Energy groups warned over US accidents
US safety regulators have issued a stark warning to the petrochemical and energy industries, saying: "Your workers are dying on the job, and it has to stop.'' After a series of industrial accidents, Jordan Barab, of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said: "Something is desperately wrong. The status quo isn't working.'' In the past three months alone, 58 workers have died in explosions, fires and collapses at refineries, coal mines, an oil drilling rig and the construction site of a gas-fired power station. Click here for the full story >>

Transport for London under fire over £6m redundancy pay-offs
Transport for London (TfL) shelled out nearly £6m in redundancy pay-offs during the last financial year, it emerged today. Figures from the Greater London Authority show that 10 senior managers got more than £100,000, with a further 18 receiving between £70,000 and £100,000 in 2009-10. In total, 178 staff received £5,973,373 – compared with £3,385,042 given to 140 workers in 2008-09. Click here for the full story >>

Flexible working is most valued benefit for UK workers
Flexible working is the most valued benefit for UK employees, ahead of material perks such as bonuses, research revealed today. In a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey of 1,167 workers, 47% rated flexible working arrangements as the most important benefit above performance-related bonuses, which came second (19%). Flexible working was given fairly equal priority by men and women, with 41% and 54% respectively ranking this benefit the most valuable. Moreover, a better work-life balance was seen as more achievable in the long term by 42% respondents than vastly increased responsibility and salary (39%). Click here for the full story >>

'More can be done' over targeted ads, says OFT
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has called on companies that use behaviour and targeted advertising to be more transparent, or face further action. The regulator has been scrutinising the behavioural and targeted advertising market since October. It reported yesterday that "more could be done to provide consumers with better information about how personal information is collected and used". The OFT called on the online advertising trade body, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), to tighten up its voluntary code, saying objections "centre around privacy issues and the misuse of personal data". Click here for the full story >>

Facebook acts to appease critics on privacy
Facebook on Wednesday reversed some of the recent controversial changes that have led to more personal data about its 500m users being made public, as it sought to quell a transatlantic backlash over online privacy. The concessions from the web’s biggest social networking site were enough to win grudging support from privacy advocates in the US. However, early reaction in Europe, where regulators generally take a stricter line, suggested it could face pressure to backtrack further. Click here for the full story >>

Kraft criticised over Cadbury factory pledge
US food giant Kraft has come under fresh criticism for pledges it made during its takeover of Cadbury. The Takeover Panel, which polices bids in the UK, has censured Kraft over its statement during the bid that it would keep open Cadbury's Somerdale factory at Keynsham. The Takeover Panel said Kraft and its adviser failed in their duties. These include the provision of robust, accurate information to investors during the bid. When it announced it was considering a bid for Cadbury in September last year, Kraft said the UK would be "a net beneficiary" of jobs as a result of any takeover and made specific assurances about the Somerset plant. Click here for the full story >>

BT unions condemn chief's £1.2m award
BT is bracing itself for its first strike in nearly a quarter of a century after the Communication Workers Union denounced the company for awarding a £1.2 million bonus to its chief executive while refusing to raise its pay offer for almost 60,000 workers. Ian Livingston, the BT chief, received a 6 per cent pay rise and had his bonus trebled to more than £1 million, boosting total payment for the year to £2.1 million. Other BT executives, including Gavin Patterson, who runs BT’s retail division, and Tony Chanmugam, the finance director, received bonuses of almost £500,000. Click here for the full story >>

Savers stage revolt against banks
Millions of savers are staging a revolt again banks which are offering the worst rates in history, it was disclosed yesterday. They are abandoning their monthly savings after being told they will get no real return on their money once inflation and tax is taken into account. The latest figures published by the British Bankers Association suggested home owners are using the money they would have put into their savings accounts and paying off more on their mortgage instead. Click here for the full story >>

Furious investors revolt over 200% bonus limit for Rio Tinto chiefs
Rio Tinto suffered one of the biggest rebellions over investor pay this year, sparked by potential bonus payments for executives. Nearly 40 per cent of votes at the mining company’s annual meeting went against the remuneration report, which raised bonus limits for this year from 120 per cent to 200 per cent of basic salary. Rio Tinto has already experienced a turbulent year. It launched an £8.8 billion rights issue after its deal with Chinalco was aborted in response to objections from the Australian Government and threats of a shareholder revolt. Click here for the full story >>

Rail firms criticised over first class fares
Rail firms must "stop taking passengers for a ride" by charging first class fares on trains without first class carriages, Which? magazine has said. Rail firms Southeastern and First Capital Connect (FCC) charge up to 63% extra for single first class tickets. But Southeastern's high-speed London to Dover Priory route and FCC's Luton Airport Parkway to Wimbledon service do not have first class, Which? said. Both the train companies have defended their first class ticket charges. Click here for the full story >>

Factory suicides tarnish sheen of iPods and laptops
A Chinese electronics assembly worker threw himself from the roof of his dormitory in Shenzhen yesterday, the latest suicide by a worker toiling to feed the world’s craving for cheaper iPods, laptops and mobile phones. The migrant worker, 19, earning a basic salary of 900 yuan (£90) per month, was the ninth employee at Foxconn’s immense plant in the southern Chinese city to take his life since January, and the tenth in the company as a whole. He had worked at the plant for only 42 days. Click here for the full story >>

Foxconn offers pay rises and suicide nets as fears grow over wave of deaths
Construction workers began erecting anti-suicide nets today at an industrial plant in southern China that makes millions of the world's mobile phones and computers. Five-metre long steel poles were bolted into the walls below the roofs to support webbing that will eventually cover 1.5m square metres. To stem an epidemic of workers leaping to their deaths, the Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn – which works with Apple, Dell and Sony – has also pledged to raise salaries by 20% and offered counselling to its 420,000 employees here. Click here for the full story >>

