9th March Daily Mail 'Rogue trader' inquiry at Merrill Lynch over losses of £85m in currency gamble A top City trader has been suspended in a 'rogue trader' inquiry into an £85million hole in the finances of Merrill Lynch. Alexis Stenfors, a currency dealer with the investment giant, said there had been a 'misunderstanding'. But the bank confirmed last night it has discovered 'irregularities' in records of his deals. Mr Stenfors, 38, is now believed to be under investigation by both Merrills, which was brought back from the brink of collapse last autumn, and the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority. He is still employed by the American-based bank, but has been barred from making any deals while the inquiry goes on.

9th March Global Ethics Ties Between Harvard Medical School and Drug Firms Under Scrutiny There’s a confrontation over ethics and money at Harvard Medical School, with a group of students, faculty, and teachers claiming that drug companies are exerting undue influence in the classrooms and research labs. Late last week, the top Republican on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee asked drug manufacturer Pfizer to provide details of its payments to at least 149 members of the medical school’s faculty, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education. Pfizer spokesman Ray Kerins told the Crimson that the company will comply. In addition, Pfizer will begin posting in July an online list of its donations to physicians.

9th March Financial Times Trade-offs in the moral maze In today’s climate of corporate scandal and recrimination, there is a tendency to look at business ethics in black or white terms. Not in Michel Anteby’s classroom. An assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Harvard Business School, he specialises in looking at moral grey areas in the workplace. Building on an innovative study of an aerospace factory he carried out in France*, Prof Anteby is adept at exploring situations in which employees break house rules with the tacit or explicit agreement of their supervisors.

10th March Personnel Today Disabled man rejected by MI5 takes discrimination claim to appeal A partly-paralysed man is suing MI5 after his application for a job tracking suspects was rejected. Sajad Suleman could not move his arms or legs when he applied for the job of mobile surveillance officer at the UK's intelligence service. But he argued that the organisation should have at least interviewed him to discuss how to adapt the job of "observing people by foot or vehicle" to his requirements. He could have carried the job out by following suspects by train, taxis or buses, he said.

10th March Financial Times SEC blocks auditor liability deals UK companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission have been effectively blocked from striking deals that would limit the liability of their auditors. Auditors usually bear unlimited liability, meaning in the event of a company collapse, they can be sued for all the lost value regardless of the size of their actual role. UK rules introduced last year allowed auditors and clients to agree to limit that risk to an amount proportionate to their role. But the US Securities and Exchange Commission has now indicated to the UK government that it will not accept any limited liability agreements by British companies which are also registered with it.

10th March The Independent FSA launches inquiry into Resolution's Cowdery The Financial Services Authority is investigating the founder of Resolution, Clive Cowdery, and four other former directors at the financial services buyout vehicle's eponymous predecessor over "certain actions" at the time of the original firm's £5bn takeover battle with Hugh Osmond's Pearl Group in 2007. Resolution Limited, the investment vehicle that Mr Cowdery listed last December, raising £650m for acquisitions in the process, said yesterday that it would not complete any deals while the inquiry was ongoing.

10th March The Times Sustainability triumphs over spin From April next year, any organisation consuming more than 6,000 megawatt hours of electricity in 2008 - an annual spend of about £500,000 - will be required to buy carbon allowances to cover their emissions. The money will be repaid depending on each organisation's performance, to be published in a league table. Those that hold the Carbon Trust Standard will receive a higher ranking in the table and earn more repayments. More than 60 household names, including Morrisons, Diageo, Hewlett-Packard and Royal Mail, have already qualified for the Standard, saving more than half a million tonnes of carbon emissions in the process.

11th March The Guardian Campaigners urge banks to shun dictators Banks are facilitating international corruption by doing business with the world's dictators, according to a report today by an anti-corruption campaign group. Global Witness calls for banks to work harder to turn away business from individuals who pose a corruption risk. It also demands an end to tax haven "secrecy jurisdictions", saying: "The most important change is to ensure that every country produces full public online registers of the ultimate beneficial ownership of all companies and trusts."

