Friday newspaper round-up: Odey, Royal Mail, Barclays

Football Index, the self-styled “football stock market”, appeared to be heading into administration on Thursday evening, five days after a massive crash on its market that left its customers with tens of millions of pounds trapped in its platform. If the business collapses, it will be the biggest failure of any British betting company, possibly leaving individual customers facing potential losses of £200,000 or more. A statement posted on the Football Index website on Thursday evening said that “after a difficult and challenging week” for its users, a decision had been taken “to suspend the platform”. - Guardian

The multimillionaire hedge fund manager Crispin Odey has been found not guilty of an “octopus”-like assault against a junior female banker at his London home. The 62-year-old father-of-three was accused of lunging at the woman after inviting her to his house in Chelsea following a work meeting in 1998, while his pregnant wife was away. Prosecutors alleged that Odey had showered and put on a robe before putting his hand down her shirt and up her skirt during the incident. - Guardian

Royal Mail is to launch Sunday parcel deliveries nationwide for the first time in its 500-year history in a bid to take on Amazon. Parcels will be delivered across the country seven days a week from next month as the postal service responds to a surge in online shopping during the pandemic. The Sunday parcels service will be made available to retailers so that customers can specifically request a delivery on the last day of the week. - Telegraph

Barclays has racked up a £33m legal bill fending off legal action by financier Amanda Staveley in one of the most high-profile court cases to come out of the financial crisis. The lender's fees were revealed in a High Court hearing over who should pay costs, after Barclays beat back a £600m lawsuit launched by Ms Staveley over a 2008 rescue deal. Ms Staveley's side spent £20m on fees. - Telegraph

Virgin Active’s British business will get an extra £45 million in funding from the fitness chain’s shareholders as part of a restructuring, Brait, the investment company that is its majority owner, said yesterday. Virgin Active Europe has been hit badly by the pandemic, with government-imposed shutdowns forcing the temporary closure of gyms in all the countries in which it operates. The company took steps to preserve cash, such as rent reductions in Italy, Australia, Thailand, Singapore and to a lesser extent the UK. - The Times