Bonnie, Yonni, and a tale of insider trading at Disney?
Bonnie Hoxie, a secretary in the PR department at the Hollywood headquarters of Disney, was allegedly so excited about the money she and her boyfriend had planned to make from their small-time insider trading scam that she emailed him a picture of a $700 handbag by Stella McCartney, saying: "Here is the bag that you are going to get for me." It is also alleged that her boyfriend, Yonni Sebbag, responded that not only had he been handed $15,000 in cash from a hedge fund trader in New York, he had also made plans to sell future information for many thousands more. This is said to have prompted another picture message: "In that case I also love love these shoes." Click here for the full story >>

President Obama attacks BP over ‘worst oil disaster’
President Obama launched a ferocious attack on BP and the oil industry yesterday as what is now officially the worst spill in US history threatened to derail his presidency. Seizing the initiative on the first day of potentially good news from the Gulf of Mexico, Mr Obama cancelled or suspended dozens of offshore drilling projects and condemned a “scandalously close relationship” between oil companies and government regulators. Click here for the full story >>

Google faces new privacy breach charge
Google is facing fresh questions over its retention of data on individuals after a lawsuit was filed in the United States barring the search giant from erasing information it had obtained and claiming that it breached privacy laws. The lawsuit, filed in Oregon, claims that Google used the same method in America of "harvesting" wi-fi data as it did in Germany where it was forced to apologise for its actions. The data was collected as Google built the picture library for its Street View service using cars and cameras that travelled along streets taking photographs. Click here for the full story >>

BP disaster: worst oil spill in US history turns seas into a dead zone
As Frank Lensmyer's small fishing boat bobbed amid patches of ugly fudge-coloured oil in Barataria Bay, it was the silence and stillness that was the most disturbing. At this time of year, the waters here should be churning with trout and redfish chasing shrimp, terns and pelicans swooping in search of prey, and large pods of porpoises elegantly dipping out of and back beneath the surface. Home to dozens of offshore oil rigs, the bay would also normally be dotted with large shrimping trawlers and dozens of craft carrying sports fishermen preparing to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer season. Click here for the full story >>

BP shows the need for a rethink of regulation
One thing at least is certain after BP’s makeover of the Gulf of Mexico into a sludge pit: corporate self-regulation and public oversight have failed. We need to rethink how companies operate in a fragile world and how governments monitor them. During the past 15 years a fresh perspective on the behaviour of multinationals has taken hold in multilateral organisations, in the European Commission and, at least rhetorically, in thousands of companies. “Corporate social responsibility” refers to a company’s duty beyond the technical requirements of national laws and regulations to comply with global principles of human rights, fair labour, environmental protection and corruption-free management. Click here for the full story >>

Co-op vetoes £100m of 'unethical' business
The Co-Operative Bank turned away £100m of business last year because it did not meet the organisation's ethical requirements. Twenty financial opportunities failed to meet the Co-op's standards on human rights and the weapons trade, while 16 companies were excluded by guidelines on environmental impact and four by rules on animal welfare, says the bank's annual ethical audit, out this week. Requests for finance for two new British coal mines were among those vetoed. Click here for the full story >>

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Obama keeps pressure on BP to accept responsibility
Still afraid that the Gulf slick could foul not just beaches but the standing of President Barack Obama as well, the White House barked loudly at BP again this weekend releasing a letter demanding "immediate public clarification" of the company's readiness to pay all clean-up and compensation costs. Mr Obama has branded as a "ridiculous spectacle" efforts by the companies involved to blame each other for the accident. Yesterday, a top aide reiterated the point. "We will continue to hold BP's feet to the fire," he said. "As the president said yesterday, he is committed to ensuring the responsible parties compensate those affected. Click here for the full story >>

Sky pushes back off-peak calls to later time
Sky is changing the start time of its evening off-peak period from 6pm to 7pm, pushing up bills for hundreds of thousands of its customers, following a similar move by BT and TalkTalk. This means that at least two-thirds of British households will be unable, from June 1, to enjoy cheap calls until 7pm in the evening. Sky, with 2.3 million customers, has followed its rivals by saying the free evening call period will now last from 7pm to 7am the following morning, rather than the current 6pm to 6am. Click here for the full story >>

Voters to get powers to sack 'corrupt' MPs under 'Reform Acts'
The right of voters to sack “corrupt” MPs will be among a series of major constitutional changes to be announced by Nick Clegg this week. Finishing touches were last night being put to the coalition Government’s plans for what is being billed as a modern-day version of the Reform Acts of the 19th century. Under the new law, constituents will be given the “powers of recall” to force an MP who engages in serious wrongdoing to face another by-election to fight for his or her seat. Voters are likely to be able to force the by-election as long as they can win the backing in a petition of 10 per cent of constituents. Click here for the full story >>

BP accused of ignoring damaged safety gear
The critical piece of safety equipment that failed to shut down the oil well after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last month was damaged before the accident, it emerged yesterday. According to a survivor’s account that could prove devastating to BP as it struggles to stop millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the safety device — known as a blowout preventer — was punctured in the weeks before the blast but nothing was done to fix it. Mike Williams, the rig’s chief electronics technician, also said that in the lead-up to the disaster BP officials, concerned that the project was behind schedule and costing the company $1 million (£680,000) a day, ordered a faster pace of drilling. Click here for the full story >>

Capitalism plays a starring role at Cannes festival
This month, three filmmakers, two Americans and one Swiss, have gone to the Cannes Film Festival to show their films that roughly three-quarters of a century later seem to contain the same message. Like Mr Capra, who happened to have been a conservative and a Republican, these films – a fiction and two documentaries – are not a rant against capitalism as such. They simply try to expose how self-seeking and corrupt individuals abuse the system at the expense of society. If the system is to improve and survive, businessmen, bankers and politicians must all strive to adopt high standards of ethics and professionalism – in short, all the basic principles of good governance. Click here for the full story >>

