Business
Sweaty Betty offered Middlesbrough trainer £4k for slogan use and silence
Stuart Whincup and
Tom Burgess,North East and Cumbria
BBCA personal trainer has revealed women’s activewear brand Sweaty Betty offered her a settlement of £4,000 over a disputed slogan if she agreed not to further challenge the firm’s use of it, and agreed to keep the deal confidential.
Georgina Cox, from Middlesbrough, said the company used the “Wear The Damn Shorts” phrase from her Instagram posts without crediting her in its latest campaign.
She had used the slogan, and others like it, in a number of posts encouraging women to wear what they wanted, regardless of body shape, before being contacted by the firm, she said.
Sweaty Betty said it “respectfully disagreed” with her claims and said the slogan had been part of its campaign for three years.
A company spokesperson said: “We have offered and continue to offer to meet with Ms Cox as we remain committed to resolving this matter constructively and reaching a fair and amicable resolution.”
The fitness trainer said she came up with the slogan for her younger sister in 2020 and the words quickly went viral.
In 2023, she was approached by a Sweaty Betty marketing executive, who said the firm was planning a campaign “with similar messaging as your Wear the Damn Shorts post a few years ago” and asking if she was happy for it to do so.
Georgina CoxMs Cox was subsequently paid £3,500 to promote the campaign in social media posts.
The company contacted her again the following year before its new campaign, but did not do so before the third year, she said.
“The third year they just omitted me completely, I didn’t know it was happening,” she said.
“I was so hurt in that moment because nobody had reached out to me.
“They’re meant to care about women, they’re meant to support them and empower them, and I’ve never felt less empowered than I have this year.”
Ms Cox’s lawyer sent the company a legal “cease and desist” letter, asking that it stop using the phrase, but she said the response described her as “bitter”.
She had also been threatened with legal action for defamation after posting about the situation online, she said.
Georgina CoxMs Cox said she had been “terrified” and the stress had affected her physically and mentally.
“They are such a big company and I am just one woman and to be threatened by them is incredibly scary,” she said.
The fitness influencer said she had not been sleeping, her hair was falling out and she was having panic attacks.
She wanted an apology from the company and a pledge from them to pay the influencers they work with, such as her, fairly, she said.
In correspondence with Ms Cox, Sweaty Betty said it was willing to offer £4,000 as a final settlement, provided she agreed the firm would continue to use the slogan, she would not challenge this use, she would not make any public statements about the firm, and the terms of this settlement would be confidential.
The company said: “We have great respect for the community Ms Cox has built around body confidence and empowerment, and were surprised and saddened to find ourselves in this situation.
“‘Wear the Damn Shorts’ has been part of our campaign for three years, and we chose it because it perfectly captures what Sweaty Betty stands for.
“While none of us has exclusive legal rights to this phrase, we have always aimed to respect Ms Cox’s association with it.
“Since she first raised her concerns earlier this year, we’ve been in regular contact.”
Business
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
Stock Market News Live Updates: Indian equity benchmarks opened with a strong gap-up on Monday, December 1, touching fresh record highs, buoyed by a sharp acceleration in Q2FY26 GDP growth to a six-quarter peak of 8.2%. Positive cues from Asian markets further lifted investor sentiment.
The BSE Sensex was trading at 85,994, up 288 points or 0.34%, after touching an all-time high of 86,159 in early deals. The Nifty 50 stood at 26,290, higher by 87 points or 0.33%, after scaling a record intraday high of 26,325.8.
Broader markets also saw gains, with the Midcap index rising 0.27% and the Smallcap index advancing 0.52%.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty Bank hit a historic milestone by crossing the 60,000 mark for the first time, gaining 0.4% to touch a fresh peak of 60,114.05.
Meanwhile, the Metal and PSU Bank indices climbed 0.8% each in early trade.
Global cues
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Monday as traders assessed fresh Chinese manufacturing data and increasingly priced in the likelihood of a US Federal Reserve rate cut later this month.
