LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Sajid Javid is to push for lockdown to end "as soon as possible" over fears of the "cost" of shutting down the economy. The newly appointed Health Secretary, who replaced Matt Hancock after he was forced to resign for breaking lockdown rules to conduct an affair with an aide, said on Sunday it was his "most immediate priority to see to see that we can return to normal as soon and as quickly as possible". - Sunday Telegraph
A takeover of Morrisons could see the supermarket giant shift offshore for tax reasons, experts fear. The grocer is bracing itself for a fresh offer from US group Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) after an initial £5.5billion bid was rejected last week. But it is feared that a private equity buyout could see Morrisons' tax base shifted out of the UK. - Financial Mail on Sunday

The City watchdog has banned one of the world's largest Bitcoin exchanges from operating in Britain amid mounting fears over the rise of cryptocurrency crime. The Financial Conduct Authority ordered Binance Markets Limited to remove all advertising and financial promotions by Wednesday and told the firm it must not carry out any regulated activities in Britain without prior consent. - Sunday Telegraph

Fewer than one in a thousand Covid-19 infections are now resulting in death, according to calculations by statisticians in Cambridge. Thanks to vaccinations the infection fatality rate of the disease, a measure of the ratio of infections to deaths, is about 0.085 per cent, the Medical Research Council (MRC) biostatistics unit at Cambridge has estimated. Among those aged 75 and over, it has plummeted from more than 15 per cent of those catching coronavirus dying at the height of the winter wave, to under 2 per cent now. - Sunday Times

Wood Group will this week seek judicial approval for a deferred prosecution agreement with the Serious Fraud Office to resolve a bribery and corruption investigation. The engineering company announced on Friday night that it had reached agreements with the fraud office, America's Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as authorities in Brazil, after investigations into the use of third parties at Amec Foster Wheeler, before Wood acquired the business in 2017. - Sunday Times

Royal Mail has blocked planned bonuses and share awards to senior executives worth £1.4m, as a result of its December service meltdown that resulted in thousands of undelivered Christmas presents. The postal firm said it had taken the decision after considering the impact of service failures and its "slower than planned" modernisation. In December, Royal Mail's service - described at the time as a "strategic nightmare" - went into meltdown in many areas and led to parcels piling up in depots and weeks of delays. - Guardian

Businesses have amassed almost £130 billion of extra firepower that can be used for investments in a sign that the economy is rebounding from the pandemic, the EY Item Club has said. Fading worries about the impact of Brexit, a surge in cash holdings at companies, interest rates at rock-bottom levels and the likelihood of a boom in consumer spending after the Covid-19 crisis mean that the outlook for UK business investment is the brightest in more than a decade. - Sunday Times

Two-thirds of countries classified as "not free" because of their dire record on human rights and civil liberties have received weapons licensed by the UK government over the past decade, new analysis reveals. Between 2011-2020, the UK licensed £16.8bn of arms to countries criticised by Freedom House, a US government-funded human rights group. - Guardian

The Government has held private talks over plans to channel tens of billions of pounds of pension money into infrastructure and start-up companies to boost the economic bounceback. The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Treasury officials have met with senior figures in the pensions industry over the controversial scheme that would unlock some of the UK's £2.2trillion retirement pots and parcel it out to fast-growing businesses, transport projects, real estate and carbon-friendly investments. - Financial Mail on Sunday

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