Wednesday newspaper round-up: Greece, energy companies, women on bank boards

22nd Jun 2011 06:03

European leaders have been urged to scrap plans for a second Greek bail-out - as the Athens government wins a critical vote of confidence in parliament. Leading London-based think tank Open Europe has claimed that a fresh bail-out, expected to be around €120bn (£106bn), will almost triple taxpayers' existing exposure to Greek debt, reports the Telegraph.Britain could be hit with losses of up to £366billion from the collapse of the Greek economy, it has emerged. Danny Gabay, of Fathom Financial Consulting, which calculated the figure using data from the Department of Business, said: 'It's not the direct loan that's the problem, it's the derivatives of those loans which can go on to be multiples of the actual original size of the loan," reports the Daily Mail.The Big Six energy companies have escaped a referral to the Competition Commission, Ofgem will confirm today. Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem's chief executive, is expected to tell MPs from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee that the largest energy companies ? Centrica, EDF Energy, Scottish and Southern Energy, ScottishPower, E.ON and RWE npower ? have shown sufficient co-operation on implementing its proposed market reforms, writes the Times.Britain's banks could be radically overhauled under new proposals from Brussels demanding that a third of the directors on the boards of banks should be female. A draft directive circulating in the City shows that Michel Barnier, Europe's internal markets commissioner, wants to impose mandatory quotas to dictate the number of women of sitting on bank boards, reports the Guardian.Britain's economic recovery remains fragile and more quantitative easing could yet be needed if deflation becomes a risk, BoE policymaker Paul Fisher said on Tuesday. Speaking a day ahead of the release of minutes from the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee's June meeting, Mr Fisher said, "If we get stuck in a deflationary rut it's not clear we have sufficient ability to get out of that quickly, the Daily Telegraph reports. JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $153.6m to resolve US US civil fraud chargesthat it misled investors in a mortgage-related security created for Magnetar, an Illinoishedge fundthat was betting against the deal. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that JPMorgan was negligent in failing to tell investors that Magnetar helped select mortgages included in the collateralised debt obligation, known as Squared, and placed a substantial bet to profit from its decline, reports the Financial Times.The veteran investor Anthony Bolton claimed yesterday that the case for investing in China was as strong as ever, despite the fact that the value of the fund he manages has slipped by a fifth since the start of the year, and is languishing below its net asset value. The Fidelity China Special Situations investment trust, which is listed on the FTSE 250, has lost 20.5% of its value in 2011, reports the Independent.Baby goods retailer Mothercare is hoping Iraqi mums and dads will snap up its prams and toys to help offset falling UK sales when it opens its first store in the troubled country later this year. The company, which also has stores in other far-flung parts of the world such as Syria, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, said it had signed a three-year lease with its Middle East franchise partner Alshaya on a store in Kurdish capital Arbil, reports the Daily Express.---RG