Tuesday newspaper round-up: Self-employed, Supreme, bookies, Ocado
A million people in the UK are planning to give up being self-employed after seeing their earnings decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Ahead of official figures on Tuesday that are likely to show a further jump in unemployment, a report from the London School of Economics found that a two-decade long trend in favour of more people working for themselves was under threat. - Guardian
Supreme, the cult streetwear brand, is being sold to VF Corporation, the Denver-based parent company of Vans, The North Face and Timberland, in a deal valued at $2.1bn. Founded by James Jebbia, a UK-raised child actor turned skateboarder who created the brand at a small downtown New York store in 1989, Supreme has been at the forefront of a streetwear revolution that, in terms of marketing and exclusivity, has turned the fashion industry on its head. - Guardian
Ministers are poised to hand out up to £42bn of taxpayer cash to private contractors as part of a drive to massively expand testing in the fight against Covid. The mammoth sum, equivalent to the annual defence budget, includes a £22bn contract put out to tender last week by Public Health England and a £20bn deal already awarded by the NHS, official filings show. - Telegraph
Bookmakers have agreed to dip into their satchels to the tune of several million pounds to help horse racing to deal with the latest lockdown. The sport, hit by the loss of the 50 per cent of its revenue that comes from racegoers, has suffered from the closure of betting shops in England and Ireland. - The Times
Ocado is facing a second legal claim in as many months over allegations that it stole patents and technology from a Norwegian robotics company. Autostore, which makes automated storage and retrieval systems for warehouses, filed an entitlement claim yesterday with British intellectual property authorities that says it is the inventor and rightful owner of patents that have been filed by Ocado. - The Times