Michael Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison, capping the swift and dramatic downfall of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer-in-chief.

Andy Agg, the interim chief financial officer of UK infrastructure operator National Grid will take on the position on a permanent basis from next year.

Mortgage lenders in the US saw an increase in loan applications last week as interest rates slipped below 5 per cent for the first time in nearly three months.

Mick Davis, the former chief executive of miner Xstrata, has joined the board of a coal start-up backed by oil trader Vitol and miner Peabody.

Tencent Music Entertainment rose modestly in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange after pricing its initial public offering at the low end of expectations.

Wall Street kicked off trading with a bang on Wednesday, with renewed optimism over US-China trade relations helping the three main indices to their biggest one-day gain in over a week.

Leo Varadkar received a big political boost after the opposition party that keeps his minority Irish government in power offered not to force an election for a year because of the turmoil over Brexit.

Compared with the state of the UK and France, Italy struck a bella figura on Wednesday.

Investors rushed to buy Italian bonds sending yields to seven-month lows following a news report that the country’s government was preparing to give in to EU demands that it lower its deficit target for next year.

A jury failed to reach a majority verdict in an insider trading case against a former UBS compliance officer and her day-trader friend accused of making £1.4m in profit using confidential deal tips.

Sterling climbed to its highs of the day after a majority of Theresa May’s MPs expressed their public support for the prime minister ahead of a vote of confidence in her leadership later on Wednesday evening.

US inflation rose at its slowest pace in nine months in November as fuel and energy costs fell, in the latest sign that price pressures are easing after a surge earlier this year. 

Air France-KLM has named a 27-year veteran of the group as the new head of its French unit, three months after group chief executive Benjamin Smith took control of the French flag carrier.

US stock futures were trading firmly higher on Wednesday as investors awaited the latest reading on consumer price inflation, which could provide further clues about the direction of borrowing costs for next year.

Theresa May insisted she was fighting in Europe to get a better Brexit deal as she faced the House of Commons just hours ahead of a vote of confidence in her leadership.

The European Parliament has approved the EU’s largest ever trade deal — a “cars for cheese” pact with Japan that will remove more than €1bn in duties for European exporters while creating an “open trade zone” covering 630m people.

Brexit. Theresa May. The pound. We appreciate it’s hard to keep up. So fastFT has put together this hopefully handy summary to get you up to speed on what’s going on in the UK, what it means and where we go from here.

Norwegian oil producer DNO has started the clock on its bid to take over Faroe Petroleum, giving shareholders three weeks to accept its offer of 152p per share.

As the prime minister steels herself for a rocky Wednesday that will see her battle to retain her leadership of the Tory party against a mutiny from Brexit critics, punters are spending thousands speculating on the country’s and Theresa May’s future.

Opec estimates the world will need 31.4m barrels a day of the cartel’s crude next year, 2.1m b/d less than demand from 2017, as production from US shale fields continues to swell.

It’s been a challenging year for Italy, or as we say in the old country un anno pazzesco.

Theresa May should know by 9pm on Wednesday evening whether she has lost the confidence of Conservative MPs, the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee has confirmed.

Hitachi and ABB have confirmed they are in talks about a deal which could see the Japanese group take a majority stake in the Swiss engineering company’s power grids division.

Eurozone industrial production bounced back tepidly in October after a slip in the previous month, propped up by a jump in orders of pricey equipment.

Siemens and Alstom have sent proposed concessions to European authorities after the EU said the companies would have to give up prized assets in order to get their massive rail merger over the line.