Business Week in Pictures

Mervyn King has risked reopening the bitter argument over blame for the financial crisis by saying that government spending cuts are the fault of the City and expressing surprise there has not been more public anger. The governor of the Bank of England said that people made unemployed and businesses bankrupted during the crisis had every reason to be resentful and voice their protest Photograph: Carl Court/AFP

Hopes that the economy would spring back strongly after December's snow looked over-optimistic after a survey of the critical services sector revealed only modest growth in February Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Hedge funds have roared back from the financial crisis, delivering profits of $129bn (£79bn) to their clients in just six months. Nine of the top 10 hedge funds were based in the US, and included the George Soros fund Quantum, John Paulson's Paulson & Co and Bridgewater Pure Alpha run by Ray Dalio Photograph: Sean Pavone/Getty

US authorities conducting a widespread insider dealing investigation have charged a former Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble director with illegally tipping off a hedge fund manager about upcoming deals. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges that Rajat Gupta, pictured, provided Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon hedge fund, with inside information about the quarterly earnings at both the investment bank and the consumer goods group Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty

Oil initially rose this week amid more unrest in Libya, but prices then dropped $3 on the back of hopes for a Venezuelan-brokered peace deal in Libya. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, is said to be pushing plans for an international peacekeeping mission to mediate the crisis in the country, which is threatening to descend into civil war Photograph: Bryan Denton/Corbis

From a 112-year old hybrid to a £200,000 Lamborghini, the Geneva motor show kicked off this week with a host of futuristic new models, such as this BMW concept car Photograph: Sebastian Derungs/AFP/Getty Images

ITV is poised to cap a remarkable business turnaround by rejoining the ranks of blue-chip companies in the FTSE 100, after reporting bumper profits in 2010 thanks to a surge in TV advertising revenues, fuelled by hit shows such as The X Factor, pictured, and Downton Abbey Photograph: McPix Ltd/Rex Features

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has approved News Corporation's plan to spin off Sky News, clearing the way for its proposed £8bn purchase of the 61% of BSkyB it does not already own. Under the deal, the loss-making news subsidiary will be spun off into a new publicly listed company called Newco, and will be independently funded for 10 years Photograph: David Moir/Reuters

Tyre-fitting group Kwik-Fit has been sold to Japanese trading company Itochu for £637m. Established in 1971, Kwik-Fit has the largest network of tyre-fitting centres in Europe, with 1,218 outlets across the UK, France and Holland Photograph: Brand X/Getty

'Our barista is in the machine' is the catchy strapline of Coffee Nation, the High Wycombe-based business that was swallowed by Costa Coffee owner Whitbread for £60m. Co-founded by entrepreneurs Scott Martin and Martin Dawes in 1999, it set out to prove that you can get 'real' coffee from a machine Photograph: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News

AstraZeneca has joined a consortium to fight tuberculosis around the world with French rival Sanofi-aventis, the University of Cambridge and other research organisations Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP

McLaren, the Formula One team which is home to drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, pictured, will not be following its British rival Williams to the stock market, according to its chief financial officer, Andy Myers Photograph: Crispin Thruston/Action Images

Financial Times and Penguin owner Pearson reported profit before tax up 28% to £670m. Book publisher Penguin, which published new work from Jamie Oliver, Barbra Streisand, Tom Clancy and comedian Michael McIntyre in the run up to Christmas, reported revenue up 2% to just over £1bn and operating profit up 10% on a constant currency basis to £106m. Ebook revenues rose 182% to account for 6% of worldwide revenues Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty

Bernard Madoff, the disgraced financier, has denied being a sociopath and claimed that his victims should carry much of the blame for his $65bn (£40bn) fraud. In an interview with New York magazine, Madoff argued he has been unfairly portrayed as a monster since his Ponzi scheme collapsed in the autumn of 2008 Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP