Friday newspaper round-up: Philip Green, BHP, pensions
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Friday 21 Oct 2016
(ShareCast News) - Theresa May received a polite but cool welcome on her European summit debut on Thursday, with France and Germany warning of a rough ride for Britain as it makes its break from the EU. At her first Brussels gathering of EU leaders, the British prime minister made a confident first intervention on migration, exchanged some sharp words with the chair and turned her hand at drafting a compromise text on Russia policy. Finally, well after midnight, she made a short presentation on Brexit that ran for little more than five minutes and elicited no response. - Financial Times
MPs have voted to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood in a symbolic move that adds to the pressure on the retail tycoon over the BHS scandal. The businessman's reputation was dealt a further blow following a debate in which he was labelled a "billionaire spiv" who should never have received his honour in the first place. - Guardian
Tax experts warned that HM Revenue & Customs was underestimating the size of Britain's tax avoidance problem after the agency claimed that Britain's annual tax shortfall was only £36bn - a figure that ignored controversial structures used by multinationals such as Google, Apple and Starbucks. Top HMRC officials will face questions from MPs next week over their refusal to challenge tax avoidance by multinational corporations. Members of the public accounts committee are also expected to further investigate HMRC's claims that its compliance team generated record revenues of £26.6bn by chasing down tax dodgers. - Guardian
Brazilian prosecutors have charged 26 people in connection with the Samarco mine disaster last year which killed 19 people. Of those charged, 21 have been accused of qualified homicide. BHP Billiton, which part-owns the iron ore site where the tailings dam collapsed, has rejected the charges and said it would defend the individuals in question. - Telegraph
Two former traders at Investec in London have lost an appeal in a long-running, £6m legal battle with the Anglo-South African bank over bonuses. Andrew Brogden, who had led the structured equity desk at Investec, and his deputy Robert Reid had claimed that the bank had failed to keep to a verbal agreement regarding bonuses for 2010-11, which they had said was made when they joined the firm in 2007. - Telegraph
Fears that workers' savings have been put at risk in unsustainable and potentially fraudulent pension schemes have prompted the government to rush through tougher rules designed to tackle rogue operators. After revelations by The Times, the Pensions Schemes Bill has been introduced to address concerns that the biggest change to workplace pensions in generations could be undermined by a mis-selling scandal. - The Times
Morgan Stanley is to collect $120 million in fees from Monsanto for advising on its takeover by Bayer, in one of the largest known payments of its kind. Monsanto will also pay up to $45 million to Ducera Partners, another of its financial advisers, if the deal goes through. - The Times
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