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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to launch an investigation into anti-competitive practices at Microsoft’s cloud computing business, as the US regulator continues to pursue Big Tech in the final weeks of Joe Biden’s presidency.

The FTC is examining allegations that Microsoft is abusing its market power in productivity software by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its Azure cloud service to competitors’ platforms, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Tactics being examined include substantially increasing subscription fees for those that leave, charging steep exit fees and allegedly making its Office 365 products incompatible with rival clouds, they added.

The FTC is yet to formally request documents or other information from Microsoft as part of the inquiry, the people said.

A move to challenge Microsoft’s cloud business practices would mark the latest broadside against Big Tech by the FTC’s chair Lina Khan, who has centred her tenure on aggressively curbing the monopolistic powers of the likes of Meta and Amazon.

Khan, who has become the public enemy for most of Wall Street’s dealmaking community, is set to be replaced after president-elect Donald Trump enters the White House next year.

While any successor to Khan may not adopt as tough a stance, potential contenders are expected to continue targeting Big Tech companies which have attracted bipartisan ire in Washington. The Republican party has accused online platforms of allegedly censoring conservative voices.

The decision to launch a formal probe would come after the FTC sought feedback from industry participants and the public on cloud computing providers’ business practices. The results in November last year revealed that most responses raised concerns around competition, the agency said at the time, including software licensing practices that curb the ability to use some software in other cloud providers’ ecosystems.

The FTC also highlighted fees charged on users transferring data out of certain cloud systems and minimum spend contracts, which offer discounts to companies in return for a set level of spending.  

Microsoft has also attracted scrutiny from international regulators over similar matters. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is investigating Microsoft and Amazon after its fellow watchdog Ofcom found that customers complained about being “locked in” to a single provider, which offers discounts for exclusivity and charge high “egress fees” to leave. 

In the EU, Microsoft has avoided a formal probe into its cloud business after agreeing a multimillion-dollar deal with a group of rival cloud providers in July.

The FTC in 2022 sued to block Microsoft’s $75bn acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard over concerns the deal would harm competitors to its Xbox consoles and cloud-gaming business. A federal court shot down an attempt by the FTC to block it, which is being appealed. A revised version of the deal in the meantime closed last year following its clearance by the UK’s CMA.

Since its inception 20 years ago, cloud infrastructure and services has grown to become one of the most lucrative business lines for Big Tech as companies outsource their data storage and computing online. More recently, this has been turbocharged by demand for processing power to train and run artificial intelligence models.

Spending on cloud services soared to $561bn in 2023 with market researcher Gartner forecasting it will grow to $675bn this year and $825bn in 2025. Microsoft has about a 20 per cent market share over the global cloud market, trailing leader Amazon Web Services that has 31 per cent, but almost double the size of Google Cloud at 12 per cent.

There is fierce rivalry between the trio and smaller providers. Last month, Microsoft accused Google of running “shadow campaigns” seeking to undermine its position with regulators by secretly bankrolling hostile lobbying groups.

Microsoft also alleged that Google tried to derail its settlement with EU cloud providers by offering them $500mn in cash and credit to reject its deal and continue pursuing litigation.

The FTC and Microsoft declined to comment.

KATHY GARRETT and Andy Carter are a £7billion duo.

That’s the astonishing total which the National Lottery’s longest-serving winners’ advisers have handed out to those lucky punters who have hit the jackpot.

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The pair have met more big winners than anyone else in the UK.

And to mark the lottery’s 30th anniversary they have revealed some of the secrets of the more than 5,000 happy winners who they have come to know as friends.

Kathy knows the identity of the mystery recipient of the biggest-ever prize — a mind-boggling £195,707,000 on the EuroMillions draw in 2022.

Remarkably, the winner has managed to remain anonymous and Kathy will not give any clue to their identity.

But she does say: “They’ve done very well and are doing very well.

Eiffel Tower

“They understand that it’s a lot of money for them and they want to give something back, but to do it in an anonymous way.

“It’s life-changing for anybody to win on the lottery but when you win that sort of money you need an awful lot of support and help, which they have had.

“We guide them and introduce them to people that can help to make their journey a little bit easier.”

