Tyler Brooks 
Tesco has agreed to sell its 363 Czech and Slovak stores to Ahold Delhaize at an enterprise value of about €1.7bn (£1.5bn), with most of the cash going to shareholders. The deal leaves Hungary as its last central European market and sharpens its focus on UK and Irish shoppers.
The National Living Wage will rise 3.9% to £13.20 an hour from April 2027, with 18 to 20 year olds getting the same 3.9% rise to £11.27. We set out what it means for shop workers’ pay, what it costs retailers per head and how trade bodies have reacted.
The government has laid draft regulations that bring the DMCC Act subscription regime into force on 1 January 2027. UK shoppers get online cancellation, written renewal reminders and a new 14-day cooling-off window after free trials end.
A US trade court certified a class of importers on October 8, opening a route to roughly $11bn of IEEPA tariff refunds for companies that never filed suit. The order does not pay anyone yet, and a government appeal is still live at the Federal Circuit.
The EU General Court dismissed Zalando’s bid to see how Brussels calculated its Digital Services Act supervisory fee, finding disclosure would harm data suppliers and the Commission’s defence. Designated platforms must now pay a levy whose arithmetic they cannot inspect.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson says the agency is preparing Section 6(b) personalized pricing orders, naming delivery, rideshare and air travel as the first targets rather than retail. Walmart answered a patent report the same week by pledging not to use or renew US11687872B2.
Temu’s UK operating company reported revenue of about USD 171m for 2025, up roughly 171% on the year, in accounts filed at Companies House on 30 September 2026. The filing lands as Britain prepares to scrap the GBP 135 low value import duty relief by October 2028.
The EU Digital Identity Wallet is unlikely to become a working login or checkout option on Europe’s largest online marketplaces during 2027, despite an acceptance obligation landing that December. Three signals from September 2026 point instead to age verification carrying European commerce’s first real wallet moment.
Sezzle filed for a national bank charter months after Affirm and Klarna filed for industrial bank charters, yet the signals point to Sezzle reaching a public decision first, likely by 30 September 2027. Three dated indicators explain why the choice of regulator now matters more than the order of filing.
The Cato Corporation will close about 120 stores in fiscal 2026 after adding roughly 70 lease-end exits on September 18, citing pressure on customers’ discretionary income. Second-quarter sales fell 6% and gross margin dropped to 32.8%, while a $5.7 million IEEPA tariff refund had flattered the first quarter.