Latest Business News from Times Online
The latest business news from The Times and Sunday Times

• Norwich Union fined record £1.26m over fraud risk
  Norwich Union’s life and pensions business has been fined a record £1.26 million by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the City watchdog, for putting its customers at risk of fraud by failing to protect confidential information.
• £3bn victory for pension rescue campaigners
  More than 135,000 workers who saw the value of their pensions collapse when their employers went bust were celebrating a surprise Government rescue package today expected to be worth about £2.9 billion in real terms.
• CBI gloom helps depress pound and shares
  Leading shares and the pound fell sharply this morning after an overnight sell-off of Asian stocks, the highest US inflation numbers for two years and the gloominess of UK chiefs over next year's economic growth.
• Wii shortages will cost Nintendo $1.3bn in sales$
  Nintendo is set to miss out on an estimated $1.3 billion ($£650 million) in sales this Christmas by failing to meet demand for its Wii video games console.
• Need to know
  <b><a href="http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/">Economics</a></b>
• This crisis is no longer a simple problem of liquidity
  Last week’s effort by the world’s central banks to relieve the global credit crunch with a cash injection failed to impress the markets. But the move is bound to win round the sceptics within the next few months. The decision is likely to be just the precursor to much more important, but controversial, operations to ensure the “solvency” of the international financial system.
• Can this be the worst crisis in 35 years?
  HOW is this for a dichotomy of views: “This is the worst financial crisis since 1972.” Not my words, but those from the chairman’s mouth at one of our biggest banks. And then, at the other end of the scale, the chief executive of a mid-sized corporate-finance house who pointed to a raft of takeovers taking place and suggested that if share prices stay this low, there will be a lot more deals next year.
• Plenty of oil left in the global tank
  AS everybody who has filled up recently knows, petrol and diesel prices have risen and are staying up. The £1 a litre “barrier” was breached easily.
• Central bankers riding to the rescue
  When central bankers and finance ministers gathered last month at a luxury golf resort at Kleinmond, some 70 miles from Cape Town, they could have been forgiven for thinking they were heading for a welcome break in the sunshine.
• Tech groups’ Microsoft challenge threatens to reignite browser wars
  A coalition of technology giants has mounted a legal challenge to Microsoft’s dominance of the software market in Europe in a move that could reignite the brutal “browser wars” of the 1990s.
• Taittingers reclaim control of family brand
  The Taittinger family is to take back control of its famous champagne brand two years after it was sold to a US hotel group.
• Concern over Government’s sale of CO2 emission permits
  An environmental “stealth tax” on business could raise hundreds of million of pounds for the taxman over the next five years through the auction of a large chunk of the next round of carbon emission permits.
• Hutton angers unions over agency workers’ rights
  Unions rounded on the Government yesterday for reneging on a key pledge after John Hutton, the Business and Enterprise Secretary, ruled out UK legislation to give agency workers the same rights as permanent employees.
• Tata pulls ahead in race for Land Rover and Jaguar
  Tata, the Indian company trying to bring the world’s cheapest car to the South Asian country, is expected to be named as the preferred bidder for Ford’s Land Rover and Jaguar brands in the next few days.
• Taittingers reclaim control of family brand
  The Taittinger family is to take back control of its famous champagne brand two years after it was sold to a US hotel group.
• Air France-KLM ups the fight for Alitalia
  Air France-KLM said that it would invest at least €750 million (£535 million) into Alitalia as it stepped up its campaign to win over the Italian Government and upstage Air One, the only rival bidder for the struggling Italian flag carrier.
• Sands shift as solar energy’s silicon demand outshines that of chipmakers
  Global demand from the solar power industry for silicon – the raw material for making solar panels – is set to outstrip demand from microchip manufacturers for the first time this year.
• Collins Stewart to confirm Nomura talks
  Collins Stewart, the stockbroker chaired by Terry Smith, is today expected to confirm it has held preliminary discussions about a possible takeover by Nomura, the Japanese bank.
• Banks offer billions to fend off recession
  The Bank of England and four other powerful central banks are to inject £50 billion into global money markets in unprecedented joint action to ease mounting strains that threaten to tip the world’s leading economies into recession.
• The Central Bank Cavalry