1. All entries must be submitted before midnight (BST) on 31 January 2012.

The shale gas revolution spread to China yesterday as Royal Dutch Shell struck the rock-based fossil fuel while drilling, heralding the country's first commercial production.

Samsung has landed a significant victory in the tit-for-tat legal wranglings with Apple after a ban on sales of its tablet computers was overturned in Australia.

A Dutch court has awarded Apple an injunction to stop its rival Samsung from marketing three smartphone models, including its Galaxy S, after alleging a breach of patents.

The Hong Kong-based billionaire and business "superman" Li Ka-Shing has made an indicative cash offer for Northumbrian Water, the company said yesterday.

The Unite union yesterday accused HSBC of trying to bury bad news by announcing 700 job cuts on the same day as Lloyds unveiled its swingeing staff reduction plans.

Seagate Technology is to buy Samsung Electronics's loss-making hard-disk-drive (HDD) business for $1.4bn (£858m) as the US group looks to combat rival Western Digital Corp and arrest price wars that have damaged the industry.

HSBC will join the Government's financial apprenticeship scheme, aimed at non-graduate employees. Qualification will take about 18 months to complete and a quarter of the apprentices will be new recruits. Liz Field, the chief executive of the Financial Skills Partnership, said: "Employer-hosted programmes like this could boost the skills of an entire generation."

Outlook Also hoping to put its troubles behind it is HSBC. After the public infighting of last week, the bank's senior directors were all very gracious about each other yesterday as they met up in Shanghai for the board meeting that had been due to sign off on its management shake-up. Stuart Gulliver, HSBC's chief executive in waiting, was in particularly conciliatory mood, softening his tone on whether the bank might quit the UK.

Hong Kong's business “Superman” Li Ka-Shing is paying £5.8bn for energy giant EDF’s 100,000 miles of the UK’s electricity network.

Australia's Arrow Energy has accepted an improved takeover offer of A$3.44bn (£2.1bn) from Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said today it aimed to treble smartphone shipments this year to more than 18 million units as the world's second-biggest cellphone maker scrambles to make a mark in the fast-growing smartphone market.