Nestle will cut off palm oil suppliers who destroy the rainforest
Nestle said it would identify and exclude from its supply chain companies ''owning or managing high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation'', a move which was welcomed by environmental campaigners. Greenpeace launched a campaign two months ago warning that palm oil used by the grocery giant for products such as Kit Kat was contributing to the destruction of the rainforest home of the world's remaining orangutans. Nestle announced on Monday it was linking up with non-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT) to review its palm oil supply chain and audit suppliers for evidence of illegal activity. Click here for the full story >>

Watchdog finds massive 'suckers list'
The Financial Services Authority is contacting more than 38,000 people across the UK to warn them they are being targeted by so-called ‘boiler room’ share fraudsters. These criminals use high-pressure telephone sales tactics to con investors into buying shares that are worthless or even non-existent. The contact details of people on the list are bought and sold by teams of bogus dealers who try to sell worthless shares. The FSA’s list of potential targets was obtained with the help of the US authorities and contains the names and addresses of 38,242 people. The majority of the addresses are in London and the south-east but there are also significant numbers in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Click here for the full story >>

Santander suspicious of Bernard Madoff in 2006
Santander – which has bought Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and parts of Bradford & Bingley in the UK in recent years – staff were aware that the convicted fraudster's operations were "shrouded in secrecy" and that his trading was not being independently verified. Madoff confessed to his crimes in December 2008. The claims, made in an internal report written by a Swiss-based division of Santander, were laid bare in a court filing as part of a class action against the Spanish bank being brought in Miami. Click here for the full story >>

Technology blurs boundaries between work and home for 'Generation Standby'
The crossover between work and home has never been more evident, with employees using technology to blur the boundaries between their careers and personal lives, according to a new report. The Web 2.0 in the Workplace report, from software security company Clearswift, identifies a new generation of employees who never switch off from either home or work, and who demand greater flexibility from employers in return for working longer hours, dubbing them "Generation Standby" (socially and technologically never disconnected). Click here for the full story >>

Investors reject Royal Dutch Shell oil sands review
Shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell overwhelmingly rejected a resolution challenging the oil group’s investments in Canadian oil sands yesterday. Executives were also repeatedly criticised at a stormy annual meeting over the group’s operations in Nigeria. About 11 per cent of shareholders either supported or abstained on the special resolution, which requested that Shell provide more information on its oil sands activities, including the financial, social and environmental impacts. Click here for the full story >>

Government promises to ban unfair bank charges
The government wants to put an end to unfair bank charges and excessive interest rates on credit cards, it announced today. The Lib-Con coalition said it will introduce measures to end unfair bank charges on bank accounts, such as overdraft penalties, and other financial transactions. Last year The Office of Fair Trading suffered a defeat in the High Court when attempting to regulate bank charges. The government will also give new powers to regulators to ban what they consider to be excessive interest rates from being charged on credit cards and store cards. Click here for the full story >>

White House accuses BP of ‘falling short’
The Obama administration on Thursday accused BP of having “fallen short” of commitments to keep public and government officials fully informed of data and information surrounding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In a letter to Tony Hayward, chief executive, the secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security and Environmental Protection Agency said it was “imperative” that the oil company “promptly provide” the government with the results of internal corporate investigations and other data pertinent to the gulf disaster. Click here for the full story >>

Lawmakers criticise Toyota safety claims
US lawmakers have attacked the credibility of safety claims made by the carmaker Toyota following a spate of accidents involving unintended acceleration in some of its most popular models that have been linked with more than 50 deaths in the US. Jim Lentz, the president of Toyota Motor Sales in North America, told Congressional hearing on Thursday that the company had so far found no problems with electronic throttle control system, which some experts had previously suggested may be causing Toyota cars to run out of control. Click here for the full story >>

Cricket match-fixing could 'spread like a rash', says Lord Condon
Lord Condon, the outgoing head of the International Cricket Council's anti- corruption unit, has warned that match-fixing would spread "like a rash" throughout the sport if there was complacency. The former Metropolitan police commissioner, who was recruited to lead the unit in the wake of the Hanse Cronje match-fixing affair a decade ago, said he believes that, while wholesale fixing of matches had been stamped out, so-called "spot fixing" – which exploits bets placed on short passages of play rather than match results – remained a serious threat. Click here for the full story >>

BP struggles to salvage its reputation over ‘cover-up’ of oil disaster
BP was mounting a desperate battle yesterday to save its reputation in the United States, faced with growing accusations of a cover-up over the scale of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. As Tony Hayward, the chief executive, flew back to Britain for the first time since the accident, to celebrate his 54th birthday, the oil giant finally caved in to US official pressure to disclose more information about the spill by making a live webcam of the leak available from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Click here for the full story >>

Pay rises stay below inflation as flexible labour force helps climb to recovery
Inflation-busting pay rises are off the agenda at all but 3% of Britain's companies, while almost one in six are still imposing a pay freeze, according to a study for the CBI. The employers' group and recruiters Harvey Nash reported that most staff will receive pay rises well below the rate of inflation this year, while 16% face a freeze, some for the second year running. The research showed that where bosses were open about company finances and the effects of the recession, staff understood the need to change working patterns and showed a flexible attitude. Employers said strong employee engagement was an important factor and seven out of 10 firms believe it will play an important role in the recovery. Click here for the full story >>

Women land fewer top jobs
The number of women at the top of Britain's biggest companies fell last year despite the intense political demands to improve boardroom diversity in the wake of the financial crisis. The Pay Report – an exclusive analysis by The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Telegraph and telegraph.co.uk – found that the number of women in FTSE 100 companies dropped 5pc in 2009. There were just 29 female executive directors, down one from 30 in 2008. Across the FTSE 250 there were just 39 women directors out of 950, although the figure rose from in 2008. Click here for the full story >>

Directors will face election every year
Directors will be forced to put themselves up for re-election by shareholders every year under controversial measures to be introduced in a new boardroom code published this week. The increased scrutiny, to be laid out by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), is the most comprehensive overhaul of corporate governance since the banking collapse. A number of blue-chip companies and veteran directors are likely to oppose the new, stiffer rules. They fear the move will undermine collective decision-making and leave firms leaderless if whole boards are ejected at once. Click here for the full story >>

