Thursday newspaper round-up:RBS, Barclays, BofA

3rd Dec 2009 06:21

Alistair Darling is heading for a potentially disastrous showdown with Royal Bank of Scotland over plans to pay £1.5bn in bonuses to its staff. Darling is to be granted the right to veto bonus payments at the bank, which will soon be 84% owned by the taxpayer, but has been warned that doing so could leave RBS's board with no choice but to resign en masse, according to the Independent.The Telegraph adds that Barclays is set to award its 22,000 investment bankers pay rises of up to 150pc in an effort to beat Government moves to clamp down on multi-million-pound bonuses. The pay rises at Barclays Capital (BarCap) are expected to be backdated to June this year as the bank looks to compensate staff following the bonus crackdown. An announcement is expected within days.Bank of America is to pay back $45bn in US bail-out funds in a dramatic step by the nation's largest lender to escape the heightened supervision that accompanied government rescue from the financial crisis. BofA will use $26.2bn of its own cash and raise an additional $18.8bn in the markets beginning on Thursday through the sale of stock in the largest ever capital raising by a US bank, says the FT.UK banks have an aggregate exposure to Dubai World of about $5bn, the Financial Times has learned, confirming them as the biggest creditor group at the crisis-hit emirate holding company.The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is facing another costly legal battle after 25 construction companies contested penalties imposed by the competition regulator for illegally inflating bids for building tenders. Several of Britain's biggest construction companies are among those challenging the fines, including Bowmer & Kirkland, Galliford Try and Kier, reports the Times.The chief executive of Aer Lingus has launched a scathing attack on his pilots after talks to agree an "urgent" turnaround of the airline broke down, threatening its future. Christoph Müller was left seething after he failed to secure agreement with the Irish pilots' union for the group's transformation plan, saying the union's stance would see hundreds more jobs lost, writes the Independent.Habitat, the home furnishing chain founded by Sir Terence Conran in 1964, is set to have a new owner as soon as next week, with its management team and Hilco, the restructuring specialist, front-runners to buy it, according to the Times.Four Nigerian farmers will launch a ground-breaking pollution claim against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell in a court in The Hague today, says the Independent.Companies in Western Europe face a likely funding shortfall of $1.5 trillion (£900bn) next year as central banks withdraw emergency stimulus, and spendthrift governments across the world soak up much of the available capital, according to calculations by Standard & Poor's, reports the Telegraph.Another 5,000 lawyers could find themselves out of work next year as City law firms undergo a new round of swingeing job cuts, bankers close to the profession have forecast, writes the Times.Professor Blanchflower, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) until May this year, said he did not know about the £61.6bn in emergency loans granted to Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS last autumn until the Bank's Governor revealed them last week, according to the Telegraph.