11th March Financial Times FSA chief lambasts uncritical investors Large investors have been “too reliant and unchallenging” and must intervene more in company management, the City watchdog said on Wednesday. Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, told a meeting of institutional shareholders they had “a duty, an obligation” to make their scrutiny of companies more effective and to question what they are told by managers.

11th March The Independent Nine arrests over '£40m mortgage scam' A group of housing developers, solicitors and surveyors are alleged to have defrauded the now-nationalised high street bank Bradford & Bingley out of £40m in a buy-to-let mortgage scam. Yesterday, nine people were arrested in dawn raids by more than 50 fraud squad officers from the City of London Police. And more arrests are expected to follow as the investigation, which focuses on mortgages taken out on more than 500 properties in the south of England between 2005 and 2007, continues. It is one of 615 investigations run by City of London officers – the UK's lead force on economic crime – into alleged mortgage fraud.

11th March Financial Times FSA to 'frighten' with tough stance Senior executives at troubled banks have been targeted by the City watchdog for close scrutiny over the decisions they made in the run-up to the crisis, the chief executive of the Financial Services Authority has warned. Abandoning the principles-based approach to financial regulation that the FSA championed before the crisis, Hector Sants outlined a more interventionist policy warning that people should be "very frightened" of the City watchdog.

11th March The Guardian Patients 'forced to stay on NHS database' Patients who do not want their medical records to be placed on a national electronic database are being coerced by NHS managers to give their consent, the British Medical Association said last night. During trials of the scheme in Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent, thousands of patients are being told they cannot opt out unless they make an appointment with "NHS advisers" to explain face to face why they do not want to take part.

12th March The Independent Short sellers are back Hedge funds have resumed the practice of short-selling UK financial stocks with a vengeance in recent weeks, raking in billions of pounds by betting on share price falls at banks and insurers since an FSA-imposed ban expired in mid-January. While the strategy faces a crackdown worldwide as countries try to stabilise their financial systems, funds such as Odey and Lansdowne are piling into trades in UK financial companies. Both banks and insurers face additional strain on their finances and the possible need for more share issues in coming months.

12th March Financial Times Welch condemns share price focus Jack Welch, who is regarded as the father of the “shareholder value” movement that has dominated the corporate world for more than 20 years, has said it was “a dumb idea” for executives to focus so heavily on quarterly profits and share price gains. The former General Electric chief told the Financial Times the emphasis that executives and investors had put on shareholder value, which began gaining popularity after a speech he made in 1981, was misplaced.

13th March The Independent' I'm sorry' says the $65 billion conman Bernard Madoff said he always knew that this day would come. Eleven times he responded to the charges against him, in a packed Manhattan courtroom. Eleven times, "guilty". And with that, there was no more time for leniency, no extra time on bail awaiting his fate, no chance to say goodbye to the wife who had decided again not to accompany him to court. Last night, a man who just a few months ago had been one of the most established and respected figures on Wall Street, finally swapped his penthouse apartment for a solitary cell in the Manhattan correctional centre. The perpetrator of history's biggest swindle was behind bars – and faces a sentence of up to 150 years there.

13th March Financial Times Shell scores poorly on emissions disclosure Royal Dutch Shell's disclosure of its carbon emissions lags behind its closest rivals and falls well short of best practice, a study by an industry consultant has said. PFC Energy said Shell, which has sought to assert its green credentials, was rated bottom out of six multinational oil companies surveyed on the level of detail, frequency and coherency of emissions disclosures. The findings come days after the US announced it would force all big emitters of greenhouse gases to disclose comprehensive emissions data by 2011.

14th March The Guardian Developing nations deprived of £90bn a year, says Oxfam Developing countries are losing out on up to $124bn (£90bn) of annual income from assets held offshore in tax havens, according to Oxfam. The charity said yesterday that at least $6.2tn of developing country wealth was held offshore by individuals, depriving those countries of annual tax receipts of between $64bn and $124bn. If money moved offshore by private companies was included, this figure would be much higher, it added. The scale of the losses could outweigh the $103bn developing countries receive annually in overseas aid.

