Wednesday newspaper round-up: FSA, Budget, BG

24th Mar 2010 06:38

Staff at some of the City's biggest names, including an executive at Deutsche Bank and a trader at Moore Capital, one of the world's biggest hedge funds, were questioned yesterday in the biggest operation against insider dealing launched in Britain. Six men were questioned after dawn raids on 16 homes and businesses across London, Oxfordshire and Kent, carried out by 143 staff from the Financial Services Authority and officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), the Times reports.Millions of middle-class Britons face higher income tax bills to fund another increase in public spending to be unveiled by Alistair Darling in the Budget. The Chancellor has decided to freeze all income tax bands, which will lead people to pay more tax on their earnings. The tactic is a classic "stealth tax" and will be far larger than previously attempted. Personal allowances were last frozen almost a decade ago, the Telegraph reports.Alistair Darling will place nuclear and wind power today at the heart of efforts to lead Britain into sustained growth as he sets out the choices voters face in the coming election. The Chancellor will use the Budget to try to "unlock private sector investment" to boost jobs and help to harness the energy sources of the future, the Times reports.Banks were told to brace themselves for "payback time", as Alistair Darling put the finishing touches to a Budget that will propose new bank taxes and force them to improve the way they deal with customers and small businesses, adds the FT.BG Group, the oil and gas producer, is poised to sign a contract worth an estimated $40bn ? a record for the company ? to supply natural gas to China. The 20-year deal to supply liquefied natural gas from coal-seam gas deposits in eastern Australia is being finalised today in Beijing with CNOOC, the Chinese state-controlled oil producer, the Times reports.Major high street banks are fighting the regulator's plans to ban "liars' loans", better known as self-certified mortgages, on the grounds that it would hurt the self employed. The Financial Services Authority revealed plans to ban the practice last year as part of an effort to tighten up lending standards and "help protect consumers from themselves", the Telegraph reports.Michael O'Leary, the Ryanair chief executive who once ran an advert branding British Airways "Expensive BAstards", has leapt to the defence of the UK flag-carrier in its battle with union Unite. Burying past differences, Mr O'Leary backed the way his counterpart at BA, Willie Walsh, was handling the strike and rounded on Unite, which claims to represent 12,000 BA cabin crew, the Telegraph reports.France is facing its own 'spring of discontent' as strikes shut schools, courts, railways and metro services, and trade unions vowed mass protests across the country. President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday scrapped the country's proposed carbon tax and reshuffled his cabinet in populist tilt after suffering a crushing electoral defeat over the weekend, the Telegraph reports.Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz, agreed yesterday to pay $185m (£123m) to settle allegations in America that the company paid bribes in 22 countries to win government business. Among other charges, the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the German carmaker and three subsidiaries of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans improper payments to officials of other countries, the Times reports.Staff at Guardian Media Group (GMG), the publishers of The Guardian and The Observer, were this morning waking up to the shock news that their chief executive, Carolyn McCall, is set to quit the company in favour of running the budget airline easyJet. McCall is in advanced talks to leave GMG and join the airline founded by Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who is believed to have approved the appointment, the Independent reports.A transatlantic row that flared up in the wake of the Greek debt crisis over the lack of disclosure to regulators of credit market activity has pushed the new body in charge of collecting global trading data to provide more information to financial watchdogs. Regulators from around the globe including the Securities and Exchange Commission will now be able to obtain breakdowns of trading activity in credit default swaps, including the identity of the investors, the FT reports.