Sky Sports and ITV have reached a new £400m three-year deal for Champions League broadcasting rights, although senior Uefa official William Gaillard has warned future contracts may be less generous.

A fledgling biosciences industry that promises to revolutionise medicine in the 21st century could be destroyed by a French judge who has declared it immoral to patent inventions based on cells derived from human embryos.

Satellite broadcaster Sky today won a European legal battle over customs duties on imports of its Sky+ box.

Rank, the parent company of Mecca Bingo, celebrated a £154m win from the taxman yesterday after receiving a VAT rebate. Rank was repaid £74.8m in tax dating back to between 1973 and 1996 by HM Revenue and Customs after a long legal dispute. It is due to receive a further £79.5m in interest later this month.

Few of us would single out the existence of cheap car insurance deals as the most serious manifestation of gender-based discrimination in our society. But yesterday's verdict of the European Court of Justice that these sort of deals constitute unfair discrimination is, nevertheless, justified. Discrimination by insurance companies based on gender might be relatively inoffensive, but it is still discrimination.

European Judges rewrote the rule book for insurance companies yesterday by banning risk assessment based on gender.

British consumers face hikes in the cost of car and life insurance as well as a reduced income in retirement if the European Court of Justice outlaws gender-based pricing of premiums on Tuesday.

The insurance industry is running scared ahead of an EU ruling due on 1 March. From then, the European Court of Justice could force insurers to stop using gender for risk differentiation. If your first thought is "about time", then you should consider what it means, for the potential ruling is a spectacular bit of Euro-nonsense. If the ruling is upheld, it is likely to increase the cost of cover for men and women, leaving both worse off.

A determined landlady has won a significant breakthrough in a legal battle that could transform the British pub trade by allowing premises to show Premier League games that are being broadcast by foreign networks.

The Premier League's long-term ability to attract huge sums in broadcast rights could be damaged by a ruling in the European Court of Justice. Yesterday an adviser to the court said that European Union law cannot prevent matches being shown in UK pubs via foreign broadcasters and if that is adopted by the Court this year it will radically alter the way in which sports rights are sold across the continent.

An EU ruling allowing television viewers to by-pass UK broadcasters and watch cheaper foreign satellite coverage of Premier League football would threaten the nation's grass roots sport, it was warned today.