14th March The Guardian Switzerland starts slow retreat over banking secrecy and tax evasion Switerland's decision today to play by international tax rules is the result of a great deal of political arm-twisting, aided by the sting of scandal. The long struggle to persuade the Swiss to abandon their banking secrecy is not yet over. There is still plenty of room for foot-dragging and hair-splitting and it is likely to be several years before any information is actually exchanged. But today was important. In accepting the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) principles for the exchange of information on tax, the Swiss finally abandoned their insistence on a single, all-important legal point: that tax evasion is not a crime unless it involves active fraud, such as the forgery of paperwork.

14th March The Guardian BAA faces £10m fine if service does not improve BAA, the UK's largest airport owner, could be fined up to £10m a year if it fails to tackle security queues and improve passenger conditions at Stansted airport. The Civil Aviation Authority is clamping down on service standards at the airport after the Competition Commission said these had been "unexpectedly low" over the past five years. "If BAA fails, it loses money," said Harry Bush, the CAA director who drew up the scheme.

16th March The Guardian Fury as AIG pays $450m to staff who nearly broke firm The crisis-stricken insurer AIG has infuriated the Obama administration by paying "retention" bonuses of $450m (£322m) to staff at the London-run financial products division that crippled the company with vast losses on toxic derivatives. Senior White House officials yesterday condemned the payments by the struggling company which has received more than $150bn of US government aid. Newly released figures revealed that billions of dollars of public money used to prop up AIG have flowed to European banks which were trading partners with the insurer – including Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland.

16th March The Independent Turner to attack bonus culture of the banks A multilateral assault on so-called "shadow banking" will be led by Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, when he publishes his much-awaited review of financial regulation on Wednesday. The FSA is also expected to tackle the controversial subject of rewards for bankers and traders, the structure of which has been attacked by the Governor of the bank of England, Mervyn King, and many others for its tendency to encourage short-termism and excessive risk-taking.

16th March Personnel Today Shoesmith adds sex discrimination to tribunal claims against Haringey The former social work chief in the Baby P case is fighting a £1m sex discrimination claim against her employer, it emerged today - on top of suing for unfair dismissal and launching a judicial review against her sacking. Sharon Shoesmith is claiming that Haringey Council sacked her because she is a woman. She will argue at an employment tribunal she was unfairly dismissed and treated "less favourably" than a man in similar circumstances.

16th March The Guardian Equal pay is a step too far in recession, says rights body The body responsible for safeguarding equality in the UK will tell the government today that the economic climate is too fragile to impose equal pay reviews on business. With women's pay on average 17% less than men's and the gap increasing, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, formed 18 months ago, will say that the reviews should be excluded from the forthcoming equalities bill when it publishes its recommendations.

17th March Personnel Today Angry redundant construction workers march on Wrekin’s HQ Angry former employees of Wrekin Construction marched on the group's former headquarters in Shifnal, Shropshire yesterday to demand answers as to why they've been made redundant, as news emerged the firm had an £11m ruby listed as an asset. Wrekin went into administration last week, after it blamed RBS bank for not lending it the money needed to meet £40m worth of orders. But end of year accounts showed that in 2007 the company exchanged £11m worth of shares for the ruby.

17th March The Guardian Britain plans to seize control of tax haven The government yesterday revealed extraordinary plans to seize control of a Caribbean tax haven after a report warned there was a "high probability" that the Turks and Caicos Islands are a centre of systematic corruption. The Foreign Office said that parts of the constitution of the British overseas territory would need to be suspended "including those relating to ministerial government and the House of Assembly, initially for two years".

17th March Financial Times MPs criticise Myners over Goodwin pension Lord Myners, City minister, was on Tuesday accused of being “bloody naive” after he admitted waving through Sir Fred Goodwin’s annual £700,000 Royal Bank of Scotland pension without asking how much it would cost or whether he was contractually entitled to it. Under fierce questioning from MPs, Lord Myners blamed the controversy over Sir Fred’s £16m pension pot entirely on the former RBS board, whom he claimed were “in denial” over the scale of the disaster facing the bank.

