Customers mis-sold car financing may still be entitled to compensation despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling that sided with lenders. Just days after a "worst-case scenario for the industry" appeared to have been avoided, said The Times, the Financial Conduct Authority announced that it will consult on a payout scheme later this year.

What was the controversy about?
Before 2021, some car finance lenders had a "discretionary commission arrangement" with brokers, under which brokers earned a higher commission if customers were given a higher interest rate. "This incentivised sellers to maximise interest rates, which meant many were unfairly charged too much," said Sky News.

The practice was banned by the FCA in January 2021. Some 80,000 open complaints made to the Financial Ombudsman Service regarding the practice were effectively on hold pending the latest ruling. 

What have courts ruled?
Last October, the Court of Appeal sided with customers, ruling that those affected should be entitled to receive compensation equivalent to the commission. City analysts estimated that car finance providers could have been liable for up to £44 billion in total, which would have been one of the biggest compensation payouts in British history.

But on Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed the two central arguments brought by customers, finding that commercial relationships are based on self-interest, so dealers had no duty to act in customers' interest. However, the court left open the possibility of compensation claims for particularly large commissions.

Will customers get any compensation?
The FCA's consultation on launching a compensation scheme will commence by early October, with the first of any payments expected next year. The regulator said eligible consumers would probably be entitled to payouts of no more than £950, depending on the "degree of harm suffered by the consumer and the need to ensure consumers continue to be able to access affordable loans for motor vehicles".

The industry is "expected to cover the full costs" of the scheme, said the BBC, and the total amount paid out is expected to come to between £9 billion and £18 billion.

Terms and conditions, "once the most boring thing on the internet", are something "we'd better start paying attention to", said Andrew Griffin in The Independent. Artificial intelligence has "radically transformed what we think we are giving up" when we sign to an online site or service.

Feeding the beast
A recent update to WeTransfer's terms of service suggested users' files might be used to "improve performance of machine learning models", City A.M. said. The file-sharing giant's "subtle but potent tweak" sparked an immediate backlash. Artists and writers voiced "concerns" that their intellectual property was "about to become grist for an AI mill" and would be used, "without credit or compensation", to "build systems that might one day compete with them".

WeTransfer quickly revised the contentious clause, removing references to machine learning. But a "broader pattern" is emerging, said the newspaper. Recently Zoom, Adobe, Slack and Dropbox have all been "forced to clarify, retract or explain clauses in their service terms" that appeared to leave the door open for AI to be trained on user data.

"Anything you provide" could be "stored forever", said The Independent's Griffin, and "used to train AI systems that could become a reflection of you without you ever knowing it".

Devil in the details
Most people click "Agree" on things they've only "half-read", never giving them a second thought "or even really a first one", said Griffin. You're confronted with an "unfortunate choice: either read what might amount to hours of terms" before you agree, or "press that button in the hope that it contains nothing too dangerous".

The potential risk in the second option was humorously highlighted in 2014. As part of a social experiment, a security company set up a Wi-Fi hotspot in London's Canary Wharf and several people swiftly signed up – despite a terms-and-conditions clause saying they would "render up their eldest child for the duration of eternity".

People often feel that checking terms and conditions is "wasting time", said the BBC, but then they "don't know what they've agreed to". The rules can be "extremely long and complicated" and written in "technical language", but ensuring that "you understand what you are agreeing to" can avoid a "nasty shock later".

India's cricketers, including Dhruv Jurel (right) and Ravindra Jadeja (centre), celebrate their team's victory in the final Test match against England at The Oval. India secured the win by just six runs, with fast bowler Mohammed Siraj ending the series by bowling England's Gus Atkinson with a perfect yorker.

Henry Nicholls / AFP / Getty Images

"Summer 2025 is all about rosorange," said Ellie Smith in Country & Town House. The "love child" of "ever-trendy" orange wine and rosé, it's a "crisp, quaffable and surprisingly complex" tipple, wine expert Libby Brodie told the magazine.

Rosorange can now be found in a "dreamcoat array" of "sunset hues" spanning from amber to vermilion, said Victoria Moore in The Telegraph. These wines get their Instagram-worthy colours from "skin contact". Fermenting white grapes with their skins on creates an orange-hued wine; limiting the fermentation time of red grape skins achieves the pale pink shades of a rosé; and "combining both approaches gives you rosorange".

It's an "intriguing" proposition, said Hannah Crosbie in The Guardian. The combined "styles" couldn't be further apart: rosé drinkers often seek something "bone-dry" and "classic" with "no alarms and surprises", while those buying orange wines are usually after a "funkier", more experimental bottle.

Aldi's rosorange is a "successful summery fusion", said David Williams in The Observer. Expect "soft cherry tones" that gradually open into a "subtly bitter orange with the merest nip of perfectly brewed tea-type tannin". At £9.99 a bottle, you can't "knock the price", said Hannah Rees in the Liverpool Echo. "Light" and subtle, with a "hint of citrus", it's a "refreshing" wine.

Another excellent option for a tenner is Waitrose's "nifty" Côté Mas Rosorange, said Jane MacQuitty in The Times. Perfect for "adventurous chefs", the notes of candied orange peel and tea leaf fruit work with everything from a "spicy vegetarian dish to a punchy curry".

Boomers don't know how hard the young have it
George Stevens in The Spectator
I often work 70 hours a week, writes London-based professional George Stevens – not "to save for a flat or even a holiday" but to "cover rent and decide which can of soup feels least depressing that evening". Any notion of "getting on the property ladder feels like a mythical quest". We're seeing "the death of the middle class", which is being replaced by "renters and wage slaves who can't escape – no matter how hard they work".

Even Victoria must bow to our sex obsession
Libby Purves in The Times
This "August silly season" has revealed how "unenchantingly dreary" the "modern preoccupation with fornication" is, writes Libby Purves. A "heavily reported" documentary has even sought to "reframe" Queen Victoria as an "erotic hottie, soul-sister to all those mid-life memoirists who bang on" about their sex lives. We've become so "sexually obsessed" that when "a lonely monarch writes that her lips are more eloquent than a letter", our minds leap to "erotic kissing, not spoken words".

Do not bring husband or children: my rules for the best holiday ever
Lucy Mangan in The i Paper
To "maximise" a summer holiday's "restorative powers", writes Lucy Mangan, you need money – "more than you think and certainly more than you have". You also need to "offload" your children: "you may love them" but, "be honest", you "do not like them enough to go on holiday with them". The same goes for husbands. But never cut back on books – "pack clothes around them, not the other way round" – and always stay "somewhere with readily comprehensible shower controls".