Facebook and a question of trust
Flying back to Toronto from New York this month, Matthew Milan had an epiphany: he was going to quit Facebook. The internet consultant had just ploughed through a series of articles attacking the social network’s stance on privacy and the way it handles the information entrusted to it by users. “When I got home I told my friends and family, that’s it I’m going to quit.” And he wasn’t going to do it alone. With his friend Joseph Dee, he decreed that May 31 was to be Quit Facebook Day and created a website (quitfacebookday.com) where other users can pledge to do the same. More than 12,000 have signed up so far. In just six years Facebook has grown from a networking site for Harvard students to the biggest social network on the planet. More than 400m people use it to share the details of their lives — from the most tedious to the most intimate — as well as photographs. Click here for the full story >>

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Tar sands crude is reaching British petrol stations, Greenpeace says
British motorists are unwitting users of diesel and petrol derived from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, where carbon-heavy production methods make extraction particularly damaging to the environment, Greenpeace claims. The environmental group is calling for action by the European commission to strengthen fuel-quality directive regulations to restrict the import of petroleum products made in a carbon-intensive way. Click here for the full story >>

U.S. Sees a Change of Attitude at Toyota
Toyota faced “very, very serious credibility problems” in the wake of its safety crisis, but changed its attitude toward American regulators after its president, Akio Toyoda, visited the United States, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Monday. Speaking after a meeting with Mr. Toyoda at the company’s headquarters in Japan, Mr. LaHood said his department was looking through 500,000 pages of documents to determine whether to levy additional fines against the Japanese carmaker, a process that could take month. Click here for the full story >>

BP and Transocean blame each other for Gulf of Mexico oil spill
BP and the contractor that carried out drilling for the oil company in the Gulf of Mexico have blamed one another for "a cascade of failures" that led to the massive oil spill threatening America's south-eastern coastline. Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America, told the first of two Congressional hearings into the environmental catastrophe that it was Transocean which conducted the well drilling operations. He said Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig and the piece of safety equipment which should have prevented a methane bubble from triggering the fatal explosion on April 20. Click here for the full story >>

Toyota 'sincerely grateful' as it returns to profit despite recall crisis
The Japanese company faced worldwide condemnation after the recall of more than 8.5m cars, however this has not stopped it returning to the black for the year to March 31. Akio Toyoda, chief executive, who faced criticism for his handling of the recall crisis, said he was “sincerely grateful” to dealers, suppliers and customers who had stuck with Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker. Toyota reported net income of ¥209.4bn (£1.53bn), against a loss of ¥437bn last year. The company had been on course for a large loss as the slump in car sales caused a torrid 2009, however a pick-up in the world economy led to a much improved performance in the third and fourth quarters of Toyota’s year. Click here for the full story >>

BA cabin crew accused of ‘insular thinking’ over planned strike action
Businesses accused British Airways crew yesterday of “insular thinking” over their threats of extensive strikes, warning that it sent a worrying message about the state of the country. British Airways was finalising its contingency plans last night for the stoppages, which may bring chaos to more than one million passengers over the spring break. The airline said it planned to operate a “substantial” part of its long-haul schedule from Heathrow and predicted that flights to and from Gatwick would not be affected by the series of five-day stoppages. Click here for the full story >>

Flood of customer complaints hits banks
Banks were faced with a deluge of customer complaints in the second half of last year as a waiver that had allowed them to defer claims relating to high penalty charges was lifted after two years. Data released yesterday by the Financial Services Authority revealed that banks and building societies had to deal with more than 2m complaints between July and December 2009, more than double the 867,427 they processed in the first half of the year. The steep increase was mainly a result of the backlog of complaints relating to unauthorised bank charges. These complaints were put on hold in 2007 as the Office of Fair Trading entered a battle with a number of big banks to obtain a final ruling on the legality of the high level of charges imposed on customers who exceeded their overdraft limit. Click here for the full story >>

Fund managers ‘sold clients down the river’ over Bernard Madoff
Two hedge fund managers in New York knew that Bernard Madoff was operating a phony investment fund as long ago as 1997 but kept advising clients to invest with him so that they could collect fees, New York’s attorney-general has alleged. In the first legal action against advisers who channelled money to Madoff, Andrew Cuomo has filed a lawsuit against Ivy Asset Management and two former executives, claiming that they had deliberately misled clients. Mr Cuomo said: “Ivy and its former co-principals saw the trouble with Madoff coming around the bend, but instead of guiding their clients through the financial waters, they sold them down the river.” Click here for the full story >>

Blame game won't shift BP from the spotlight
The company has been on the back foot since the Transocean operated rig sank, killing 11 people. Insisting first that, while tragic, the accident was not a significant event. Then, when it became clear it was more serious, attempting to shift the blame onto Transocean. Legally correct, maybe, but hardly a tactic that was likely to succeed. After all, who were the US TV networks going to blame? The British-based international oil giant with a pretty patchy record in the US, or a Swiss-based oil-services contractor? Click here for the full story >>

Wall Street banks investigated over links to ratings agencies
An allegedly "cosy" relationship between top Wall Street banks and credit rating agencies is under investigation by New York's attorney general, who has issued a flurry of subpoenas to examine whether leading financial institutions cheated in the hunt for valuable triple-A grades. New York's prosecution chief, Andrew Cuomo, is scrutinising the behaviour of eight leading banks, adding to a rapidly spreading web of criminal investigations into Wall Street's questionable ethics in the run-up to the global financial crisis. Many financial experts believe that overly optimistic assessments by ratings firms were a key factor in creating an overblown market for derivatives and mortgage-backed securities. Click here for the full story >>

