Business week in pictures

Lloyds Banking Group was accused of 'corporate arrogance' after cutting a further 5,000 jobs, taking the total cuts among leading high-street banks in the past 12 months to 42,000. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

British Airways alarmed passengers a decade ago by removing the Union Jack from its tailfins. But they now have the prospect of the Spanish flag flying alongside the national airline after BA agreed a £3.96bn merger with rival Iberia Photograph: Victor R. Caivano/AP

Unemployment rose by 30,000 in the three months to September to 2.46 million, the smallest rise since the three months to May 2008 and one that kept the total under the 2.5 million mark. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

Americans will have the opportunity to bid on Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff's personal effects, as the US government auctions off his belongings in an effort to recoup his victims' losses. Photograph: Sebastien Nogier/Reuters

Former Bear Stearns senior executive, Steven Begleiter, crashed out of the finals of the World Series of Poker after losing his entire $22m stack of chips on a single bet. Photograph: Laura Rauch/AP

Volkswagen-Porsche overtook Toyota to become the world's largest car manufacturer, producing 4 .4m vehicles so far this year, as the German group benefitted from state-backed stimulus packages around the globe. Photograph: Krafft Angerer/Getty Images

Barclays is considering handing pay rises to its top investment bankers, despite its insistence it will consider the view of the 'broader community' when setting bonus levels. The bank made pre-tax profits of £1.4bn for the first nine months of the year Photograph: David Levene

Orange sold more than 30,000 iPhones within hours of becoming the first network to break O2's two-year exclusive grip on the Apple handset in the UK. Photograph: Lucas Dolega/EPA

Kraft Foods went hostile in its pursuit of Cadbury, launching a formal takeover offer worth £9.8bn that was swiftly rejected as 'derisory' by the British company's board. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty Images

National Express moved to shore up its debt-laden balance sheet by announcing a £360m rights issue – without the support of its largest shareholder, the Spanish Cosmen family Photograph: Christopher Thomond

The US government suffered a blow in its attempts to secure convictions over the financial crisis when two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, were cleared of fraud charges Photograph: Louis Lanzano/AP

Gold hit a fresh all-time high, as the weakening US dollar prompted investors to increase their bullion holdings Photograph: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images

The Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, warned that Britain's economic recovery would be long and difficult, with inflation likely to stay below its target for most of the next two years Photograph: Derek Blair/AFP/Getty Images

BT ramped up its plans to cut costs after reporting a near-halving in profits, raising fears of further job losses Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Centrica, parent company of British Gas, said its residential utility arm was on track to see profits soar by an expected 43% this year – despite a 7% fall in energy consumption Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

Sainsbury's reported a 19% increase in profits for the first six months of the year, but warned a steady economic recovery throughout next year is not guaranteed Photograph: Chris Young/AFP