Trust the people! Unlike Greece and Italy, Ireland has an elected Prime Minister with a mandate to push through the austerity programme. He and this cabinet clearly deemed it safer to take the legally solid route and go for a referendum on the new EU fiscal compact. Since the present coalition and the principal opposition support the policy it would be odd if the people were to throw it out.

Universal Music is poised to file with Brussels for approval of its £1.2bn takeover of EMI’s recorded music arm as early as this week.

Eastman Kodak, the photography icon that invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies.

A wipeout in its equity derivatives business helped push Citigroup's investment bank into the red, presaging grim news for staff awaiting their bonuses.

Pension liabilities among British businesses swelled to a record £255.2bn in December as the Bank of England waded into the market to buy government bonds, the latest figures from the Pension Protection Fund revealed yesterday.

The US bank Citi has started talks with EMI's pension trustees to put cash into the scheme, which could cost it up to £200m.

Pharmaceuticals blue-chip GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has replaced Hoare Govett as one of its brokers, putting more pressure on the Royal Bank of Scotland's corporate broking arm.

Peter Dubens' Oakley Capital is among the private equity firms and trade players considering a bid for the live music business of HMV, the troubled entertainment retailer.

The housing market can hardly be said to be booming at the moment, but that hasn't stopped the housebuilders recently, in the Square Mile at least. The sector has found itself rather in favour with investors during 2011, with its stocks managing to outperform the FTSE All Share index by an average of over 20 per cent.

Morgan Stanley, one of London's biggest investment banking employers, is to axe 1,600 staff around the world in the first quarter of next year, it announced yesterday.

Talk about good timing. As analysts raised their oil forecasts for 2012 yesterday, citing concerns over the potential for unrest around the world to disrupt production, the black gold's price jumped amid rumours of escalating tension with Iran.

US Outlook: Judge Jed Rakoff is not the man you think he is.

EMI's iconic recorded music business is set to be taken over by rival Universal after a £1.2 billion deal was agreed today.

Guy Hands, the former private equity owner of EMI, has gone back to court over Citigroup's seizure of the music business earlier this year.