Cost of overdraft at highest level for a decade despite base rate low
The cost of an overdraft at Britain's banks is now higher than at any time for a decade, research shows, despite the fact that the Bank of England base rate has now been at an historic low of just 0.5 per cent for 14 consecutive months. Moneyfacts, the personal finance data provider, said the average interest rate charged on an authorised overdraft in Britain was now 14.22 per cent, more than at any time since May 2000. The last time overdraft rates strayed above 14 per cent, the base rate was at 6 per cent, 12 times higher than the current level. Click here for the full story >>

M&S apologises for selling 'bra tops' to girls aged six
Parents complained after finding Santoni heart-patterned underwear tops for sale in M&S stores alongside a similar lace trimmed design and one with adjustable bra-style straps. The styles were aimed at girls aged as young as 6-8 years old and had been labelled as "bra tops", although some were also called "crop tops". The company is the latest retailer to become embroiled in a row about marketing inappropriate adult clothing to children. Click here for the full story >>

NHS spent £6m on suspending heart consultant whistleblower
Dr Raj Mattu last worked in 2002 after claiming that fatalities among heart patients in Coventry were too high because of overcrowding. After speaking out publicly on patient safety issues, he found himself suspended over allegations that he had bullied staff members at Walsgrave Hospital. Despite later being found innocent of the allegations and rulings from the High Court and General Medical Council that he should be allowed to go back to work, Dr Mattu, 48, has still not returned. Click here for the full story >>

Investors pay revolts at SIG and Cookson
Rising anger over executive pay at some of Britain's biggest companies has reached new levels after insulation and roofing group SIG saw its remuneration package rejected and Cookson's only just scraped approval. SIG and Cookson, the engineer, endured major rebellions from shareholders after the boards' pay was increased despite the companies recording pre-tax losses last year, calling on shareholders for hundreds of millions of pounds in rights issues, and cutting their dividend to zero. Click here for the full story >>

Google admits its Street View cars spied on wi-fi activity
Google’s Street View cars have been spying on people’s internet use for three years, the search giant admitted last night. It had been scooping up snippets of people’s online activities broadcast over unprotected home and business wi-fi networks. Google admitted that the cars’ radio antennae snooped on e-mails and other bits of information when the vehicles trundled through towns and cities. Google said that the data was mistakenly collected and only in short bursts as the vehicles passed by, and was never used. Click here for the full story >>

EU criticises Facebook privacy changes
The Data Protection Working Party, which advises the Commission on data and privacy issues, wrote a letter to Facebook, saying recent changes that made previously private information publicly viewable by default were "unacceptable". In the letter, the group said that profile information, and data about the connections between users, should have a default setting in which this information was only shared with "self-selected" contacts. "Any further access, such as by search engines, should be an explicit choice of the user," warned the group. "It is unacceptable that [Facebook] fundamentally changed the default settings on its social-networking platform to the detriment of users. Click here for the full story >>

The nurse victimised for being a whistleblower: Trainee thrown out after exposing abuse at shamed hospital
A student nurse who exposed the appalling neglect of elderly patients at a hospital trust where up to 1,200 people died needlessly has been thrown off her training course. Two years after the Stafford Hospital scandal, Barbara Allatt reported NHS colleagues for leaving patients in soiled sheets, shouting at dementia sufferers and secretly slipping sedatives into a cup of tea. But the mature student was condemned for having an 'attitude problem' before being withdrawn from her nursing course at Staffordshire University last month. Click here for the full story >>

More blue-chip shareholders revolt over pay
The shareholder rebellion against excessive executive pay is heating up, with three more blue chip companies braced for protest votes at their annual meetings. The Association of British Insurers, which represents about a fifth of British institutional investors, has sent out “amber top” alerts over concerns about the remuneration reports of HSBC, Tomkins, the engineering company and Wolfson Microelectronics, the Edinburgh-based chipmaker. The ABI’s amber top signals that it has considerable concerns and investors need to examine the pay policies carefully. Shareholders are angry that executives are paying big bonuses and salaries when many firms are imposing job cuts or wage freezes. Click here for the full story >>

Top football clubs flee to tax havens
Almost three-quarters of Premier League football clubs, including Blackburn Rovers, Birmingham City and Portsmouth, are based in offshore tax havens, an investigation has found. Even smaller clubs in lower divisions, such as Ipswich Town and Hartlepool United, have joined the exodus, which allows wealthy owners legally to pour untaxed income into teams and foreign players to pay less tax. The growing number of clubs controlled or owned through offshore companies has attracted the attention of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) as part of a wide-ranging investigation into league sides. A senior Revenue source said the use of tax havens by football clubs “is one of the issues we are looking at”. Click here for the full story >>

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City firms urged to step up IT security
Some of the City of London's best-known and biggest banks and financial services firms may have left themselves wide open to fraud and criminal attack by failing to take the most rudimentary steps to protect their computer networks, a leading IT security firm warned today. MWR InfoSecurity said spot tests carried out in the City last week revealed that several hundred companies had left themselves vulnerable to cyber attack by failing to protect their wireless internet networks against hackers. Click here for the full story >>

Goldman Sachs concedes case for restraining the big banks
The Goldman Sachs chief executive, previously an outspoken opponent of proposals to break up the banks, has conceded that such a move might make institutions such as his "safer". In American television interviews, Lloyd Blankfein also said he wished his firm had "not done some of those things", in relation to its activities in the now-notorious mortgage-backed securities market and conceded the institution would have to "regain the trust of the public". "We have no choice," Mr Blankfein said. "We can't survive without people thinking well of us." Click here for the full story >>

Oil boss needs to do more to salvage company's reputation
When political leaders and corporate bosses are having a tough time, I usually find it hard to sympathise, for the obvious reason that they are paid a lot of money to do stimulating jobs. As Lloyd Blankfein, the boss of Goldman Sachs, told a whingeing colleague at the height of the financial crisis: "You're getting out of a Mercedes to go to the New York Federal Reserve; you're not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach! Keep things in perspective." Recently, however, I have found myself reconsidering my position. First, there was the sight of an already haggard Gordon Brown ageing another 10 years after his encounter with Gillian Duffy. Could the thrill of achieving one's lifelong ambition to be prime minister ever compensate for the horror of that moment of realisation in the Radio 2 studio? Click here for the full story >>

