Friday newspaper round-up: Vedanta/Cairn, SFO, Paul Fisher, broadband spat

1st Jul 2011 06:04

India's Cabinet has finally given the go-ahead for London-listed mining company Vedanta Resources to take over Cairn Energy's prized India assets, nearly 11 months after the two companies first announced plans for the $9.6bn deal. However, New Delhi will require Cairn India's new owner to take on more of the lucrative oilfields' royalty burden, which until now has been borne by the state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp, reports the Financial Times.The Serious Fraud Office will use the Bribery Act to pursue prosecutions against foreign companies listed in London despite an apparent exemption by the Ministry of Justice. The hard line on foreign companies comes on the day the new Act comes into force (Friday). In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, SFO director Richard Alderman also promised to take a tough line on larger companies, but said he would not pursue small and medium-sized firms suspected of committing bribes.Markets' hunt for higher returns in an environment of low interest rates poses a risk to financial stability, warned Paul Fisher, the Bank of England policymaker. "Investors know - and must remember - that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that additional return involves additional risk," said Mr Fisher, the Bank's executive director of markets and a member of its interim Financial Policy Committee, according to the Daily Telegraph.European investment banks have warned that the blockbuster transatlantic merger between Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext could stifle competition in the sector. "There is a risk that mergers raise the barriers to entry for new players so competition and innovation are stifled," a spokesman for the Association for Financial Markets in Europe said, according to the Times.The Unite union yesterday accused HSBC of trying to bury bad news by announcing 700 job cuts on the same day as Lloyds unveiled its swingeing staff reduction plans. HSBC said it was "reshaping" its UK business for the future by cutting 460 financial advisers no longer needed because of changes to rules on such advice, reports the Independent.The pub chain JD Wetherspoon is creating 650 jobs in a £20m expansion involving 14 new pubs. The additional outlets, which are due to open in the next month, will take the chain to 822 pubs. Wetherspoon's chairman Tim Martin said: "The company continues to go from strength to strength and the opening of 14 new pubs in one month highlights this perfectly," the Independent reports.Chai Patel, former boss of the Priory rehabilitation clinics, has been parachuted in by Southern Cross's biggest landlord, NHP, to advise on a possible shake-up at its 249 care homes. Court Cavendish, Patel's healthcare turnaround firm, is working closely with NHP, prompting speculation he could play a leading management role at a slimmed-down version of Southern Cross, reports the Guardian.A spat between broadband providers had to be settled by advertising watchdogs this week after BT and Sky accused Virgin of misleading customers on connection speeds. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld many of the objections to Virgin's 'Stop the Con Campaign' which had berated rivals over their allegedly deceptive strategy of boasting broadband speeds as being 'up to' the advertised level when users seldom achieved those speeds, reports the Daily Mail.