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Credit Suisse has named António Horta-Osório as its next chairman, picking the outgoing chief executive of Lloyds Bank to help steer the lender through the fallout from the coronavirus crisis. Mr Horta-Osório will start at Credit Suisse at the end of April, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. Urs Rohner, the Swiss lender’s

The EU will call on the US to seize a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to forge a new global alliance, in a detailed pitch to bury the tensions of the Trump era and meet the “strategic challenge” posed by China. A draft EU plan for revitalising the transatlantic partnership, seen by the Financial Times, proposes new co-operation on

The UK is poised to become the first western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, with the independent regulator set to grant approval within days. Deliveries of the vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer would begin within hours of the authorisation, according to government officials. The first injections could take place from December 7. The

The UK has dismissed an EU offer on rights to Britain’s fishing waters as “derisory”, dealing a blow to hopes that the two sides can secure a post-Brexit trade deal in coming days. With only five weeks to go before the end of the transition period, talks on the UK’s future relationship with the EU

BBVA and Sabadell, the Spanish banks, have given up merger talks they had confirmed less than two weeks ago because of disagreements over the pricing of the deal. Sabadell said in a statement to Spain’s securities regulator that its board of directors “has decided to terminate the above-mentioned discussions, because the parties have not achieved

Europe’s financial sector has reached “peak uncertainty” as regulators and banks rush to stave off the harshest effects of the UK leaving the single market with just 36 days left before the end of the Brexit transition period. A combination of politics around trade talks, EU concerns about Britain diverging from continental rules and Europe’s

French tax authorities have begun demanding millions of euros from US tech giants as they push ahead with a new digital services tax that has enraged Washington. Facebook and Amazon are among the companies to have received communication from French authorities in recent days demanding payment of the tax for 2020, and multiple more companies

Donald Trump said on Monday his administration would begin co-operating with Joe Biden’s transition team, bowing to Republican pressure to start the transfer of power even as he vowed to continue contesting his election loss. The president’s statement, which stopped short of a formal concession, came after a Michigan board certified the state’s election results

Donald Trump’s legal options to challenge his election loss are about to significantly narrow, with three battleground states carried by Joe Biden due to certify their results in the wake of a crushing weekend courtroom defeat for the president and a departure from his legal team. Pennsylvania and Michigan could make their results official as

A federal judge on Saturday dealt a blow to Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election, throwing out a lawsuit in Pennsylvania with an excoriating opinion that cast his legal arguments as shoddy, without evidence and contrary to the US constitution. The dismissal of the Trump campaign’s lawsuit, which had sought

Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the US presidential election result suffered significant setbacks on Friday after Georgia officially certified Joe Biden’s win and top Republican lawmakers in Michigan dismissed the idea they would throw the state to the president. The developments were the latest blows to Mr Trump’s unprecedented and long-shot effort to retain power

The World Health Organization has recommended that doctors do not prescribe Gilead’s remdesivir to patients in hospital with coronavirus, dealing another blow to the only antiviral approved to treat the disease. Remdesivir was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month. But a landmark WHO study has cast doubt on its effectiveness.

Brussels has failed to tame Big Tech because it has moved too slowly and lacked the legal muscle to restrain the likes of Google and Facebook from crushing their rivals, a new report from the EU’s external auditor has said. Antitrust probes are often too long and enforcement only occurs after Big Tech companies have

The world’s richest countries are edging towards a consensus on unlocking additional IMF funds for poorer nations whose economies have been battered by the coronavirus crisis, according to a leading G20 official. Mohammed al-Jadaan, the finance minister of Saudi Arabia, which holds the G20 presidency this year, told the Financial Times that he was “optimistic”

Positive news of a coronavirus vaccine and the conclusion of the US election have emboldened global dealmakers to revisit proposed mergers and acquisitions and strike large-ticket transactions, according to bankers and legal advisers. Companies across the globe announced nearly $40bn worth of deals on Monday alone in a clear sign that chief executives are looking