MP demands answers over wait for £12.5m payout to ex-MG Rover workers
Richard Burden, the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, whose constituency covers the car plant in Longbridge, said the former bosses, nicknamed the Phoenix Four, had the means to solve the impasse. However, the former owners now say the money laid aside to cover the £12.5m payout they promised is at risk after a bank came forward to claim a debt. Five years ago, the Phoenix Four promised Rover workers what would amount to thousands of pounds each in the form of a trust fund which would pay out if their ownership of the firm through Phoenix Venture Holdings failed. It failed but, despite the four top executives - Nick Stephenson, John Edwards, John Towers and Peter Beale - managing to take millions of pounds out of the firm, no trust fund payment was ever made. Click here for the full story >>

Madoff investor’s estate set to pay $2bn to victims of Ponzi fraud
The estate of the late Jeffry Picower, a former investor in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, is poised to hand over billions of dollars to victims of the fraud, according to a court order. The document suggests that the heirs and trusts of Mr Picower, a long-time Madoff associate and philanthropist who was found dead in his swimming pool in Florida last October, are close to settling a claim by Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee overseeing claims by Madoff’s victims. Click here for the full story >>

Goldman Sachs shareholders pull no punches
Shareholders hammered the board and top executives of Goldman Sachs for gross mismanagement of the beleaguered bank, accusing them of lying about damaging fraud charges and unjustly enriching themselves at investors’ expense, in a series of legal actions revealed yesterday. In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Goldman said that lawsuits started pouring in on April 22, six days after the Wall Street bank and one of its traders were charged by the SEC over the sale of a synthetic collateralised debt obligation called Abacus that lost two investors $1 billion. Click here for the full story >>

Ethical concerns 'on the rise' among customers
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Our banking industry should work within an ethical framework
The proposal from a cross-party commission for a "Hippocratic oath" which would "require bankers to take into account the impact of their activities on the wider economy and on society, rather than focusing on making a short-term profit" directly addresses the need to reconcile values and value creation ('Hippocratic oath' for bank workers meets with scepticism, 19 April). And though the sceptical response is perhaps not surprising, our own organisation has called for an overarching "statement of principles" to cover all aspects of the financial services industry, to which all parties could commit. Click here for the full story >>

Revolt at Xstrata as barely half its shareholding backs bosses’ pay
Shareholders have staged a revolt over executive pay at Xstrata for the second year running. Only 68.3 per cent of votes cast at the miner’s annual meeting yesterday backed its remuneration report — the equivalent of only 51 per cent of the total voting rights. Such votes are usually passed with the near-unanimous support of shareholders. The dispute over pay came after Mick Davis’s total remuneration package rose by 41 per cent to $7.75 million last year. The chief executive raised a further £14 million selling shares that had been allocated to him in 2001. Mr Davis’s pay rise came despite Xstrata being forced to seek a £4.2 billion rights issue last year after a steep fall in commodity prices. Click here for the full story >>

Soldiers charged for mobiles they can’t use
Soldiers in Afghanistan are being penalised by mobile phone companies that continue to bill them even though they cannot use the phones there. Some operators refuse to suspend contracts without proof of deployment — information that soldiers are told not to divulge. They are forbidden anyway to use
 mobiles on active service because of security considerations. Colonel Stuart Tootal, former commanding officer of 3 Para, condemned the companies for making it difficult for soldiers to suspend contracts. “Given the risk that they are taking in the service of their country it seems only reasonable that they shouldn’t be penalised by a contract they have taken out,” he said. Click here for the full story >>

Pay is frozen ‘for one in three’, says Incomes Data Services survey
Pay freezes and the rising cost of living mean that almost a third of workers are enduring reduced income, according to a survey by Incomes Data Services. The average pay rise stood at 1.9 per cent in the first three months of the year — up only 0.1 per cent on the same period last year, but about 31 per cent of the 100 settlements studied involved a pay freeze. In March, inflation rose to 3.4 per cent from 3 per cent in February, according to the Consumer Prices Index, as the price of petrol soared and food bills remained high. Click here for the full story >>

Macmillan faces World Bank ban over Sudan payments
A British publisher is facing a six-year ban from taking up any contracts financed by the World Bank. The move comes after Macmillan admitted making "bribery payments" to secure a deal to print textbooks in South Sudan, the World Bank said. International donors have pumped millions into development projects in the African region through a Multi-Donor Trust Fund run by the World Bank. Macmillan said it was "deeply shocked" at the discovery. Click here for the full story >>

Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein faces call to resign
Lloyd Blankfein faced calls from shareholders to resign as he attempted to regain the trust of investors and clients by promising a "rigorous self-examination" of Goldman Sachs' activities. Mr Blankfein – attempting to douse the flames sparked by the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil fraud charges – admitted "that there is a disconnect between how we as a firm view ourselves and how the broader public perceives our role and activities in the market." In order to change the public perception of the bank, the Goldman chairman told investors at the embattled Wall Street bank's annual general meeting that he is to set up a "business standards committee" which will be charged with examining the firm's adherence to the bank's "business principles through our business practices." Click here for the full story >>

Alstom 'dismay' at SFO investigation
Alstom, the French engineering group, has expressed its "dismay" at the conduct of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations against the company. In a letter to UK staff, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Stephen Burgin, the company's UK president, said the SFO had "regrettably called into question our carefully built and protected reputation". It is understood that Alstom is considering a formal complaint against the SFO. Click here for the full story >>

