Image of the week: Festival of chocolate
And now we go live to the inside of the average human stomach in the wake of Easter, as bunnies frolic amid spring greenery encased in a thick chocolate. This "chocolate creation", attended to by chocolatier Donna Oluban, can be found at Cadbury World, the Birmingham confectioner having got in on the chocolate egg act in 1875 and having done much to popularise the tradition ever since. The long run-up to Easter this year – perhaps combined with the residual consumer trauma of 2021's last-minute egg shortage – is likely to help sales, but it is fair to say that not every chocolate maker has been enjoying the past few weeks. Italy's Ferrero has been embroiled in a mass recall of Kinder products after food safety authorities investigated possible links between its factory in Belgium and an outbreak of salmonella – the Kinder surprise absolutely no one wants.
In numbers: For richer, for poorer
$50 million
Sum (€46 million) that Johnny Depp is suing his wife Amber Heard for in a defamation case being taken by the actor in the US state of Virginia, in a sequel of sorts to his unsuccessful "wife beater" libel case against the Sun newspaper.
$100 million
Sum that Heard is counter-suing Depp for after he said she had engaged in an “elaborate hoax” to advance her career after writing in the Washington Post in 2019 that she had become “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.
$7 million
Heard said she would donate her $7 million divorce settlement after the couple's 15-month marriage to American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a children's hospital. Depp's lawyers will contend she didn't.
Getting to know: Josh Silverman
It is four years since Bloomberg ran this headline: "Investors love Etsy's CEO. The artists aren't so sure". The ecommerce site for handmade, vintage and craft items, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2015, had a good pandemic, but is one of a number of digital economy companies to suffer a post-crisis slump, and was recently seen trying to strategise its way out of it by attracting that lesser-spotted demographic of craft shopper: men. Silverman, a former eBay executive, has been credited with turning round the company's fortunes since joining in 2017, but in something of a familiar story, this hasn't been entirely welcomed by the sellers who made Etsy what it was in the first place. His announcement that seller fees will increase from 5 per cent to 6.5 per cent has prompted a strike of more than 20,000 sellers, who are now putting their shops on "vacation mode". No holiday for you, Josh.
The list: Shanghai shutdown
A whole nanosecond after supply chain concerns started to subside just a little, a spate of Covid outbreaks and subsequent lockdowns in Chinese cities – notably Shanghai – looks set to ensnarl global trade once more.
1. Pegatron: The Taiwanese contract electronics manufacturer, which makes some iPhone models for Apple, has shut two plants in Shanghai and the nearby city of Kunshan.
2. Quanta and Compal: Quanta, which makes MacBooks and also counts HP and Dell among its tech clients, and iPad assembler Compal have also joined the ranks of Apple suppliers affected by the strict lockdowns.
3. Tesla: Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker has a factory in Shanghai that stopped production weeks ago, which is not ideal for this volatile stock.
4. Nio: China’s electric car manufacturer has also suspended production and delayed deliveries as a result of the extended lockdown.
5. Volkswagen: The German car giant said it would be able to compensate for stoppages through extra shifts and other measures “if the situation eases in the near future” – proof that there are still some Covid optimists left in the world.