Paying off the mortgage is the next thing. But the lottery has paid for a lot of new hips, new knees, new teeth, new hair

Andy Carter

Andy, 50, has been a winners’ adviser for 18 years and has become a bit of a household name.

When winners call the National Lottery to claim their jackpot they will often ask: “Will Andy Carter be coming to see me?”

Over the years Andy has found that winners tend to follow a similar pattern. He says: “Most will buy a new car straight away.

“Quite a few people will put a deposit on a car before we even get there and want to know, ‘When’s my money hitting the account?’

“Paying off the mortgage is the next thing. But the lottery has paid for a lot of new hips, new knees, new teeth, new hair.”

“And laser eye surgery,” adds Kathy, 60, a mum of four from Kent.

One of Andy’s most memorable winners, Les Scadding, now 68, won a £45.5million EuroMillions jackpot in 2009, then invested some of it in Newport County FC in South Wales — and became club chairman.

Remarkably, only one of the 5,000 winners they have dealt with wanted to tell no one — not even family.

Kathy says: “The reason he kept it a secret is that he wanted to surprise his partner and propose to her.

“He arranged to take her to Paris for the weekend and took her to a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, where he proposed to her.

“Thankfully she said yes, and then he revealed that he’d also won the lottery. But he wanted her to accept his proposal before telling her he had won a million pounds.”

Private jet

The winner booked his romantic holiday in France using an idea that Kathy came up with — a concierge service that make dreams come true for lottery winners.

She says: “It’s proved very popular because some of these winners have never been on a holiday before, or they get a chef in to cook Christmas dinner for all the family, maybe hire a private jet to fly off somewhere.

“Once somebody literally went 200 miles up the road in their private jet and never left the UK.

“We had a lovely couple who won a lot of money last year and they took the whole family away on a private jet — and the dog went with them.”

Andy adds: “Someone said to me the other day, ‘What’s the point of me having this money if I can’t do stuff with the people I love?’.”

The duo’s phones often ping with photos of their big-winning clients on an exotic holiday.

Kathy says: “It’s lovely because you can see the difference their win is making to their lives and that they’re fully embracing it and enjoying it.”

Andy adds: “They could have thought of anyone but they think of you. There was a guy I dealt with who said, ‘I’m going to travel around the world and watch cricket’.

“Now I haven’t spoken to him for years, but every so often he emails a picture. He’ll be in Barbados, Sri Lanka or Sydney, in the great sporting arenas of the world.”

Kathy and Andy are part of a team of seven who visit every lottery player who wins more than £50,000.

They take with them a book in which punters can record their memories of the win — and a bottle of champagne that comes out when all the formalities are completed.

Often during that first meeting winners’ phones will be constantly pinging as news leaks out that they have won the jackpot.

Andy says: “Sometimes you turn up at people’s houses and the whole village or even the whole town knows.

You’ve got people knocking on the door when you’re there and messages are coming through saying, ‘Congratulations on your lottery win’.

The oldest winner I’ve paid was 105. It wasn’t going to make a massive difference to her life at that age but it gave her real pleasure to see that her family would benefit from it

Kathy Garrett

“The winner, who hasn’t gone public at this stage, will often look at their phone and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen him for years’.

“Nice news spreads fast and people are genuinely pleased. They like to know someone who’s won the lottery.”

Kathy, who was once hugged so hard by a delighted winner that she feared he would crack her ribs, says: “The oldest winner I’ve paid was 105.

“She lived in a little house and she had all her family around her.

“It wasn’t going to make a massive difference to her life at that age but it gave her real pleasure to see that her family would benefit from it.”

Another of Kathy’s winners, Doris Stanbridge, from Dorking in Surrey, was 70 when she won the lottery’s Set For Life game, which pays out £10,000 a month for 30 years.

Kathy says: “She will be 100 when she gets her last payment. She’s going to have a huge party if she makes it.

“Doris is great and really making the most of it, helping families and enjoying the holidays.” After 30 years, the odds of winning the lottery are just as vanishingly small as they have ever been, but Kathy and Andy say their big winners keep on playing — and some have hit the jackpot again.

Kathy says: “In 15 years I’ve paid five winners over £50,000 twice, which is absolutely incredible.”