17th March The Times Bailed-out big spenders brought to account on TMZ The American "tabloid TV" show TMZ biggest scoop in recent weeks has been an exposé of "lavish parties" and a "fancy dinner" sponsored by a bailed-out bank, Northern Trust. Other victims of such media revelations include Ken Lewis, the chief of Bank of America, who was filmed by ABC as he flew back to Charlotte, North Carolina, aboard a $50 million corporate jet. Citigroup, another recipient of billions in bailout funds, scrapped its plan to buy a new private jet when it was reported in January and RBS.

17th March The Independent Voluntary code to make banks pay taxes could be made law A new code of conduct for banks to stop them avoiding billions of pounds in taxes is to be introduced, Alistair Darling announced yesterday. The Chancellor will publish proposals with his Budget on 22 April for a voluntary code to ensure the banks obey "the spirit and letter of the law" on taxation. If they do not comply, he will enshrine the code in law. It is claimed that the state-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland tied up £25bn in tax-avoidance schemes while it was expanding, costing the British and US taxpayers more than £500m in lost revenue.

17th March The Independent Hedge funds seek to head off regulation Three major European and US hedge fund groups yesterday pledged to work towards worldwide best practice standards after G20 ministers outlined plans to regulate the freewheeling sector. The London-based Alternative Investment Management Association and US counterparts the President's Working Group and the Managed Funds Association have written to the Financial Stability Forum to draw together different industry standards, of which the first draft is expected by the end of next month, said Andrew Baker, head of AIMA.

17th March The Independent David Prosser: Loan insurance is another disgraceful banking scandal Not since the personal pension debacle of the early 1990s has there been such a systematic attempt to mislead and mis-sell to consumers. What a shame that it is the financial services industry that is once again at fault. It is rapidly becoming clear that payment protection insurance (PPI) is the latest mega-scandal to have been perpetrated on unwitting consumers by greedy commission-driven salesmen working for banks and insurers, among others. The Independent has repeatedly highlighted the scams going on in the PPI market, but the true scale of mis-selling is unprecedented.

18th March The Financial Times The City watchdog on Wednesday announced a sweeping overhaul of the UK's financial regulatory regime, marking a definitive break with its previous "light-touch" approach and attempting to set a new global standard for the post-crisis world. Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, set out plans to curb banks’ ability to take excessive risks by forcing them to hold more capital and increase their holdings of liquid assets and cash. Mr Brown's spokesman said the proposals "provide a blueprint" for wider reforms.

18th March The Times Anger as Shell reduces renewables investment Royal Dutch Shell provoked a furious backlash from campaigners yesterday when it announced plans to scale back its renewable energy business and focus purely on oil, gas and biofuels. Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive, said that Shell was planning to drop all new investment in wind, solar and hydrogen energy. "I don't expect them to grow much at Shell from here, due to portfolio fit and the returns outlook compared to other opportunities," he said.

18th March The Independent Pilot loses 'racist culture' case against BA A British Airways pilot who blew the whistle on what he called a "canteen culture of racism" among fellow pilots is facing a £4,400 legal bill after losing a battle with the airline at an employment tribunal. Captain Doug Maughan claims he has been continuously victimised by BA since he spoke to The Independent about the casual racism of older pilots working for the company that calls itself "the world's favourite airline".

18th March The Independent Straw scraps plan for 'Big Brother' database Sweeping "Big Brother" plans to give officials and police unprecedented access to the sensitive personal data of millions of people have been scrapped after an outcry from campaigners, doctors and lawyers. Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, formally dropped proposals yesterday in which personal data, from DNA and medical records to tax and other information, would be shared across Whitehall departments, police and other public bodies. Campaigners said the plans in the Coroners and Justice Bill was the first step on the road to a "Big Brother state".

