Confidence plunged again in the eurozone this month as austerity bites and the single-currency bloc heads towards an all-but-inevitable recession, the European Commission warned yesterday.

Some might feel that the world's bankers have been metaphorically wazzing on us from a great height for years.

More than 100 London investment bankers yesterday launched a claim in the High Court for £42m in unpaid bonuses from the German banking giant Commerzbank.

More than 100 London bankers will next week go to the High Court to sue German banking giant Commerzbank over €50m (£42m) in unpaid bonuses.

Germany's economy slipped into reverse in the last quarter of 2011 in spite of showing strong overall growth for the year of 3 per cent, the country's Federal Statistics Office said today.

Edward Bonham Carter and other top managers at Jupiter Fund Management banked almost £63m yesterday as they sold shares on the first day that their post-flotation lock-in lapsed.

Company managers may have to put their pay packets to a shareholder vote and introduce a quota for women executives under new proposals from Brussels.

The prospect of $100-per-barrel oil hove into view yesterday, as crude prices rose almost to within a dollar of the psychologically important level last seen more than two years ago.

The Federal Reserve said it was concerned that inflation rates are unhealthily low in the US, and it could act again soon to boost prices and economic activity.

Outlook Jupiter's was one of the smoother flotations of recent times, even if the shares did have to be priced towards the bottom end of the initial range set by its bankers. Yesterday it gave some indication that those investors who backed the business when it returned to the London Stock Exchange got a rather good deal.