Unite brands BA 'vindictive' over union official's sacking
The industrial dispute at British Airways grew even more vitriolic yesterday when a senior trade union official was sacked for gross misconduct the day before results of the latest ballot on a peace deal were to be announced. The airline refused to give details of cabin crew member Duncan Holley's case, but stressed that it was part of normal procedures. "It is entirely appropriate and reasonable for us to investigate serious allegations of misconduct," a spokeswoman said. The Unite union claimed Mr Holley's dismissal was part of a sustained policy of harassment against staff involved in a long-running row over the loss-making airline's plans to cut benefits freeze pay and reduce numbers of cabin crew on flights. Click here for the full story >>

Goldman chief eats humble pie with pledge of ethical review
Goldman Sachs will become "self-critical" and "introspective", and re-evaluate the way it does business, the investment bank's chief executive told its annual meeting. In a humbled performance designed for consumption far beyond the audience of loyal shareholders, Lloyd Blankfein said recent weeks had been "difficult and disappointing" for the firm, which faces civil fraud charges over its mortgage business and has taken political heat on Capitol Hill. "There is no bigger priority for our board and management than to undertake a comprehensive review of all our business practices," he said, announcing that a "business standards committee" will be set up by the board to report on possible changes." Click here for the full story >>

Recession work practices are ‘here to stay’
Employers will retain the flexible working practices introduced during the recession even when the job market improves, Manpower, one of the world’s biggest staffing agencies, has said. High-profile deals have seen desperate staff signing up for reduced hours or less pay, instead of risking their jobs – although in some cases, as at JCB, the construction equipment maker, layoffs have eventually followed. Employers such as Xerox, the photocopier supplier, pay staff only when they fix machines, while call centres have started to pay workers only for the hours they are logged on to their computers. Click here for the full story >>

Companies don't care about investor protests
Many millions of votes have been cast and counted. Many voters deliberately chose to abstain, unable to bring themselves to vote for policies they regarded as unacceptable, but equally unable to vote against, for fear of the wider damage they might do. Some results had been widely trailed; some were a surprise. But no, this has nothing to do with Cameron, Clegg and Brown. The annual general meeting season for corporate Britain is now in full swing, and on an almost daily basis institutional investors are voting in large numbers against what they regard as inappropriate and overgenerous executive pay policies and/or complacent attitudes to corporate governance standards. Click here for the full story >>

Goldman boss Lloyd Blankfein admits bank should listen to public opinion
In Goldman’s first public admission that the bank needs to take public opinion into account when making business decisions, he will tell senior US politicians on Tuesday: “We have to do a better job of striking the balance between what an informed client believes is important to his or her investing goals and what the public believes is overly complex and risky.” The senior banker, chairman and chief executive of the embattled investment bank, will stop short of ceding ground on allegations of conflicts of interest between various parts of its business model, but will admit that if the bank’s clients “believe that we don’t deserve their trust” Goldman cannot survive. Click here for the full story >>

Aviva lets shareholders vote on ethical policy
The UK's second largest insurance group will ask investors to vote on its corporate responsibility report on Wednesday when it holds its AGM at the Barbican Centre in London. Currently, if shareholders are unhappy with a company's environmental or social policy their only option is to vote against its reports and accounts. However, Lord Sharman of Redlynch, Aviva's chairman, told The Sunday Telegraph that companies needed to open their activities to greater scrutiny. Click here for the full story >>

RBS will urge shareholders to 'trust us' after pay climbdown
Royal Bank of Scotland will bow to shareholder demands to make it tougher for executives to receive their full bonus entitlements. On Wednesday Sir Philip Hampton will tell shareholders at the bank's annual meeting that its remuneration committee is working on a revised package for executives. However, they will not be given any details and will be asked to back the RBS remuneration report and trust that directors will come up with a significantly tougher set of performance targets. Click here for the full story >>

Whistleblower accuses BP over rig documents
BP is being investigated by US authorities over claims from a whistleblower that the oil company broke the law by not keeping key documents relating to a giant deepwater production platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian has learned. The documents for the huge Atlantis platform act as an "operator's manual", and a complete up-to-date set of records is vital to shut down the platform properly in case of an emergency. BP said it was co-operating fully with the investigation and denies the allegations. Click here for the full story >>

Alison Cooper, Imperial Tobacco chief, rails against positive discrimination
Alison Cooper, who will next month become only the second British woman appointed to run a FTSE 100 company when she takes the reins at Imperial Tobacco, has hit out at proposals for positive discrimination to get more women into Britain's top boardrooms. "Trying to force a percentage of woman on boards – I'm completely against all that," she insists. Cooper was commenting on a campaign, led by the Fawcett Society, for a quota of women to be introduced in Britain's boardrooms. Such measures imposed in Norway have led the number of women on boards to rise from 6% to 44% in six years. Click here for the full story >>

Cancelled flights: AA Travel Insurance refuses to pay out on volcano claims
AA Travel Insurance, an offshoot of the national motoring group, has reneged on a promise to cover claims from travellers affected by the recent volcanic ash, potentially leaving hundreds of holidaymakers out of pocket. On the first day that flights were cancelled, 15 April, the insurer announced that it would cover costs for those who had missed flights, such as hotel bookings and car hire. It said at the time: "For customers who are already insured, such associated costs will be considered under the terms relating to travel delay leading to trip abandonment (cancellation), and customers can expect to be compensated provided they have official evidence to support their claims." Click here for the full story >>

G4S employees in Afghanistan sentenced to two years for bribery
G4S became the latest British company to become embroiled in an overseas bribery case yesterday, when two employees were jailed in Afghanistan for paying local officials to release impounded vehicles. Bill Shaw, a British employee of the security firm and a former officer in the Military Police, was sentenced to two years in Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison near Kabul. He was convicted in a special anti-corruption court, which has been partly funded by the UK as part of Afghan reconstruction effort. Maiwand Limar, an Afghan employee, was also convicted. Click here for the full story >>

McDonald's 'Happy Meals' with toys banned to fight childhood obesity
The measure, believed to be the first of its kind in the United States, is being introduced in Santa Clara County, an area of 1.7 million people that includes Silicon Valley. One quarter of children in the area are overweight or obese and officials say they are tackling an "obesity epidemic". They said toys were being used to lure children to high calorie foods loaded with salt. Click here for the full story >>

