WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
THIRD INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR TO QUIT ENRC BOARD
A third independent director is set to leave the board of FTSE 100 miner Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, thrusting the London-listed Kazakh company further into turmoil. Two prominent City figures, Sir Richard Sykes and Ken Olisa, were ousted from ENRC on Wednesday. Now, according to two people close to the situation, Mehmet Dalman, the former investment banker, is set to resign, leaving only one other independent director on the board.
ROW ERUPTS OVER ROYAL MAIL WRITE-OFF
A storm has broken over government plans to write-off a large part of Royal Mail’s £1.7bn debt as historic legislation to allow privatisation of the state-owned postal operator passed its final parliamentary stage.
DIAGEO NEARS SEC SETTLEMENT OVER LONG-RUNNING ASIAN BRIBERY PROBE
Diageo, the world’s largest spirits company, is close to a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission under which it would pay more than $10m to end a long-running bribery investigation, people familiar with the matter say. Diageo, the UK-based owner of the Smirnoff vodka brand and Guinness stout, has been under SEC scrutiny for several years as the agency investigated whether Diageo employees or contractors paid bribes to government officials in South Korea, India and Thailand.
02 WARNS OFCOM ON AIRWAVES SELL-OFF REGULATION
Britain could fall further behind with the construction of high-speed mobile broadband networks after O2 claimed that a planned airwaves sell-off would breach state aid rules.
THE TIMES
APPLE BACKS DOWN IN BATTLE OVER RIGHT TO SELL APPS
Apple has caved in to the app makers by relenting over its subscription rules. In a rare victory for suppliers, Apple yesterday scrapped an edict that prevented thousands of companies from selling content designed for iPods, iPhones and iPads independently. Apple will continue to discourage users from buying content without going through its store, but will no longer ban the practice altogether.
L’OREAL PEACE TREATY TORN UP AS DAUGHTER GOES TO COURT
The family feud that racked the L’Oréal empire last year broke out again yesterday when it was revealed that the daughter of heiress Liliane Bettencourt, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers has sought to have her placed under legal protection.
The Daily Telegraph
CHRISTINE LAGARDE’S VICTORY A DONE DEAL SAYS IMF RIVAL
Christine Lagarde’s appointment as IMF Managing Director is a “done deal”, Grigori Marchenko, the IMF candidate backed by the former Soviet block, has said, as he prepares to back out of the race as early as this evening.
Marchenko said that G8 countries may have agreed to back the French finance minister even before the sudden resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
DEFAULT FEARS GRIP GREECE AS DEBT INSURANCE SOARS
The cost of insuring Greek sovereign debt has been pushed to a record high amid fresh fears the indebted country is moving closer to default. There were protests yesterday as Greece’s prime minister George Papandreou sought to get further austerity measures approved.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
SUPREME COURT AFFIRMS JUDGMENT AGAINST MICROSOFT
The US Supreme Court unanimously upheld a $300m patent-infringement verdict against Microsoft, rejecting the software maker’s attempts to lower protections for challenged patents. A federal jury made the award yesterday to i4i Inc. after finding that Microsoft’s Word software programme infringed a patent held by the Toronto technology company.
ANGLO IRISH CLOSE TO SALE OF US PORTFOLIO
Anglo Irish Bank is close to putting its entire $10bn portfolio of US commercial real-estate loans up for sale as soon as this month, according to people familiar with the matter. Such an offering would amount to one of the largest portfolios of commercial-property assets to hit the market since the 2009 sale of Corus Bank assets.