18th March The Independent RBS used 'elaborate ruse' to pay Sir Fred's pension The Royal Bank of Scotland allowed Sir Fred Goodwin to take an upfront lump sum of £2.7m from his £16.6m pension pot and agreed to pay the tax on it, MPs were told yesterday. The City minister Lord Myners, being grilled by a Commons committee about his own role in the pension saga, said the RBS board "bent over backwards" to provide its ousted chief executive with an "outrageous" package. The early payout was worth £4.5m including tax. Sir Fred has now agreed to pay back the money, restoring his annual pension to £555,000 from £703,000, but only on condition that the Inland Revenue does not chase the £1.8m of tax theoretically owed.

18th March The Daily Mail Sacked 'for spurning my sex pest City boss' City high-flier was sacked after spurning the advances of her married boss, a tribunal heard yesterday. Nadine Nassar, 36, claims she was removed from her £136,000-a-year post by finance chief Guy Oppenheim, 53, after enduring a barrage of requests for dates. She said Mr Oppenheim, the chief executive of the London arm of asset management company Notz Stucki, had invited her to join him at his country club, horse riding events and dinner. He also bombarded her with suggestive text messages and late-night phone calls.

19th March The Independent Scandal hospital chief's £45,000 rise The chief executive of Stafford Hospital, which was condemned yesterday for "appalling" emergency care that may have cost hundreds of lives, took a pay rise of up to £45,000 while the hospital was being investigated. Martin Yeates, who was suspended on full pay by the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust on Monday, was told in a letter on 23 May 2008 of the initial findings of the Healthcare Commission's investigation, detailing the chaotic conditions in the A&E department, with unqualified receptionists assessing patients, a shortage of nurses and doctors and a "complete lack of effective governance".

19th March The Financial Times BAA ordered to sell three airports The UK competition watchdog has today ordered BAA to sell three of its seven UK airports, ending its monopoly ownership of the leading airports in London and in Scotland. In the most draconian corporate divestiture ever demanded by the Competition Commission, BAA - a majority-owned subsidiary of Spain's Ferrovial - will be required to sell Gatwick, Stansted and one of either Glasgow or Edinburgh airports within two years.

19th March The Guardian White Lightning to pack less punch as S&N reduces its alcohol level Amid growing concerns about the health and social effects of binge drinking, Scottish & Newcastle has announced plans to reduce the alcohol content in White Lightening from 7.5% to a more modest 5.5%, a little higher than an average-strength lager. Ten years ago S&N reduced the alcohol content from 8.5% and five years ago scrapped its "supersize" three litre bottles, and ended promotions offering an extra 50% free.

19th March The Independent Madoff accountant faces jail term The accountant for Bernard Madoff has become the second person to be charged over Wall Street's biggest swindle. David Friehling faces up to 105 years in jail for criminal fraud, and his family firm, Friehling & Horowitz, also faces civil charges by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr Friehling was paid up to $14,000 a month by Madoff but only "pretended" to audit his business, the legal filings allege. After Madoff turned himself in last December, finance professionals said his use of such a tiny audit firm, based in a suburb of New York, should have been a red flag to investors.

19th March The Independent Tim Nicholson: A green martyr An executive sacked from a giant property company can claim he was unfairly dismissed because of his "philosophical belief in climate change", a judge ruled yesterday. In the first case of its kind, employment judge David Sneath said Tim Nicholson, a former environmental policy officer, could invoke employment law for protection from discrimination against him for his conviction that climate change was the world's most important environmental problem. That conviction amounted to a philosophical belief under the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003, the judge ruled on a point of law at a pre-hearing review of an employment tribunal in London.

20th March The Independent Darling rejects bankers' pay cap Alistair Darling has refused to cap the level of pay and bonuses handed to the bosses of Britain's bailed-out banks because of the dent it would make in Treasury coffers. The Chancellor told MPs yesterday that while the Government was keen to take action on excessive remuneration in the financial sector, he added his view was "double-edged" because a strict ceiling would leave a black hole in tax revenues. "It follows that if people are not paying bonuses then less is coming into the Revenue," he said. "On balance I think it is a good thing that we ensure that the excesses in the banking industry are brought to an end. However it does mean that our revenues do suffer as a result."