Families of passengers killed on Air France Rio jet offered tickets on same flight to attend memorial service
The 120 grieving relatives living in Brazil have been invited by the airline to attend the service in May for the victims of last year's worst airline disaster. But Air France then sent them all free tickets for a plane leaving at the same time and on the same route as the doomed flight on June 1, 2009. Flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board. A search last year found several pieces of wreckage and 50 bodies, but the black box flight recorders have not been recovered. Click here for the full story >>

Ferrari F1 barcode a ‘smokescreen for cigarette adverts’
Leading doctors are demanding an immediate government inquiry into “subliminal” tobacco advertising on Ferrari’s Formula One cars, and the company’s $1 billion relationship with the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, The Times has learnt. The red, white and black bar code emblazoned on Ferrari’s racing cars and its drivers’ overalls is designed to remind viewers of a packet of Marlboro cigarettes, it is claimed. Under EU legislation it is an offence for a tobacco company to sponsor sporting events. Click here for the full story >>

Banks told to stop ignoring complaints
The banking industry was fiercely rebuked by the City watchdog today for the “unacceptable” way that it handles customer complaints. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said that five unnamed high street banks must make “major changes” to the way they dealt with grievances. Two of these were being investigated and could face big fines. Call centre and branch staff consistently ignored complaints or carried out poor investigations even when the bank was at fault, the report stated. It also found that incentive schemes encouraged staff to be more interested in selling products than settling complaints. In come cases staff were given targets to keep redress amounts as low as possible. Click here for the full story >>

Why eco-friendly products are not as green as they appear
Faced with a choice between normal cleaning products and more expensive "green" alternatives, many shoppers pay more to do their bit for the environment. But store chains and specialist manufacturers may be exaggerating some of their claims for "eco" cleaners and washing powders, a process dubbed "greenwashing". according to a survey by a consumer group today. While all the products made by the likes of Ecover, Green Force and Tesco did some good for the planet, almost half of them made claims that seemed not to be justified. Click here for the full story >>

BA-Virgin case exposes the wacky world of whistleblowing
Maybe Sir Richard Branson and John Fingleton, the Office of Fair Trading’s head honcho, should have another look at Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Because you don’t need to be Audrey Hepburn to spot the pitfalls in the current goings-on at Southwark Crown Court. The OFT has brought a criminal case against four British Airways executives (three no longer with the airline), accusing them of dishonestly conspiring with Branson’s Virgin Atlantic to fix the price of fuel surcharges. It’s high-stakes stuff, particularly for the four men possibly facing the clink, who deny the charges. But what of the risks to Fingleton? Or Branson, for that matter, whose company blew the whistle and helped land the BA four in the dock? Click here for the full story >>

BP faces 'billion pound bill' as clean-up costs escalate
Sources close to the situation initially said paying for the clean-up, for which President Barack Obama holds the British oil giant "ultimately responsible", could reach $200m (£130m). Analysts are now putting a much higher figure on the total cost, with estimates passing $3bn. The oil slick was triggered when Deepwater Horizon, a rig leased by BP, exploded and sank last week, causing 11 deaths. BP has confirmed it is self-insured for any costs related to the spill. Current spending on the clean-up is about $6m a day, which is expected to rise as efforts intensify. Click here for the full story >>

Bankers' pay astonishingly high admits RBS chief
The chairman of part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland has admitted that bankers' pay is "astonishingly high", it was revealed today. Sir Philip Hampton told the BBC it was difficult to defend the gap between what most people earned and how much some bank staff were paid. But he added that banks had to pay high sums if they wanted to keep "top" people. Sir Philip told BBC Radio 4 that "bankers' pay continues to be astonishingly high", adding: "If we don't pay our top people they leave very quickly. Click here for the full story >>

Investors rebel against bank chief’s colonial pile
HSBC is facing an investor revolt over plans to pay its chief executive £800,000 a year in cash and benefits for moving to Hong Kong. Institutional investors have told The Times they regard Mike Geoghegan’s relocation package as egregious and “in effect a pay rise by the back door”. Some are threatening to vote against the bank’s remuneration report at the annual meeting on May 28. HSBC is attempting to defuse the revolt in meetings with concerned investors, but appears to be in no mood to back down. Click here for the full story >>

Apple faces US antitrust scrutiny
US authorities have signalled an interest in a potential antitrust probe into whether the software underpinning Apple’s ground-breaking iPhone unfairly locks out competitors, according to a person familiar with the matter. The regulators’ interest comes in the wake of a dispute that broke out between Apple and Adobe, a software maker, over the latest version of the iPhone software, which was unveiled last month. Steve Jobs, Apple chief executive, last week took the unusual step of writing a public letter explaining his decision to bar Adobe’s software from his company’s devices. Click here for the full story >>

Warren Buffett: Cadbury deal was ‘dumb’
In his most outspoken comments on the purchase of the British confectioner to date, Mr Buffett questioned the financial rationale behind Kraft's strategy, said he "hated" the Cadbury deal, and made pointed comments about chief executive Irene Rosenfeld's recent $26.3m (£17.2m) pay package. Mr Buffett - known as the "Sage of Omaha" for his widely accepted investment wisdom - controls an 8.8pc stake in Kraft through Berkshire Hathaway, his investment conglomerate. Click here for the full story >>

Thales and France fined $830m for Taiwan navy deal
An international court has ordered France and defence electronics group Thales to pay $830m in compensation to Taiwan over a sale of warships in 1991. The panel of arbitrators ordered the payments to make up for unauthorised commissions paid to help Thomson-CSF, which became Thales, win the deal. The contract for the six navy frigates forbade commissions to intermediaries. Thales said its share of the fine was about 27% or $230m, but says that it will appeal against the ruling. Click here for the full story >>