Andy adds: “Last year I visited someone who had won and he said, ‘I think you may have seen my brother’.

“Two brothers had won the lottery, a year apart. One had won £2million and the other just under a million.”

And Kathy recalls: “I had two sisters — one won the lottery jackpot and the other won £1million, four years apart.”

Very emotional

Many punters give up work the moment they win, but some can’t let go of their jobs so fast — including a butcher who scooped the jackpot.

Kathy says: “It was coming up to Christmas and people were coming to collect their turkeys and he didn’t want to let them down by saying, ‘I’ve got an appointment’.

“He wanted to see me because he was going to get his lottery money but he couldn’t just shut up shop and focus on his win. So every two minutes he’d jump up to go and hand somebody their turkey.

“His customers had no idea he was disappearing into the back of the shop to see me.

“He stayed anonymous. He did carry on with the shop for a little while — and then changed direction.”

Andy says: “Builders are the ones that can’t walk away.

“They are so loyal, they don’t want to let anybody down, and even though they could pay for somebody else to do the work, they go and do it themselves.”

Kathy dealt with builder Steve Thompson, 47, from Selsey, West Sussex, who won £105million on Euro- Millions in 2019. Amazingly, he kept on working until all his customers’ jobs had been completed.

Syndicates are fun. I once went to a funeral parlour with some undertakers who had won. I even went to the Greggs factory to meet workers who had won £100,000 on EuroMillions. It was like Willy Wonka in there

Andy Carter

She says: “He was very, very emotional. At the beginning he was in tears because he just wanted to carry on as normal. It was a huge amount and it just took him a little while to get his head around everything.

“He’s fine. The whole family are really happy and they’ve built their own home.

“He wanted to help his friends still do the building work. Most winners are loyal — they’ve committed to something and they don’t want to let anybody down.

“So even though they have got over £100million now in their bank account they’ve still promised to fit the little old lady’s door for her up the road, and they want to carry on doing that.”

Andy says: “I have never met a winner who has told the boss to stuff his job.”

Over the years the pair have also paid out prizes to lots of family and workplace syndicates.

Andy says: “Syndicates are fun. I once went to a funeral parlour with some undertakers who had won. I even went to the Greggs factory to meet workers who had won £100,000 on EuroMillions. It was like Willy Wonka in there.”

In 2012, a dozen bus drivers in Corby, Northants, won £38million on EuroMillions and did quit their jobs — eventually.

Andy says: “There’s been Tesco’s workers, teachers, nurses, dance teams and pub syndicates.”

Most big winners never forget the numbers that won them the jackpot.

Some have the figures hidden within tattoos, others have even had them included in wrought-iron gates.

Mark and Ruth Chalmers, who scooped £1million on EuroMillions in 2018, had their winning Millionaire Maker code — MHSL49011 — carved into the stone wall outside their new home in Halifax, West Yorkshire.

Kathy says of the adviser team’s job: “We’re there for as long as we are needed.

“The bigger multi-million-pound winners stay in touch a bit more.

“Some haven’t told a lot of people about their win, so they like to tell us about the big events in their life. It’s the best job in the world.”

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Jay Powell backed a gradual approach to lowering interest rates, saying the US central bank does not need to be “in a hurry” amid a strong economy and a “bumpy” path down for inflation.

In a speech delivered in Dallas on Thursday, the Federal Reserve chair hailed the “remarkably good” performance of the world’s largest economy amid “significant progress” in taming the pace of price increases.

Given the economy’s resilience, Powell signalled little urgency to ease monetary policy quickly, instead cautioning there was still work to do to get inflation all the way back to the central bank’s 2 per cent target.

“The economy is not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates,” Powell said in prepared remarks. “The strength we are currently seeing in the economy gives us the ability to approach our decisions carefully.”

Last week, the US central bank opted to lower its benchmark policy rate by a quarter-point to a new target range of 4.25-4.75 per cent. Officials next meet in December for their final gathering of the year and appear on track to deliver a third-consecutive cut.

The Fed’s challenge is to take its foot off the economic brakes quickly enough to prevent any significant increase in joblessness, but also slow it enough to ensure that inflation is kept at bay.

