Wednesday newspaper round-up: BoE, Vodafone, EU referendum

28th Oct 2014 21:28

The Bank of England deputy governor Jon Cunliffe has said the BoE can afford to keep interest rates low for longer than previously thought, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.Speaking at an event marking his first year on the monetary policy committee on Tuesday, Cunliffe said factors such as weaker growth mean the current level [of Bank Rate] can be maintained for a longer period than previously thought."The softening in the pay and inflation data, together with the weaker external environment, for me implies that we can afford to maintain the current degree of monetary stimulus for a longer period than previously thought," Cunliffe said in a speech to the Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism.Vodafone has been accused of illegally withholding a report on its £6bn takeover of Kabel Deutschland, the Daily Telegraph reported.US hedge fund Elliot said the firm's actions were part of a "pattern of obstructing" efforts by shareholders to uncover the details of the deal and it has now decided to try to extract a premium for the shares compared with what Vodafone paid for the rest of the German cable operator.On Tuesday, Eliot said Kabel Deutschland had repeatedly refused to hand over a special auditor's report since it was delivered to management at the end of September, adding that it had applied to a court in Munich for the document to be released immediately.The Conservative party's plans to enshrine a European Union (EU) referendum in law have fallen apart, amid a Coalition row, the Independent reported.The European Union (Referendum) Bill, which aimed at creating an obligation for the next government to hold a vote on Britain's EU membership by 2017, cleared its first hurdle in Parliament earlier this month and was due to return to the Commons later in the current Parliamentary session.The Bill, however, has now collapsed, as Tory MPs have accused the Lib Dems of deliberately stopping the legislation in its tracks by demanding backing for reform of the so-called bedroom tax as the price to pay for their for support.Balfour Beatty's annual company meeting was unusually colurful this year, after one attendee called the chairman a "corporate psychopath". He was protesting against the firm's decision to sell Parsons Brinckerhoff, Balfour's American project management division, to WSP Global, for £820m. He also accused Marshall of an "appalling track record".The shareholder was duly escorted to the lifts at the London offices of Goldman Sachs. Nevertheless, nearly the entire group of investors present voted for the sale, The Times reports.The recent accounting scandal at Tesco has set off alarm bells ringing at the multiple multinational food and drink manufacturers which supply the grocer, to such an extent that some have flown in audit teams to run the rule over their UK operations.There is no suggestion of wrongdoing among the suppliers. However, there are questions in the industry about how a black hole of that scale might have emerged at Britain's biggest retailer, and whether there are financial repercussions for its suppliers, according to The Daily Telegraph.