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FT People of the Year: BioNTech’s Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci

In the 11 months since they devoted themselves to stemming the deadliest pandemic in over a century, Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin’s precious few private moments have been spent exercising along deserted suburban streets near their home in the German city of Mainz, listening to ‘80s pop playlists. Deluged by paperwork

Spanish companies jostle for EU recovery fund billions

Spanish blue-chips including Telefónica, Iberdrola and Seat are positioning themselves for tens of billions of euros in EU coronavirus aid they hope will transform their industries and benefit their bottom lines. Spain expects to receive some €140bn from the €750bn EU coronavirus recovery fund, which leaders approved last week, making Madrid

Credit Suisse picks António Horta-Osório as chairman

Credit Suisse has named António Horta-Osório as its next chairman, picking the outgoing chief executive of Lloyds Bank to help steer the lender through the fallout from the coronavirus crisis. Mr Horta-Osório will start at Credit Suisse at the end of April, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. Urs

EU proposes fresh alliance with US in face of China challenge

The EU will call on the US to seize a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to forge a new global alliance, in a detailed pitch to bury the tensions of the Trump era and meet the “strategic challenge” posed by China. A draft EU plan for revitalising the transatlantic partnership, seen by the Financial Times,

UK set to approve Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine within days

The UK is poised to become the first western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, with the independent regulator set to grant approval within days. Deliveries of the vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer would begin within hours of the authorisation, according to government officials. The first injections could take

Spain’s BBVA and Sabadell scrap merger talks

BBVA and Sabadell, the Spanish banks, have given up merger talks they had confirmed less than two weeks ago because of disagreements over the pricing of the deal. Sabadell said in a statement to Spain’s securities regulator that its board of directors “has decided to terminate the above-mentioned discussions, because the

France demands digital tax payments from US tech groups

French tax authorities have begun demanding millions of euros from US tech giants as they push ahead with a new digital services tax that has enraged Washington. Facebook and Amazon are among the companies to have received communication from French authorities in recent days demanding payment of the tax for 2020,