Tuesday newspaper round-up: P&O Ferries, National Grid, Heathrow, Mike Lynch

19th Mar 2024 07:23

(Sharecast News) - P&O Ferries, which controversially sacked about 800 workers in 2022, has paid some crew members less than half the UK minimum wage thanks to an ongoing legal loophole the British government promised to close two years ago. Agency workers at the company, which is owned by the Dubai-based DP World, have in some cases been earning about £4.87 an hour - even lower than the £5.15 an hour the company suggested was its lowest pay rate - an analysis of recent payslips conducted by the Guardian and ITV News suggests. - Guardian

A £58bn plan to rewire Great Britain's electricity grid to connect up new windfarms off the coast of Scotland is expected to trigger tensions with communities along the route. National Grid's electricity system operator (ESO) has mapped out power "motorways" across Great Britain to allow for the biggest investment since the 1960s. - Guardian

Heathrow's inability to expand means it has lost its status as a global transport hub, the boss of Dubai Airports has said. Paul Griffiths, formerly managing director of Gatwick Airport before he moved to the Middle East, said Heathrow is suffering from a shortage of capacity amid an ongoing debate over a prospective third runway. - Telegraph

Mike Lynch has been accused of masterminding a "multiyear, multilayered fraud" at Autonomy that tricked HP into massively overpaying for the business. On the first day of Mr Lynch's criminal trial in San Francisco on Monday, the court heard accusations that the tech entrepreneur "spun a fabulous tale" to lure HP into paying $11bn (£8.6bn) for Autonomy. - Telegraph

Britain's car industry has insisted that an unprecedented 2,000% increase in vehicle exports to Azerbaijan has nothing to with Russia and is explained by the fact that the former Soviet state is a "flourishing market in its own right". Sky analysis has found that the British car sector sent another £40m worth of cars to Azerbaijan in the first month of this year, raising fresh questions about whether those cars were being sent there to circumvent sanctions on Russia. - Sky News