The first company in Estonian business history was created in the Company Registration Portal with a Finnish ID card, without the founders of the company having had to leave their desks to get the company officially registered in Estonia. According to Ingmar Vali, the head of the Court Registry Department at the Centre of Registers

Britain's financial regulator fined U.S. bank Morgan Stanley 1.4 million pounds ($2.1 million) for failings that led to a $120 million markdown to the books of a former senior proprietary trader. The Financial Services Authority said on Wednesday the fine for systems and controls failings related to trader mis-marking, which led the bank to make

European shares were lower at midday on Wednesday in a choppy session, with financials and miners the biggest fallers and a Bank of England inflation report knocking investor sentiment. By 1056 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was down 0.8 percent at 845.95 points, having been up as much as 857.12 points

Stock index futures extended losses on Wednesday as investors waited for key retail sales data for an indication of the mood of the U.S. consumer. S&P 500 futures fell 6.9 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract.

The European Commission fined Intel Corp a record 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) on Wednesday and ordered it to halt illegal rebates and other practices used to squeeze out rival AMD. "Given that Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for over five years, the

A surprise U.S. inventory drop helped boost oil towards $60 a barrel on Wednesday, while gold prices hit five-week highs as investors looked beyond renewed appetite for riskier assets and clung to dollar weakness. The weaker dollar, which hit a four-month low against a basket of currencies, propped up base metals including copper but a

Euro zone industrial output dived and the Bank of England said on Wednesday the British economy needs a lengthy period of healing, putting the onus on the U.S. consumer to help drive a global recovery. Industrial production figures from China, supposedly a beacon of light during the world recession, also proved a disappointment but at

Writedowns and slumping investment income played havoc with earnings at Germany's Allianz and Dutch group ING, two top European insurers grappling with volatile equity markets. Shares in both fell sharply. ING said on Wednesday that a sharply weaker insurance business helped push it to a much bigger than expected quarterly net loss and predicted a