DJI, the world’s biggest maker of consumer drones, has uncovered multiple cases of embezzlement and fraud among workers in China that could involve more than Rmb1bn ($148m).

France’s credit rating has been affirmed by Fitch, with the agency noting that the fiscal easing aimed at mollifying the “gilets jaunes” protesters will have a limited longer-term on its debt trajectory.

Optimism about trade talk progress between the US and China and a thumping performance from American banks helped Wall Street continue its strong January run, with stocks closing more than 1 per cent higher on Friday and to a fourth straight week of gains.

EU governments have clashed over a proposed update of European copyright regulation, a development that threatens to scupper the first overhaul of the rules in over 20 years as negotiations entered their final stages.

Mickey Drexler is retiring as chairman of J. Crew Group just 18 months after stepping down as chief executive, in a move that brings the curtains down on a 15-year run at the preppy US clothing retailer.

Tesla’s plan to cut jobs has rekindled worries on Wall Street as investors question whether the electric carmaker can sustain demand for its priciest vehicles.

Old Skools is cool again.

Racking up double-digit share price gains in January seems so easy for Netflix, it could probably do it blindfolded.

The UK’s Co-op has sold its insurance underwriting business, CIS General Insurance, to Markerstudy for £185m.

Nyrstar, the debt-laden metals and mining group, has announced management changes, appointing an executive chairman and an interim chief financial officer.

US stocks lit up across the board on Friday after a report said China may be prepared to make new trade concessions in the latest sign that Beijing and Washington are making progress in breaking the impasse in their rancorous nine-month-long dispute.

One of the Federal Reserve’s top policymakers has given the central bank’s sharpest warning to date about the risks of the lengthening US government shutdown, saying there were signs the month-long closure was beginning to hit economic growth.

The socialist government of Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez introduced a bill creating two new taxes on digital services and financial transactions at a cabinet meeting Friday.

US consumer sentiment dropped to its lowest level since October 2016 as the government shutdown and December’s stock market losses weighed on the economic outlook.

US industrial output was stronger than expected in December as the manufacturing sector registered its largest gain in 10 months.

The Bank of Italy has signalled that the country’s economy may have lurched into a technical recession in the last quarter of 2018, and estimated sharply lower growth for this year.

Chinese miner China Molybdenum has strengthened its control over a giant copper and cobalt mine in the Congo, spending $1.14bn to buy out a 24 per cent stake held by a private equity company.

An IT outage at Lloyds Banking Group left it unable to process hundreds of thousands of payments on Friday, with customers at risk of being repeatedly charged for the same transfers.

Janine Gibson, the journalist who led BuzzFeed’s expansion in the UK, is stepping down from the digital news site after three years in charge, in a severe setback to its editorial ambitions.

The pace of Canadian price increases unexpectedly accelerated in December, a development that could reinforce the central bank’s view that more rate increases may still be necessary this year.

US stock futures tip Wall Street for a higher start amid hopes for improved trade relations between China and the US.

Telecom Italia issued on Friday a warning on its 2018 results, heightening the drama for the company that is facing a battle between activist investors.

Swiss Re has appointed a former governor of the listed banking group Bank of Ireland to chair its soon-to-be-listed UK life insurance business.

Schlumberger, the world’s largest listed oilfield services group, has said it expects a divergence in the global oil industry this year between solid growth in most countries and “more uncertainty” for the outlook in North America.