Business news in brief
Former boss of JP Morgan sued over alleged ties to Epstein
JP Morgan Chase is suing former executive Jes Staley over his alleged ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The American bank filed a complaint alleging Mr Staley “repeatedly abandoned the interests of JP Morgan Chase and served his own and Epstein’s interests”. Mr Staley worked at the bank for more than 30 years and had a role as a private banker to Epstein, later becoming chief executive of Barclays.
The legal actions comes as JP Morgan is facing lawsuits from the US Virgin Islands and an unnamed woman, who was allegedly abused by Epstein, over its potential ties with the late paedophile. The bank argued in its complaint, filed in New York, that Mr Staley concealed his personal activities with Epstein from the bank, which he left in 2013. PA
Domino’s Pizza serves up record number of orders in 2022
Takeaway chain Domino’s Pizza has reported a record number of orders in the last three months of 2022, as it enjoyed a boost from the World Cup and a surge in collections. The takeaway giant said it had 18.5 million orders in the fourth quarter, its best ever, with total orders up 4 per cent and collection orders up 28 per cent compared with the same period in 2021. Domino’s said it had been an “exceptionally busy year”, after it launched new takeaway deals to target customers facing cost pressures, such as “price slice” with £8, £10 and £12 deals for small, medium, and large pizzas.
Nevertheless, Domino’s saw its underlying pre-tax profit fall by 13 per cent last year, to £99m from £114m, which it said was partly due to investment in new cloud-based technology platforms over the year. PA
Aviva warns of rising premiums as repair bills surge
The chief executive of Aviva has warned of further rises to premiums this year, on top of double-digit rises in 2022, as it faces surging costs for repair bills. Amanda Blanc said the group has already had to increase prices by 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 with further price rises to come as inflation remains intense but was “optimistic” prices will eventually come down. “New car prices are reducing and hopefully the supply chains will open up,” she said.
The group reported a 35 per cent surge in annual earnings despite the pressure on its UK general insurance arm, with
operating profits of £2.2bn for 2022, up from £1.6bn in 2021. PA
US senator claims China can access TikTok users’ data
China can access the data of TikTok users around the world, a leading American politician has alleged as he seeks a ban on the popular social media app. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri says a former employee of parent firm ByteDance has told him data engineers in China “can absolutely access” personal information.
TikTok chief operating officer Vanessa Pappas last year said the company has “strict controls in terms of who and how our data is accessed” and that “we have the strictest controls out there”. But Hawley said this was untrue, according to the whistleblower who has “seen first-hand China-based engineers flipping over to nonChina datasets and creating scheduled tasks to backup, aggregate, and analyse data.”
Want your views to be included in The Independent Daily Edition letters page? Email us by tapping here letters@independent.co.uk. Please include your address
BACK TO TOP