"Although I welcome Uber's decision, there are now different companies with different rules. Until the government legislates to clarify employment status through primary legislation, there will be no clarity."
The UK government's chief employment adviser Matthew Taylor warns that today's policy change by the ride-hailing giant, granting workers' rights to its drivers, will still not clear up the confusion over the legal status of countless other workers in the "gig" economy.
Uber's more than 70,000 UK drivers can now look forward to paid sick leave and holidays, plus pension contributions. However, the question remains over whether similar workers, many of whom are employed by the most highly-valued firms in the tech sector, can expect to get the same.
The latest Congressional hearing into last month's "Reddit Rally" gets under way in Washington later. Could another spike in activist day trading be on the way soon?
Elsewhere, Apple is facing an antitrust inquiry in France into planned changes to the way it collects the data of iPhone users.
And another major Chinese tech firm announces plans for a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Meanwhile, after years in the wilderness on the bond markets, Greece is back, launching a 30-year maturity to raise cash to help fund its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, as our graph shows, it remains one of the world's most heavily indebted countries.
(Which is the most debt-burdened nation on Earth? Prepare for the figures to surprise you once again!)
Read on for more of the day's business news in full.
Louise Greenwood
Digital correspondent
P.S. Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here
Source: CFP.CN
Uber is to give workers' rights to its 70,000 drivers in the UK. In a landmark deal, a guaranteed minimum wage, holiday pay, and pension contributions have been included in an overhaul of terms and conditions that experts say could mark a turning point in employment law for workers in the so-called "gig" economy. The ride-hailing giant is to pay all drivers the current UK National Living Wage of $12.11 per hour. It comes just a month after the Silicon Valley firm lost a legal battle in the British courts over the employment status of its fleet staff.
Uber had argued that its drivers were self-employed while it's site acted as a third-party booking agent matching customers with vehicles, but judges at the Supreme Court disagreed. The ruling found that Uber had to consider its drivers as "workers" from the time they logged onto the app until they logged off, including the unpaid time spent waiting for bookings. The firm now faces similar legal challenges in dozens of countries where it operates.
The U.S. Federal Reserve will meet after the markets close in the U.S. over its latest policy on interest rates. With the cost of borrowing at near zero, the two-day meeting by the Fed's Open Market Committee will also review its current bond-buying policy, which is costing $120 billion a month.
The latest Congressional hearing on the so-called "Reddit Rally" is also due to take place in Washington later. Concerns are growing among some senators that the planned COVID-19 economic stimulus checks to American households could be used to fund a further round of retail trading by activist investors that has wiped billions off the value of top Wall Street funds.
It has emerged that the family behind the troubled lender Greensill Capital sold about $200 million worth of group shares two years ago, after receiving a funding boost from new backers including Japan's SoftBank. The giant tech fund invested $1.5 billion into the business in 2019. SoftBank is now expecting to lose its entire investment in Greensill after it filed for administration in the UK courts last week.
Tech giant Apple is to face an antitrust inquiry in France into planned changes to the way it collects the data of iPhone users. The investigation will "look closely" at whether Apple applied less stringent rules to itself than to rivals, over privacy controls that will curb tracking in its new iOS 14 software update. However, regulators turned down a request for Apple's upgrade to be blocked, saying the proposal "doesn't appear to be abusive," but that they wanted to examine further how the rules are being applied, while the firm faces wider scrutiny by EU authorities.
Meanwhile, figures just out show that Apple spent 15 percent of the $2.2 billion of green bonds it raised in late 2019 within a year, with most going on energy projects. The firm's annual impact report shows the tech giant had allocated $310 million of the fund towards renewable energy and low-carbon engineering projects, including wind farms and solar installations in the U.S. and Denmark.
READ MORE
Secrets of 'world's first computer' revealed
Why AstraZeneca's jab has been suspended?
Four more states have joined Texas in its antitrust lawsuit against Google parent Alphabet. The Texas attorney general says Alaska, Florida, Montana and Nevada have joined the action against the tech giant over claims that it has abused its position in the online advertising market, bringing the number of plaintiffs to 15 overall.
Google says it will cut the service fee it charges developers on its app store by half on the first $1 million they earn in annual revenue. In a blog post, the firm said fees would be cut to 15 percent from 30 percent from July 1, in a move expected to impact most of the developers on the store site. It follows a similar move by rival Apple last year.
Video-sharing platform TikTok is reportedly considering launching a group messaging feature. The development would put the Chinese-owned app in more direct competition with bigger social media rivals such as Facebook, as it continues its global rollout. A group messaging option has been part of the Chinese version of TikTok, "Douyin", since 2019. Tik Tok has declined to comment on the reports.
TikTok rival, the Chinese video streaming platform Bilibili has received approval to hold a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Nasdaq-listed technology firm hasn't disclosed the size of the offering, but analysts believe the share sale could raise $3 billion for the firm, which counts Tencent Holdings and the Alibaba Group as investors.
The UK has raised $1.8 billion from the latest telecoms spectrum auction, allowing the country's four mobile phone networks capacity to expand their 5G networks. Figures from the regulator Ofcom show BT and Telefónica's O2 spent $625 million each in the sale to boost their spectrum positions.
New car registrations in Europe fell last month, as COVID-19 and economic uncertainty weighed on sales. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association says new registrations were down a fifth year-on-year to 850,170 vehicles, with the biggest decline recorded in Spain, down 38 percent.
Greece is to issue long-term maturity bonds for the first time since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis , marking its full return to the international debt markets. The nation is selling 30-year bonds through commercial banks to finance its COVID-19 pandemic recovery.
Japanese households amassed a record $17.85 trillion in financial assets by the end of December, according to new data. As the COVID-19 crisis kept people at home, the value of savings and investments rose 2.9 percent from a year earlier. Economists warn that the figures underline the inflationary risk to developed economies as they emerge from the pandemic and the expected jump in discretionary spending pushes up prices.
WATCH: According to the first global study of human twins, the number being born worldwide has gone up by a third since the 1980s, mainly due to the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF). 👶👶 Are you a twin, or know anyone who is?
The former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, left the job one year ago and his successor, Andrew Bailey, has had big challenges to contend with, including Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.
CGTN Europe spoke to economist Jonathan Perraton for his assessment of Bailey's first 12 months in the hot seat.
He's probably handled it about as well as could have been expected, given the cards that were dealt and the fact he was going into this when they'd been effectively flooring it with monetary policy. Interest rates are close to zero. They've been doing quantitative easing anyway. So they're starting to reach the limits of what you can do with monetary policy. And instead, it was much more around fiscal policy, what Rishi Sunak [the UK's chief finance minister] was doing with government expenditure.
Bailey's supporters have described the UK economy as 'looking like a coiled spring.' Do you agree?
I would be more cautious, I mean, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which reports to the government, have been over-optimistic in the past. Other forecasts are pointing to a slower recovery. Unemployment will go up once the furlough scheme ends. They're relying on people who've built up savings to spend that money. In the meantime, businesses will have gone under. And there are lots of other people who've had to take on extra debt to make ends meet.
And finally, Greece has returned to the international debt markets by launching the sale of 30-year bonds for the first time since the height of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. But economists warn the COVID-19 pandemic could still hit the country's recovery.