Business week in review

Sir Richard Branson, along with Mo Farah – the Virgin "brand ambassador" once better known as a double gold medal-winning Olympic athlete – has only gone and done it. Sir Richard has launched a High Court challenge to the decision to hand the West Coast Mainline franchise to First Group. On Monday, ministers confirmed they have delayed signing the contract while the legal fight plays out.

More than 165,000 signatories, including Farah, of an online petition backing Virgin are said to have all done the "Mobot".

On Tuesday, it emerged that Alisher Usmanov, the richest man in Russia, is moving ahead with a £12.5bn flotation of his mobile phone empire. Usmanov, best known here as the second biggest shareholder in Arsenal FC, has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to list MegaFon in London.

Martin Wheatley, the chief executive designate of incoming watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority, said on Wednesday that he would outlaw bank fee commissions that encourage mis-selling of financial products.

...at a loss

Don't take this as a sign of envy, but isn't it lovely to see Mark Zuckerberg – who has amassed billions of dollars, is one of the world's most famous names and the subject of one of the best films of the past 10 years – in a spot of bother?

Facebook's share performance since its New York flotation in May has been so dire that Zuckerberg, 28, felt forced to declare he would not sell any of his own stock for at least 12 months. This, apparently, shows that he has confidence in the social network he founded from his Harvard dorm room.

Staying on that side of the pond, Tuesday saw the US Department of Justice give its strongest indication yet that it will seek the maximum punishment for BP over 2010's Deepwater Horizon explosion. In glum news for boss Bob Dudley, court documents accuse BP of "gross negligence".

On Thursday, Philip Fellowes-Prynne resigned as boss of infrastructure services group May Gurney after a profit warning.