20th March The Independent Whistle-blower urges Iraq war public inquiry: Former diplomat tells of 'fundamental failure of transparency' in government A large number of secret documents detailing government blunders over Iraq remain buried in Whitehall, a Foreign Office whistle-blower said yesterday as he called for a full public inquiry into the war. Carne Ross, formerly Britain's top Iraq specialist at the United Nations, protested that the Butler and Hutton inquiries had not fully examined the events leading to military action in 2003.

20th March The Independent The virtual view from the streets of Britain The Google Street View service, recently launched in Britain, which has photo mapped 25 cities in three dimensions, has been condemned for breaching privacy laws. In an attempt to allay criticism, images seen on Google Street View are always several months old. The Information Commissioner's office said it was "satisfied" that the protections installed were "adequate".

20th March The Guardian The new man from the Pru Yesterday it was announced that Tidjane Thiam, a former government minister who survived a military coup in his native Ivory Coast, will take over as chief executive of the Prudential insurance company in October. The announcement of the UKs first black chief executive of a leading British company, comes 12 years after Marjorie Scardino became the first female boss of a top UK plc.

20th March The Guardian Collapsing markets expose 'Ponzimonium' of scam artists Financial authorities in the US are investigating "hundreds" of individuals and entities over suspected Ponzi schemes as turmoil on the global financial market exposes fraudsters, whose ill-gotten gains have remained undetected for years. Chilton said that regulators are uncovering more Ponzi schemes in the wake of high-profile cases such as the Madoff debacle and charges filed against Allen Stanford.

21st March The Guardian Brown backs new Franco-German plan to curb City excesses European leaders, including Gordon Brown, agreed yesterday that a new regime to tame the excesses of capitalism and regulate the markets should be based on the proposals of a former French central banker, ceding the European Central Bank some authority over the City of London for the first time. Europe suffered "not from a lack of rules but from a lack of sanctions" against the financial sector. Penalties would now be applied, said the French president. While the British agreed that the French economist's report represented an acceptable basis for drawing up a new system, Gordon Brown stressed "we also need to ensure that supervision is done at a national level”

22nd March The Guardian RBS faces probe over 'threats' to directors Peer's criminal inquiry warning on bank The scandal engulfing the Royal Bank of Scotland reaches new heights today with serious allegations from a senior Labour politician that at least three of its former non-executive directors may have been intimidated and threatened with the sack for asking searching questions about its financial affairs. The intervention by Foulkes, who is also a member of the Scottish parliament and sits on the Commons security and intelligence committee, comes amid fears that the bank will be exposed as the UK's equivalent of Enron - the US trader that collapsed amid systemic fraud.

23rd March The Guardian Brown plans global scrutiny of tax havens Tax havens will be forced to submit themselves to international scrutiny under plans to tackle their culture of secrecy being proposed by Gordon Brown. Despite a rearguard action by tax havens, the prime minister intends next week's G20 summit to discuss plans for a multilateral exchange of information on "offshore" accounts. G20 finance ministers discussed a crackdown on tax havens at their talks last weekend and Brown has told Britain's international partners that he wants to build on proposals from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to "make sure tax secrecy is a thing of the past".

23rd March The Independent Demand for inquiry over minister's expenses claim for his parents' home Tony McNulty, the Employment minister, is facing demands for an inquiry into his parliamentary expenses after he admitted claiming tens of thousands of pounds for the house where his parents live. Conservatives said Mr McNulty's position was "indefensible" and demanded an investigation into his £60,000 expenses bill for the house in Harrow, north-west London. Mr McNulty insisted he had abided by parliamentary rules, and announced he had stopped claiming the money in January this year. But he called for an overhaul of regulations that allow outer-London MPs to recoup thousands of pounds a year for second homes in easy commuting distance of Westminster.

23rd March Financial Times Banker says nationality cost him job A City banker is suing one of Canada’s biggest financial institutions for making him redundant, allegedly because he is not Canadian, in one of the more unusual cases to emerge from the credit crunch. Achim Beck, a German national, claims that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) had a secret policy of favouring “Canada-connected” employees when making job cuts. The case, due to come before a UK employment tribunal earlier this month, has been delayed by a row over CIBC’s refusal to disclose internal documents that Mr Beck alleges lend support to his claim.