“We are confident that with an appropriate recalibration of our policy stance, strength in the economy and the labour market can be maintained, with inflation moving sustainably down to 2 per cent,” Powell said on Thursday.

Officials more broadly have endorsed a gradual approach to lowering rates, given both the underlying strength of the economy as well as the stickiness of residual price pressures.

The latest consumer price index report released on Wednesday underscored how uneven the path down to the Fed’s 2 per cent is likely to continue to be. Powell on Thursday described it as “more of an upward bump than we had expected”, even as he said overall downward trend was “still intact”.

After several months of larger-than-expected drawdowns in inflation, the annual pace ticked up to 2.6 per cent following a third straight month in which “core” prices that strip out volatile food and energy prices rose 0.3 per cent.

Another metric of underlying inflation — one that focuses on prices for services that also exclude housing-related costs — ticked higher in October and now registers an annual pace of 4.4 per cent. Powell on Thursday said he expected inflation to continue to retreat, “albeit on a sometimes-bumpy path”.

Earlier on Thursday, Adriana Kugler, a Fed governor, affirmed that the central bank was ready to pause its rate-cutting cycle if warranted by the data.

“If any risks arise that stall progress or reaccelerate inflation, it would be appropriate to pause our policy rate cuts,” she said at an event in Uruguay. “But if the labour market slows down suddenly, it would be appropriate to continue to gradually reduce the policy rate.”

Economists have warned that the economic proposals put forward by president-elect Donald Trump, such as tariffs and deportations, could cause inflationary pressures to reignite.

Asked on Thursday how that may affect the Fed’s policy decisions, Powell said the central bank would be “careful about changing policy until we have a lot more certainty”.

He said the impact of tariffs “isn’t obvious until we see actual policies”, stressing that the Fed would “reserve judgment”.

GIVING your children pocket money is a great way to teach them how to budget.

And encouraging them to earn their pennies is also a valuable lesson in responsibility.

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Here are some ideas to get kids managing their own cash.

CHORES: Children love a cash reward for little jobs such as tidying their room or helping with the cleaning.

This can also help instil the idea of working for your money — plus you get a helping hand around the house.

However, some parents may prefer kids learning to do their bit without a financial incentive.

BANK ON IT: Handing over physical pocket money is fine, but as more businesses become cashless, a card might be easier. It offers more protection if it gets lost as it can be cancelled, whereas cash could be gone for good.

From age 11, you can open a kids’ bank account, which is fee-free and comes with a debit card. Children are not allowed to go into an overdraft.

APPY SPENDING: There are a number of specific pocket money cards and apps which can be used by younger children, from the age of six.

Preloaded cards are similar to a debit card and the corresponding apps allow parents to keep an eye on where their kids are spending. You will usually get an instant alert when the card is used.

Some of these accounts come with a small monthly charge. However, there are free options. If you’re a NatWest customer, you can join Rooster Money for free, saving on the annual £19.99 charge. Or HyperJar offers a free prepaid debit card and app.

SAVINGS: It’s important to educate youngsters on the benefits of saving if they’ve got their eye on an expensive purchase or have a special occasion, such as a holiday, coming up.

You can set up physical envelopes or jars for cash.

Alternatively, HyperJar lets you create individual digital pots for different things.

Setting up savings accounts together is a good opportunity to talk about the idea of earning interest on your money.

• All prices on page correct at time of going to press. Deals and offers subject to availability.

Deal of the day

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TRY a new spin on a festive classic with Morrisons The Best Cherry Bakewell mince pies, £2.75 for a pack of four.

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Argentina said on Thursday it would “re-evaluate” its role in global climate talks after walking out of the COP29 summit, fuelling concerns that the South American country could become the first to follow Donald Trump’s threatened exit from the landmark Paris agreement.

Trump’s campaign said he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord on his return to the White House, as he did during his first term, leaving ministers and negotiators at COP29 in Azerbaijan to fret that other populist leaders could follow suit. 

Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei withdrew the delegation of negotiators his country had sent to the UN climate summit in Baku on Wednesday, a day after speaking to Trump by phone. 

