Thursday newspaper round-up: National Express, StanChart, Vodafone

2nd Jul 2009 06:17

National Express is heading for a major legal battle with the Government over the future of its two remaining rail franchises after ministers said they were taking control of the East Coast main line.Lord Adonis, the Transport Minister, triggered a furious row with the company by warning that the Government could have legal grounds to strip the group of its c2c and East Anglia rail franchises, says the Telegraph.John Peace has been confirmed as permanent chairman of Standard Chartered. Mr Peace, one of the contenders for the job at the bank alongside Sir Win Bischoff? who is being lined up for the chairmanship at Lloyds Banking Group ? has been acting chairman since Mervyn Davies left to become UK trade minister in January, writes the FT.The prospect of a bidding war for T-Mobile UK was looming on Wednesday night after it emerged that Telefonica is looking at the case for buying Britain's fourth largest mobile phone operator. Spain's leading telecoms company has been spurred into action partly by the possibility that O2, its UK mobile business, could lose its top position in the British market if Vodafone purchases T-Mobile UK, says the FT.The Independent writes that Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company, has intensified its efforts to take back its home UK market after ending a three-year exile from Carphone Warehouse stores. Carphone is set to offer Vodafone's contracts throughout its network of 820 shops from next week, the first time since the operator signed an exclusive deal with Carphone rival Phones4U in October 2006.Northern Rock is expected to heap further embarrassment on the Government next month when it reports losses for the half in excess of £500m, putting it in breach of even specially relaxed regulatory rules, reports the Telegraph.Virgin Atlantic, the UK long-haul airline controlled by Sir Richard Branson, is cutting capacity by 7 per cent in the coming winter season and is planning to axe about 600 jobs, or close to 8 per cent of the workforce, according to the FT.Credit card firms will be told today to stop luring customers into higher borrowing as part of an overhaul of consumer rights. Lenders will be banned from raising credit limits without asking the customer first and ordered to stop sending unsolicited credit card cheques through the post, says the TImes.Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent owned by the taxpayer, has moved closer to selling its Asian businesses after two suitors emerged as front-runners to secure a deal. Standard Chartered and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) are closing in on a deal to split RBS's retail and commercial banking divisions in Asia. HSBC is also understood to be still in involved in the process, reports the Independent.American prosecutors are investigating as many as 10 individuals with links to $65bn (£40bn) fraudster Bernard Madoff to ascertain whether they played any part in his decades-long fraud, according to the Telegraph.Workers at Vauxhall's Luton van plant are today trying to persuade the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, to fight for the factory's future in his negotiations with potential buyers of its parent company. GM Europe (GME), which includes Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Germany, was spun out of the failing US giant days before it collapsed into bankruptcy. The division is currently surviving on a €1.5bn (£1.3bn) bridging loan from the German government and is in the process of being sold, says the Independent.