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Friday newspaper round-up: Post Office, British Airways, Northern Rock
The national postal strike has been put on hold after both sides in the dispute agreed to a "period of calm" before Christmas. The Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union said that they would continue talks on the company's modernisation plans without the spectre of industrial action. Two planned 24-hour walkouts for today and Monday, each involving up to 121,000 workers, have been called off, the Times reports.
British Airways cabin crew won the argument but lost the battle on Thursday as they sought to prevent the airline imposing changes to working practices. Unite, the union that represents 14,000 BA crew, was seeking an injunction to stop the airline reducing staff numbers on long-haul flights but the application was denied. However, BA's crew won the broader argument about whether BA may have breached crew contracts and the airline will now face trial in the High Court on February 1, the Times writes.
Barack Obama has stepped into the row about the future of Vauxhall and Opel as anger about General Motors' decision to keep its European operations threatens to harm transatlantic relationships. President Obama is believed to have secured an agreement with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, that she would "co-ordinate" with the US leader on the future of GM Europe during a phone call, the Telegraph reports.
The Treasury expects Northern Rock to lose retail deposits worth billions of pounds once the Government removes financial guarantees from the state-owned lender in the spring. The Times has learnt that the Treasury is assuming that a significant number of savers will rush to flee the bailed-out bank once the Government withdraws guarantees that protected 100% of deposits.
United States prosecutors charged a further 14 people on Thursday over an alleged $53m (£32m) web of insider trading surrounding Galleon, the New York hedge fund group, in a case that could come straight from the pages of a crime thriller, the Times writes.
Carbon traders have refuted claims that the European emissions trading market is "the next sub-prime crisis", after a report by Friends of the Earth called for the system to be abolished. The environmental charity said not only does the current system of trading permits fail to tackle climate change, it is also financially dangerous, the Telegraph reports.
The European Commission is pressing for a "root-and-branch reform" of the European Union's ?140bn-a-year budget in a proposal that is stirring outrage among Europe's regions, which risk losing their grip on vast sums of financial aid. A Commission document obtained by the Financial Times says the EU should impose tighter national controls on funds that at present are passed directly to Europe's regions and extend recent cuts in agricultural subsidies, the FT reports.
Julian Roberts, chief executive of Old Mutual, hopes to reveal the future structure of the life assurance and banking group around the time of its 2009 results in March next year. Analysts and investors have long expected a break-up of the group's diverse businesses and there has been renewed speculation that Nedbank, the South African bank, is likely to be sold, the FT says.
Dubai Investment Capital (DIC) has been forced to put £53m of extra cash into Doncasters, its £700 million engineering business, to prevent a breach of banking covenants. The Gulf sovereign-wealth fund has come to an agreement with its banks to put the cash into Sheffield-based Doncasters, which employs nearly 5,000, in return for an agreement with lenders to relax its covenants, The Times has learnt.
The funding deficit faced by Britain's pension bailout fund more than doubled in the last year to £1.23bn. The shortfall stood at just £517m last year and the Pension Protection Fund is now paying compensation to 12,723 people whose workplace pension was affected by their employer going bust, the Independent reports.
Gold Oil, an exploration group focused on Latin America, is seeking partners to help fund the development of what could be a large oil discovery off the coast of Peru. The Aim-listed company has started discussions with sovereign wealth funds based in the Middle East about taking an interest in Block Z34, which lies west of four of the largest developed oil fields in northern Peru. These fields have already produced a total of 1.6bn barrels of oil. Gold Oil has analysed seismic data and identified six drilling leads it believes could have significant commercial potential, the FT reports. |
