Your commercial news round-up: spiking, mergers, Switzerland, Mary Earps

Reading time: two minutes 

It’s nearly Christmas! The festive break is almost upon us and we hope you’re winding down to give yourself some time off from studying. But just because those textbooks are down, doesn’t mean your commercial awareness goes with them – here’s our last round-up of 2023, covering plans to tackle spiking, a possible merger, Swiss business and 2023 awards. We’ve got it all, especially for you. 

• Our first story looks at the government’s plans to tackle spiking. Ministers have been under pressure to make needle and drink spiking specific criminal offences. This follows nearly 5,000 cases of needle and drink spiking in the 12 months before September 2022. At present, spiking falls under several different areas of legislation but there’s no single dedicated offence under which to prosecute offenders. Changes are expected to be enacted through updated guidance of Section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Stronger measures are welcome but action on spiking is long overdue.”  
   
• In the entertainment sphere, global media sensations Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount Global met this week for talks of a possible merger. It was reported that David Zaslav, chief executive of Warner Bros, and Bob Bakish, global boss of Paramount, met in New York for talks earlier this week, but discussions are at an “early stage”. When the stock market closed yesterday, Warner Bros shares were 6% down and Paramount’s had fallen by 2%.  
   
• Speaking of deals, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is in Switzerland today to sign a deal that’ll make it easier for UK and Swiss financial firms to conduct business with one another. The deal will mean that each country will recognise and accept each other’s regulations. Negotiations regarding this deal first began in June 2020, when now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was chancellor. The UK is also negotiating a separate deal with Switzerland in relation to a deeper and wider free trade agreement, currently Switzerland is the UK’s third largest non-EU trading partner, after the US and China.
   
• Mary Earps, goal keeper for England and Manchester United, has won the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year 2023 (SPOTY) award. Earps was a standout throughout the World Cup, playing every minute of the team’s seven matches and conceding only four goals throughout the tournament. This isn’t Earps’ first award this year, she’s already won the World Cup’s Golden Glove award, been voted England Women’s Player of the Year for 2022/2023 and won the Women’s Super League Golden Glove for the 2022/2023 season. Earps’ SPOTY award comes after Nike had originally refused to sell the goalkeeper’s shirt throughout the World Cup, before eventually U-turning due to fan’s outcries. The latest batch of replica shirts, the number of which was comparable to the amount of goalkeeper kits on the website for previous men’s tournaments, sold out within five minutes via the England online store.

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