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Important information: The value of investments can go down as well as up so you may get back less than you invest. Investors should note that the views expressed may no longer be current and may have already been acted upon. This is a third-party news feed and may not reflect Fidelity’s views.

Thursday newspaper round-up: National Lottery, Mike Lynch, Morrisons

(Sharecast News) - The Czech billionaire whose company takes over running the UK national lottery from Thursday is still in business with the Kremlin-owned gas company Gazprom, nearly two years after promising regulators he would sever ties with Russia. The Gambling Commission awarded Allwyn the lucrative 10-year licence to run the lottery, estimated to be worth up to £100bn in sales, in March 2022. - Guardian Mike Lynch, the technology tycoon once lauded as the UK's answer to Bill Gates and now facing criminal fraud charges in the US, is suing the Serious Fraud Office. Lynch, who was extradited to the US last year to face trial over allegations he duped Hewlett-Packard into overpaying when it struck an $11bn (£8.6bn) deal to buy his software firm Autonomy in 2011, has filed a data protection claim against the SFO in the high court in London. - Guardian

A senior member of the Barclay family faces a petition from a leading private bank to declare him personally bankrupt, in the latest legal drama for the owners of The Telegraph. According to High Court documents, Alistair Barclay, 34, is alleged to be in default on £946,754 of borrowing from Investec, which only offers bank accounts to individuals with net wealth of more than £3m. - Telegraph

The new boss of Morrisons has started to invite shoppers to board meetings and has been holding customer "round tables" in stores as part of a plan to "re-energise and reshape" the troubled supermarkets chain. Rami Baitiéh, who joined as chief executive in November, admitted that Morrisons had "not been on peak form" since the pandemic and said he would reveal his new strategy for the business in March. - The Times

The competition regulator has started an investigation into a drugs company formerly run by the brother of Nasser Hussain, the ex-England cricket captain, over its supply of iron deficiency treatments to NHS patients. The Competition & Markets Authority said it was investigating suspected anti-competitive conduct by Vifor Pharma. - The Times

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(Sharecast News) - California's home-insurance safety net does not have enough money to pay all of the claims from damage caused by the Los Angeles wildfires and has asked private insurers to contribute $1bn toward those claims. All private insurers operating in California are required to contribute to the Fair plan, a plan of last resort established so all Californians would have access to fire insurance. More than 450,000 California homeowners got their insurance through the Fair plan in 2024 - more than double the number in 2020. As of 4 February, the plan had received more than 4,700 claims from the Palisades and Eaton fires, almost half of which were for "total losses". - Guardian
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(Sharecast News) - Elon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for "all assets" of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI's board of directors. The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk's unsolicited offer could complicate the company's plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid. - Guardian
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(Sharecast News) - An increasingly complex tax system is burdening the government and businesses with hundreds of millions of pounds more in administration costs, Whitehall's spending watchdog has warned. The report by the National Audit Office (NAO) also said "poor levels of service" meant some taxpayers and their representatives were "finding it more difficult to deal with their tax matters and are losing trust in HM Revenue & Customs [HMRC]". - Guardian

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