Third-party video game cheating software should not infringe game creators' copyright in the European Union if it only manipulates a gamer's input rather than the game's code itself, a legal adviser to the bloc's top court said Thursday amid Sony's dispute with a British gaming business.

The director of the Serious Fraud Office said on Thursday that the spate of fraud investigations launched early in his tenure wasn't a deliberate policy — though he acknowledged that he wants to make the agency "relevant to the taxpayer."

Financial companies are urging the City watchdog to slow its anti-greenwashing rule that comes in force in May as legal experts warn that it has failed to clarify all its expectations in final guidance, putting businesses that make the wrong call at risk of enforcement action.

Actor and political activist Laurence Fox was ordered by a London judge on Thursday to pay a total of £180,000 ($224,000) in damages to two men who he libelously called pedophiles after they described him as "racist."

BHP Group said Thursday that it has offered to buy out Anglo American in a transaction valuing the British multinational at £31.1 billion ($38.9 billion), as the Australian mining giant looks to bolster its commodities portfolio.

The U.K.'s antitrust watchdog said Wednesday it would look into Amazon's $4 billion investment in U.S.-based artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, and Microsoft Corp.'s deals with two other big AI players, to see if they fall under the country's merger control rules.

Boris Becker's creditors have agreed not to chase the multiple Grand Slam tennis champion over the missing trophies he was accused of hiding to dodge paying debts, lawyers for the Wimbledon winner and bankruptcy trustees told a London court Wednesday.

Panasonic told a London court Wednesday that a bid by rival Xiaomi to have the Japanese giant's litigation accusing it of infringing standard essential wireless patents in other European courts thrown out is "dead in the water," saying its overseas claims against the company are legitimate.

The Serious Fraud Office acknowledged on Wednesday that it "inappropriately" erased the mobile phone of its former director, Lisa Osofsky, during litigation over alleged leaks in what mining giant ENRC told a London court was a "flagrant breach" of its disclosure obligations.

Early talks between prosecutors and defendants could ease the pressures of disclosure in complex economic crime cases where the large volume of online evidence creates a risk that suspects will be denied a fair trial, a government-backed review advised Wednesday.