Milei demoted Argentina’s environment portfolio to a junior departmental level after taking office last year as part of a sweeping austerity package and sharp ideological realignment of his country’s environmental and foreign policy. He has said human-caused climate change is “a socialist lie”.

Milei’s spokesperson told a press briefing on Thursday: “The [withdrawal of the COP29 delegation] will allow the new foreign minister to re-evaluate the situation, reflect on our position. It’s part of the measures that the foreign minister is starting to take in his new role.”

Ana Lamas, Argentina’s under-secretary for the environment, declined to comment further on whether the country was considering an exit from the Paris agreement. “The delegation is coming back to Argentina, for now there is no more information,” she told the Financial Times. 

Milei fired foreign minister Diana Mondino last month after Argentina sided with Cuba at a UN vote condemning the US’s economic sanctions on the Caribbean nation.

He and his new foreign minister Gerardo Werthein, a wealthy businessman who was until recently Buenos Aires’ ambassador to the US, are this weekend due to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, where they aim to meet Trump.

The US is the only country to have left the Paris agreement. Almost 200 countries signed the blueprint to limit the global average temperature rise. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro threatened to withdraw, but did not follow through.

Many of the countries at the UN meeting have rushed to present a united front, arguing that even if the US quit the Paris agreement, the global context was very different from the first Trump term. Countries and industries had begun to make the shift to green energy as they took into account the further consequences of climate change, they maintained.

“The health of the Paris Agreement is quite good,” said Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s climate envoy, in Baku. “You have here a multilateral forum where countries work together to find solutions, despite geopolitical tensions, despite elections.

“We have been through elections in the past and have continued to move forward,” she said. The “costs and devastation” of climate change were prompting countries to act.

Another lead negotiator said: “The world has moved on. The economic case is strong for the transition — there are so many renewables all over the world.”

Argentina had been in charge of the so-called Sur negotiating bloc of countries at the two-week climate summit, and has been replaced by Brazil.

The Argentine delegation had submitted a statement to the COP29 opening meeting on Tuesday, declaring the nation’s opposition to “the imposition of regulations and bans promoted by the very countries that developed by doing the same things they are questioning today”. 

A central objective of the Baku summit is to set a new finance goal to help poorer countries shift to green energy and adapt to climate change, but the talks have been overshadowed by controversies during its opening days as well as the absence of more than half of the world’s leaders.

France also decided not to send a senior political official to the summit this week, after the host country’s President Ilham Aliyev used a speech at the event to accuse the “regime of President [Emmanuel] Macron” of “brutally” killing citizens during recent protests in New Caledonia.

Climate Capital

Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here.

Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here

PARENTS are flocking to buy this festive essential for kids, which only costs £2.

The Christmas Eve boxes from Asda are massively popular among savvy-shoppers who say they will “last for years”.

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The box measures 27cm x 36cm x 12.6cm – meaning it has plenty of room to fill with trinkets.

Buyers can nab these from an Asda shop or online.

Though the website warns prices and promotions may vary when buying in-store.

As the big festive day quickly approaches, parents are on the hunt for a place to store their little one’s presents.

And amid the ongoing cost of living crisis, Brits are on the lookout for cheap gift boxes and hampers.

But with gift boxes selling for £100 from John Lewis or £85 at Fortnum and Mason, many might be left out of pocket.

Luckily, Asda’s Christmas Eve box costs as little as £2 – that’s cheaper than certain chocolate bars.

One happy customer said: “Have bought these boxes for about 10 yrs now always look nice and are strong.”

Whilst another commented: “These are perfect! Really good size and really good value for the price. Quite sturdy.”

For those with a sweet tooth the supermarket is also offering two boxes of Quality Street for just £9.

Or for an even better deal, shoppers can get their hands on a chocolate advent calendar for a whopping £1.50.

This comes as B&M shoppers rush to fill their baskets with an item which is perfect for the upcoming festive season.

Bargain hunters have been getting excited about Christmas tree plates which cost just 10p, having been reduced from £4.

One eagle-eyed shopper got their hands on one at their local store before spreading the word on social media.

They took to the Facebook group Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK group to let others know.

The person wrote: “Christmas tree platters 10p each in B&M.”

On person commented: “If you see these please get me a couple xx.”