact of the tax. The company’s CEO said: “Currently, we simply cannot compete, with Paris, Berlin and Milan all benefitting at our expense.”
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Finally, it’s not only retailers that are feeling the negative impacts of Brexit. According to Brexit pollster Omnisis six in 10 Brits want to rejoin the EU. Omnisis, which regularly tracks British sentiment surrounding Brexit, has found that 62% of British voters want Britain to rejoin the EU, with a further 59% saying we were wrong to leave in the first place. This isn’t the first story LawCareers.Net has shared on #bregret, make sure to stay up to date with this topic by signing up to our Commercial Connect newsletter.
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