Category Archives: Corporate Governance

Thames Water seeks high court approval for £3bn debt lifeline

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Hearing to rule on whether to grant emergency funds to water utility, which says it may run out of cash by March

Thames Water will seek court approval for up to £3bn in emergency funding, which could stave off temporary nationalisation, at a court hearing in London.

A high court judge will hear from Britain’s biggest water supplier and groups of rival creditors on Monday before deciding whether to approve the rescue. Without the debt lifeline, Thames Water has said it could run out of cash by March.

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It’s time to get serious about stamp duty on shares, a terrible advert for London

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The number of listed companies fleeing can’t be ignored – cutting or abolishing the tax could revive the capital market

Last year was another depressing one for departures from the London stock market. Back in January, it was Flutter heading for the exit. The owner of Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Bet got itself a secondary listing in the US and said it would quickly convert it into the primary one, which it did in May.

When December arrived, we were still on the same theme. Ashtead Group, the £27bn construction rental company that has been listed in London since 1986, announced plans to shift its primary listing to New York. Other escapers include Just Eat Takeaway, which is off to Amsterdam.

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Japan’s Nomura bank boss takes 30% voluntary pay cut after worker tries to kill customer

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Wealth management employee charged with robbery, attempted murder and arson after home visit to elderly clients

The boss of the Japanese bank Nomura has apologised and taken a voluntary pay cut after a former employee was charged with robbery and attempted murder of a customer.

Kentaro Okuda, who has led Nomura since 2020, will take a 30% pay cut over the next three months, with several other senior managers at the bank taking similar reductions, the bank said.

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Regulator stops customers from being billed for ‘undeserved’ bonuses

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Ofwat uses new powers to ensure investors pay at Thames, Yorkshire, and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water

Investors at Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water will be forced to pick up the tab for executive bonuses after the regulator determined that the sector had awarded “undeserved” extra payments, worth £6.8m.

Ofwat said on Thursday it had used new powers to ensure that shareholders and bondholders at the three companies paid for bonuses because they had not “adequately reflected overall company performance issues”.

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The great divide: are office workers more productive than those at home?

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Amazon has told staff they must return five days a week – but experts don’t all agree that flexible working cuts output

Four years ago when the world of work was upended by the Covid pandemic, confident predictions were made that a permanent shift in remote working would follow the removal of lockdown restrictions.

Much has clearly changed since. Some of the earliest preachers of the brave new teleworking world – including the US tech companies Google and Microsoft – are among the most vocal to repent.

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Tory donor Lycamobile handed winding-up order from HMRC amid tax dispute

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Pay-as-you-go simcard seller often filed late returns, had accounts queried by auditors and was embroiled in eight-year VAT battle

Lycamobile, a telecoms company that has given more than £2m to the Conservative party, has been issued with a winding-up petition by HM Revenue and Customs, amid a long-running VAT dispute.

The company, founded by businessman Allirajah Subaskaran in 2006, sells pay-as-you-go sim cards that are popular with low-paid workers wanting to make cheap phone calls to family overseas, as well as in the UK.

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Investors push Glencore to scrap spin-off of heavily polluting coal division

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More than 95% of investors urged commodities firm to keep highly profitable fossil fuel arm to help maximise shareholder cash

Glencore has scrapped plans to spin off its coal business after shareholders urged the commodities company to hold on to the highly profitable but heavily polluting division.

The FTSE 100 company said that an overwhelming majority of its shareholders favoured retaining the coal business over its plan to list the division as a separate company on the New York stock exchange.

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Post Office Horizon inquiry told of ‘incomplete curiosity’ and ‘toxic culture’

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Former chair of Whitehall agencies overseeing state-owned businesses gives view on what went wrong

The former chair of a Whitehall agency responsible for taxpayers’ interest in the Post Office has blamed the Horizon IT scandal on a mixture of “incomplete curiosity” and “a toxic culture” at the state-owned company.

Robert Swannell, a veteran City businessman and former Marks & Spencer chair, was speaking on Tuesday before the judge-led public inquiry investigating why post office operators were wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting over financial discrepancies linked to bugs within the Horizon IT system.

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BP staff risk sack if they fail to disclose intimate relationships with colleagues

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New policy follows sacking of ex-CEO Bernard Looney with top managers given three months to report all relationships in past three years

BP employees will have to disclose intimate relationships with colleagues or risk losing their jobs, according to a new policy brought out after the dismissal of former boss Bernard Looney for failing to tell the board.

Employees must disclose “familial and intimate relationships at work” without exception, the FTSE 100 oil company said on Monday. That is a tougher stance than before, when they only had to disclose relationships if they thought there was a a conflict of interest risk.

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Asda-owning Issa brothers go their separate ways amid family rift

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Union warns of risks to shoppers and staff after Zuber Issa sells 22.5% supermarket stake to private equity co-owners TDR Capital

The billionaire brothers who part-own Asda have gone their separate ways, with Zuber Issa selling his shares in the supermarket to the private equity firm TDR Capital amid a rift between the siblings.