23rd March Financial Times Company donors propose big cuts in giving British corporate philanthropy is expected to fall by more than a third over the next year as a result of the financial downturn, according to a poll of 450 business leaders released today. The survey, carried out by YouGovStone, shows that businesses are planning a 34% reduction in charity donations. This equates to a drop of almost £500 million, based on UK corporations giving an average of £1.4 billion a year. Dax Lovegrove, head of business and industry relations at WWF UK, said that businesses were already becoming more discerning about how to distribute funds during straitened times.

23rd March Financial Times Watchdog looks at RBS 'pressure' on non-execs The UK financial regulator is to look at whether there was any intimidation of non-executive directors at Royal Bank of Scotland before it was bailed out by taxpayers. Lord Foulkes, the Labour politician, has asked the Financial Services Authority to look at whether "any knowingly false statements were made or prospectuses issued which could have led potential investors or depositors to believe the position was more favourable than the board knew it to be".

23rd March The Independent Quarter of UK's databases are 'illegal' One in four of the major government databases is almost certainly illegal and should be scrapped, according to a report by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. The national DNA database, the proposed national identity database and the ContactPoint system, which will hold records of all children in England, are among the systems singled out for fundamental reform or abolition. Researchers called for 11 systems assessed as "almost certainly illegal" under human rights or data protection law to be scrapped or substantially redesigned.

24th March Personnel Today Unfair dismissal claims up by over 6,000 in year to February Unfair dismissal claims have shot up over the past year and are on track to overtake equal pay as the most frequently lodged claim, exclusive data obtained by Personnel Today's sister publication XpertHR can reveal. Ahead of official statistics confirming the number of claims accepted for 2008-9, expected later this year, data seen by XpertHR shows that the provisional number of unfair dismissal tribunal claims accepted from April 2008 to February 2009 has risen to 47,155, up from 40,941 the previous year.

24th March The Guardian Barclays pledges key changes on pay Barclays is promising to change the way its 151,000 staff are paid under a sweeping review of remuneration policies that will be unveiled at next month's annual meeting. Although the bank failed to complete its pay review in time for the publication of the annual report today, it has already forced 15,000 of its most senior staff to spread their pay out over a number of years and required executives to increase the number of shares they own.

24th March The Financial Times Companies face bribery crackdown Businesses that turn a blind eye to bribery overseas will face the unprecedented threat of prosecution under reforms to be unveiled today in response to heavy criticism of Britain's record on tackling corporate graft. The Ministry of Justice proposals would mean companies could be prosecuted not just for being actively corrupt but for negligently failing to prevent it, Whitehall sources said.

25th March The Independent Now 'Big Brother' targets Facebook Millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a "Big Brother" database. Ministers faced a civil liberties outcry last night over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens. The idea to police MySpace, Bebo and Facebook comes on top of plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit made by everyone in the United Kingdom.

25th March The Independent More women suffering from stress problems Women's mental health is deteriorating as increasing numbers seek help from psychiatrists, new figures show. The burdens of keeping a job, raising children and looking after elderly parents are driving more than ever before to the edge of a nervous breakdown, experts say. The number of women referred to NHS specialist psychiatric services is rising faster than among men. Women accounted for more than half (56 per cent) of the 1.2 million referrals for outpatient and inpatient treatment last year, and the gap between the sexes is widening. The total needing specialist psychiatric help was up 3.4 per cent on the previous year but women accounted for 70 per cent of this growth in demand, shows a report from the NHS Information Centre.

25th March Financial Times Letter reveals AIG paid bonuses early AIG paid more than $40m in controversial retention bonuses to staff at its troubled financial unit in December, three months ahead of schedule, according to the resignation letter of an executive at the insurance group. News of the decision to pay bonuses of $165m to staff at AIG sparked political outrage and protests in the US Congress, after the insurer was bailed out with $173bn of public money last year. Before the publication of the letter, momentum on draconian legislation to claw back bonuses had begun to slow.

