Your commercial news round-up: new budgets and cuts, Google, tariffs, broadcaster fines

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Rachel Reeves has delivered the spring statement and Google has faced a racial bias lawsuit. Meanwhile, Trump announced new tariffs and major broadcasting networks faced the consequences of breaching UK competition law.

• In the much-anticipated spring statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves provided an update on the economy following her first budget in October 2024. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has halved the UK growth forecast for 2025 from 2% to 1%, but expects long-term growth with a 1% increase in output in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026. Real household disposable income per person is also expected to grow by an average of around 0.5% a year from 2025/26 to 2029/30. Reeves explained that the budget will shift from a deficit of £36.1 billion in 2025/26 and £13.4 billion in 2026/27, to a surplus of £6 billion in 2027/28, £7.1 billion in 2028/29 and £9.9 billion in 2029/30. While her update doesn’t include further tax cuts, she emphasised that more needs to be done to address tax evasion.
   
• Google has agreed to pay £21.5 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed white and Asian employees were given better pay and career opportunities than workers from other minority ethnic backgrounds. The case was originally filed by ex-Google employee Ana Cantu in 2021, who alleged that workers from minority ethnic backgrounds started on lower salaries and job levels than their white and Asian counterparts. The case was based on a leaked internal document, which reportedly showed lower compensation for similar work among some minority ethnic groups. The class action lawsuit was filed for at least 6,632 people who were employed by Google between 15 February 2018 and 31 December 2024. Earlier this year, Google joined a growing list of US firms that are abandoning diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) commitments in their recruitment policies. This growing trend comes as US President Donald Trump and his allies have regularly attacked DE&I policies.
   
• Trump has announced new import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts coming into the US. The latest tariffs are expected to come into effect on 2 April 2024, with charges on businesses importing vehicles kicking in shortly after. Taxes on car parts are set to start later around May. While the president is promising this shift will create a spur in jobs and investments in the US, experts have said that the move is more likely to lead to the temporary shutdown of significant car production in the US, increase prices and strain relations with allies.
   
• Major UK broadcasting networks BBC, ITV and BT, alongside sports production agency IMG, have been fined £4.24 million in total for sharing freelancer pay information. The companies were sharing information about freelance employee pay to ensure that no single broadcaster was paying more than others, which, according to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regulator, breaches competition law. Executive director for competition enforcement at the CMA, Juliette Enser, said: “Companies should set rates independently of each other so pay is competitive – not doing so could leave workers out of pocket. Employers must ensure those who hire staff know the rules and stick to them to prevent this happening in the future.” While Sky was found to be the worst offender after engaging in 10 instances of anti-competitive behaviour, it escaped a fine on the basis that it was the broadcaster that alerted the authorities, leading to an investigation being opened in 2022. All the fined companies said they’d cooperated with the CMA and its investigation and their fines were discounted on the basis that the broadcasters and IMG all settled early.

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