Pret A Manger accused of underpaying staff, EU probes Ryanair airport deal, and more top news

The news professionals in Europe are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation on today's stories in the comments.

Pret A Manger has been slapped with a bill for almost $1 million for allegedly underpaying staff at its New York stores. According to filed documents, the UK sandwich giant has been using an illegal practice known as “time-shaving” to round down hours, thus paying staff less. The company settled the case for $875,000. Pret is currently facing lawsuits over its use of the word “natural”, and is still dealing with the fallout from the death of a teenager who suffered an allergic reaction after eating a baguette. ? Here’s what people are saying.

The European Commission is investigating whether Ryanair was given unfair advantages over its competitors at Germany’s Frankfurt-Hahn airport. The low-cost carrier received training aid and funding for a maintenance hall at the airport between 2009 and 2017, but says it is confident it will be cleared. Meanwhile, Britain’s Local Authority Pension Fund Reform is calling for Ryanair’s recently re-elected chairman David Bonderman to be ousted over concerns about how workers are treated. ? Here’s what people are saying.

A $2 trillion group of investors is challenging 55 companies, including BP, Volkswagen and Nestlé, over their commitment to climate change. The consortium, led by the Church of England Pension Board and Swedish pension fund AP7, says that while the firms back carbon reduction publicly, behind closed doors they are under the “insidious” influence of trade associations. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns the world is on track to warm by 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. ? Here’s what people are saying.

The EU is attracting record numbers of non-EU citizens, with 3 million moving legally to the bloc in search of jobs in 2017 for a fourth consecutive year of growth. Poland attracted the highest number of new residents, almost 700,000, with 85% moving from Ukraine for work. Nearly 180,000 mostly Chinese, US and Indian nationals moved to Britain for education-related reasons. Meanwhile, resident permits granted to asylum seekers fell. Germany welcomed the largest number with 500,000 from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. ? Here’s what people are saying.

Despite having passed away in December, Johnny Hallyday is still setting sales records. The late French rocker is on track to sell 1 million copies of his posthumous album, “Mon pays c’est l’amour”, with 780,177 copies sold in one week — that’s more than the US sales of Drake’s “Scorpion”, the biggest album of 2018. Hallyday’s €100 million fortune is currently at the centre of a bitter dispute between his widow and his adult children, with a ruling expected next month. ? Here’s what people are saying.

Idea of the Day: It’s easy to think that our greatest leaders knew they were destined for big things all along, and that they had supreme control over the efforts they led. But, as General Stanley McChrystal writes, the opposite is often the case.

“Leaders emerge, unexpectedly, much more often than they plot a rise to the top. And once they emerge, they play particular roles more than they dictate events.”

— Capucine Yeomans