25th March Financial Times Ambiguous moral teachings of the CAC 40 president When Nicolas Sarkozy came to power, his leftwing opponents did not hesitate to call him the president of the CAC 40 index. After all, the French president was considered to be particularly friendly to big business. He counted as his friends many of the heads of France’s blue-chip companies. On Tuesday night he gave a – now regular – public lecture, on corporate ethics. The well-rehearsed message is full of fine moral and ethical principles. The essential point is that business leaders must lead by example and be exemplary in their behaviour. But the purple rhetoric is also a bit short on substance. And there are limits to this moral corporate crusade.

25th March The Independent Cameron argues for BoE to take regulatory lead David Cameron yesterday risked putting the Conservative Party on an apparent collision course with the Financial Services Authority when he pledged to return power to the Bank of England, just as the FSA chairman, Lord Turner, argued for the existing financial regulator to retain the lead. "For too long, our market has been governed by the destructive idea that you can take what you get, however you can get it. We need to change the culture in the City so people understand they don't just have a responsibility to themselves – but to society, too."

25th March Financial Times Clampdown on greenwash Companies will face tougher tests when advertising their green credentials, under proposals released on Thursday. The Committee of Advertising Practice, the industry’s self-regulator, proposes to expand the environmental and social responsibility sections of the broadcast advertising code, to “prevent marketers from exaggerating the environmental benefits of their products”. Complaints about greenwashing have risen sharply, reflecting the increased popularity of environmental claims in advertisements. In 2006, the Advertising Standards Authority received approximately 117 complaints about 83 advertisements, rising to 561 complaints about 410 advertisements in 2007.

25th March The Independent Geithner calls for tougher global regulation of giant financial companies New regulation to tame and protect the financial system should be co-ordinated on a global basis, the US Treasury Secretary said yesterday. Tim Geithner declared that the lesson of the AIG débâcle was that the US needed much tougher oversight of giant financial firms and ways to identify problems that put the financial system at risk, but that national efforts would be undermined unless other countries also tighten the rules.

26th March The Independent Abortion clinics to advertise on television Television ads for abortions will be allowed for the first time under the biggest shake-up of advertising rules for 50 years to be announced today. In a move which the advertising watchdog acknowledges will offend members of the public, ads for pregnancy advisory services will be allowed in prime-time evening slots on the major channels: ITV, Channel 4, Sky and other broadcasters. Britain's biggest independent pregnancy advisory service, whose clinicians perform abortions as well, said it would immediately consider running ads.

26th March The Independent Goodwin attack is 'only the beginning' Security at the homes of current and former senior executives at the Royal Bank of Scotland was being tightened yesterday after vandals staged a pre-dawn attack on the Edinburgh home of Sir Fred Goodwin and said it was "just the beginning" of a campaign against wealthy financiers. The £3m Victorian villa belonging to the former RBS chief executive in the well-heeled suburb of Morningside was left with metre-wide holes in four ground-floor windows after an unknown number of attackers struck at 4.35am. A £102,000 black Mercedes S600 parked on the drive also had its side windows and windscreen smashed.

26th March Financial Times Offshore account holders offered tax deal Thousands of British investors with up to £3bn stashed in secret Liechtenstein bank accounts will be asked to come forward voluntarily under a deal to be negotiated next week that could be the first of many worldwide. Lawyers said the Liechtenstein plan, discussed behind closed doors with the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, could serve as an international model for other tax havens seeking to avoid an OECD blacklist.

26th March Financial Times Network Rail rapped on major line closures Network Rail has been sharply dressed down by Lord Adonis, transport minister, for simultaneously closing both main railway lines linking London to Scotland and northern England over the past two weekends. Lord Adonis has written to Iain Coucher, chief executive of the track operator, accusing Network Rail of “serious failure to take account of passenger interests” and making “misleading” promises. In the letter, which has been seen by the Financial Times, Lord Adonis demanded an urgent meeting between Network Rail, the Office of Rail Regulation, Passenger Focus, the rail consumer watchdog, and three operators to prevent further disruptions.