The US economy is facing an accelerating surge in coronavirus cases and harsh new restrictions on business activity without the cushion of meaningful fiscal support, raising fears of a blow to the recovery. Even though equity markets have rallied strongly on advances in the development of a vaccine, the deteriorating health situation across the country

Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman defended Donald Trump’s response to this year’s US poll results during an emergency meeting of senior business leaders alarmed by the president’s claims that the election is being stolen, according to several participants. About 30 chief executives — of companies as large as Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart —

The US has tallied more than 1m new coronavirus cases since the start of November as the pandemic accelerates in nearly all regions of the country, prompting officials to warn of a fresh strain on the healthcare system and weigh new restrictions to contain the spread of the disease.  President Donald Trump scheduled a Friday

A small but influential group of Republicans has begun urging President Donald Trump to concede last week’s election, with a growing number using the term “president-elect” to refer to Joe Biden. Mr Trump has refused to accept his loss and continues to make baseless claims of voter fraud, while Republican lawyers have filed lawsuits intended

Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, predicted positive data from a second Covid-19 vaccine could come quickly on the heels of this week’s strong trial results from Pfizer and BioNTech. US biotech company Moderna will begin assessing data from its Phase 3 vaccine trials “within a week”, Dr Fauci revealed at

Joe Biden said it was an “embarrassment” that Donald Trump had not conceded defeat after losing last Tuesday’s election, although the president-elect insisted the refusal to acknowledge his victory would not hold up his transition plans. Speaking at his first press conference since he was declared the winner of last week’s election, Mr Biden said

A global equities rally extended into Asia on Tuesday as promising results from a Covid-19 vaccine trial boosted confidence in an economic recovery from the pandemic, though Chinese shares were damped by inflation data that suggested weakening consumer demand. The announcement by US drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech that their vaccine was more than 90

President-elect Joe Biden is preparing a series of executive orders to reverse some of the signature policies of Donald Trump’s one-term presidency, after declaring victory in the 2020 US election. Mr Biden has vowed to promptly re-enter the Paris climate accord, which the US officially exited last week, when he assumes office on January 20,

Joe Biden said he intended to “restore the soul of America” as the president-elect delivered a victory speech in which he urged the country to come together following one of the most divisive periods in US history. Speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday night, Mr Biden struck a note of bipartisanship and sketched out a

FT reporters Donald Trump made unsubstantiated claims about vote fraud during the US presidential election and threatened to press on with lawsuits in battleground states on Friday as his lead slipped away in the biggest prizes left on the electoral map. Here is the latest on the legal challenges that Mr Trump is mounting in

Donald Trump called for vote counting to be halted in several swing states as the US waited for results from a handful of battlegrounds that will decide the presidential election. As of Thursday morning, Democratic challenger Joe Biden was within six electoral votes of victory while Mr Trump’s thin lead in two swing states, Georgia

Joe Biden won Wisconsin and Michigan in two critical victories that boosted his chances of winning the presidential election as the Trump campaign demanded a recount in one of the states and launched lawsuits designed to delay vote counts. After Wisconsin and Michigan were called for Mr Biden, he reached 264 electoral college votes —

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, traded victories in conservative and liberal states as they waited for the results in the battlegrounds that will decide the election, including Florida. Mr Trump won solidly conservative states including Indiana, Tennessee and South Carolina. Mr Biden took New York, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois, all

Democratic officials in key swing states lashed out at Donald Trump after he pledged to mount a legal challenge before all the votes are counted as the US prepared for a chaotic election. Democrats fear Mr Trump is trying to boost his re-election chances by making baseless claims about voter fraud, in an effort to

Fresh lockdowns announced across Europe in recent days to contain the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic have triggered a flurry of downgrades to economic growth forecasts as restrictions on activity threaten the continent’s recovery. The eurozone economy is now expected to shrink by 2.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of this year, cutting output