Zuber owned 22.5% of the Leeds-based grocery chain after a £6.8bn takeover alongside his older brother Mohsin and TDR three years ago. The sale of his stake had been expected for months, but was thought to have been complicated by lock-in agreements.

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Elon Musk may ‘step back’ if shareholders reject $56bn pay package, Tesla chair warns

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Robyn Denholm says electric carmaker’s CEO could spend his time elsewhere if biggest pay deal in US corporate history isn’t approved

The chair of Tesla has raised the prospect of Elon Musk stepping back from the electric carmaker if shareholders do not back the chief executive’s $56bn (£44bn) pay package, saying there are “other places” the entrepreneur could spend his time.

Robyn Denholm added in a letter to investors that next week’s vote on the biggest remuneration deal in US corporate history was “obviously not about the money” because Musk would remain one of the richest people on the planet regardless of the outcome.

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Owner of UK national lottery operator to sever ties with Gazprom

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Allwyn parent company says deal to buy 3% stake in Czech gas facility will cut final link with Kremlin-controlled energy firm

The billionaire owner of Allwyn, the company that runs the national lottery, will sever his last remaining ties with Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom by the end of June, more than two years after winning the UK’s largest public sector contract.

The Czech tycoon Karel Komárek, who owns Allwyn via his Switzerland-based holding company KKCG, has faced scrutiny over his links to Russia since wresting control of the 10-year licence to operate the lottery from Camelot in 2022.

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NatWest criticised over £1.2m pay for boss with ‘limited experience’

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Governance adviser says Paul Thwaite could have been offered lower starting salary than predecessor Alison Rose

NatWest has been criticised for paying its new boss a salary of £1.2m despite his “limited experience” as a chief executive, amid a wider shareholder backlash in the City of London over bumper corporate pay.

As the government prepares to sell shares in the bank before the general election, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) warned that Paul Thwaite would be paid the same salary as the bank’s former chief executive, Alison Rose, despite lacking her experience as a lead executive.

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British Gas owner doubles boss’s pay to £8m – despite qualms over previous rise

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Details of Chris O’Shea’s ballooning package emerge in Centrica’s annual report after company reports bumper profits

The boss of the British Gas owner, Centrica, has seen his earnings nearly double to £8.2m, despite having admitted that his smaller pay packet the previous year was “impossible to justify”.

Chris O’Shea earned a basic salary of £903,000, which was topped up by cash and share bonuses worth an extra £7.3m.

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EU fines Apple €1.8bn over App Store restrictions on music streaming

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Penalty for breaching competition law is four times higher than forecast as Brussels looks to send message to tech firms

Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU after an investigation found it had limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.

The fine is nearly four times higher than expected as the European Commission attempts to show it will act decisively on tech companies who abuse their dominant position in the market for online services.

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HMRC investigations of wealthy ‘tax dodgers’ halve in five years

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The drop in civil inquiries by fraud unit sparks criticism that the authority’s use of its powers of enforcement are waning

The number of civil investigation cases opened by a HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) fraud unit investigating offshore, corporate and wealthy taxpayers has fallen by more than half in five years, figures reveal.

The Observer reported last month that HMRC has not charged a single company under landmark legislation to crack down on tax evasion. Campaigners warned that HMRC was undermining its own deterrents by failing to use its criminal enforcement powers.

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Lloyds and Santander accused of providing accounts for Iranian front companies

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Both banks deny helping Tehran-controlled oil firm PCC to move money in breach of sanctions

Two of the UK’s largest lenders, Santander UK and Lloyds Banking Group, allegedly held bank accounts for front companies that helped Iranian entities evade US sanctions, according to reports.

The news has rattled investors, who sold off shares in the two banks on Monday morning, amid fears that the lenders could face penalties if they are found to have in any way assisted Iran’s state-controlled Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC).

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HMRC has not charged a single company over tax evasion under landmark legislation

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Powers bestowed by the Criminal Finances Act 2017 are not being used effectively, say critics

HMRC has not charged a single company under landmark legislation passed six years ago to crack down on corporate tax evasion.

Critics say the data, released under freedom of information laws to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and TaxWatch, suggests that HMRC is undermining its own deterrents against corporate tax evasion by failing to use its criminal enforcement powers.

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BT scraps above-inflation price rises for mobile and broadband customers

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UK’s mobile and broadband firms were accused of ‘greedflation’ last year by the Guardian

BT has become the first major telecoms company to scrap controversial above-inflation price rises for mobile and broadband customers – but not before pushing through a final increase this year.

The owner of mobile operator EE has moved to address the pressure on consumers from rising household costs during the cost of living crisis, after telecoms companies were criticised for increasing bills.

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Workers at Tory donor’s JCB factory test positive for drugs after sniffer dogs called in

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Exclusive: ‘Significant’ number of staff sacked from digger firm after drug and alcohol tests

JCB, one of the UK’s biggest manufacturers, is investigating a spate of drug use among workers based at its headquarters and has sacked a “significant” number of staff, the Guardian can reveal.

A message sent to UK employees last week by the digger-maker’s group human resources director, Max Jeffery, seen by the Guardian, said it had been conducting a “series of investigations into substance misuse” over the past two months. This had resulted in a “small but significant number of people leaving JCB”.

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