According to the CME FedWatch Tool, markets are now assigning an 87.4 per cent probability to a rate cut at the Fed’s December 10 meeting.
China’s factory activity unexpectedly slipped back into contraction in November, with the RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI by S&P Global easing to 49.9, below expectations of 50.5, as weak domestic demand persisted.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 1.6 per cent, while the broader Topix declined 0.86 per cent. In South Korea, the Kospi dropped 0.30 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.31 per cent.
US stock futures were steady in early Asian trade after a positive week on Wall Street. On Friday, in a shortened post-Thanksgiving session, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.65 per cent to 23,365.69, its fifth consecutive day of gains.
The S&P 500 rose 0.54 per cent to 6,849.09, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 289.30 points, or 0.61 per cent, to close at 47,716.42.
Osmond ChiaBusiness reporter
Getty ImagesSouth Korea’s largest online retailer, Coupang, has apologised for a massive data breach potentially involving nearly 34 million local customer accounts.
The country’s internet authority said that it is investigating the breach and that details from the millions of accounts have likely been exposed.
Coupang is often described as South Korea’s equivalent of Amazon.com. The breach marks the latest in a series of data leaks at major firms in the country, including its telecommunications giant, SK Telecom.
Coupang told the BBC it became aware of the unauthorised access of personal data of about 4,500 customer accounts on 18 November and immediately reported it to the authorities.
But later checks found that some 33.7 million customer accounts – all in South Korea – were likely exposed, said Coupang, adding that the breach is believed to have begun as early as June through a server based overseas.
The exposed data is limited to name, email address, phone number, shipping address and some order histories, Coupang said.
No credit card information or login credentials were leaked. Those details remain securely protected and no action is required from Coupang users at this point, the firm added.
The number of accounts affected by the incident represents more than half of South Korea’s roughly-52 million population.
Coupang, which is founded in South Korea and headquartered in the US, said recently that it had nearly 25 million active users.
Coupang apologised to its customers and warned them to stay alert to scams impersonating the company.
The firm did not give details on who is behind the breach.
South Korean media outlets reported on Sunday that a former Coupang employee from China was suspected of being behind the breach.
The authorities are assessing the scale of the breach as well as whether Coupang had broken any data protection safety rules, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said in a statement.
“As the breach involves the contact details and addresses of a large number of citizens, the Commission plans to conduct a swift investigation and impose strict sanctions if it finds a violation of the duty to implement safety measures under the Protection Act.”
The incident marks the latest in a series of breaches affecting major South Korean companies this year, despite the country’s reputation for stringent data privacy rules.
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, was fined nearly $100m (£76m) over a data breach involving more than 20 million subscribers.
In September, Lotte Cards also said the data of nearly three million customers was leaked after a cyber-attack on the credit card firm.
Agency workers hired to cover Birmingham bin strikers will join them on picket lines on Monday, a union has said.
A rally will be held by Unite The Union at Smithfield Depot on Pershore Street, Birmingham, on Monday morning to mark the first day of strike action by agency refuse workers.
Unite said the Job & Talent agency workers had voted in favour of strike action “over bullying, harassment and the threat of blacklisting at the council’s refuse department two weeks ago”.
The union said the number of agency workers who will join the strike action is “growing daily”.
Strikes by directly-employed bin workers, which have been running since January, could continue beyond May’s local elections.
The directly-employed bin workers voted in favour of extending their industrial action mandate earlier this month.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Birmingham council will only resolve this dispute when it stops the appalling treatment of its workforce.
“Agency workers have now joined with directly-employed staff to stand up against the massive injustices done to them.
“Instead of wasting millions more of council taxpayers’ money fighting a dispute it could settle justly for a fraction of the cost, the council needs to return to talks with Unite and put forward a fair deal for all bin workers.
“Strikes will not end until it does.”
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
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