Friday newspaper round-up: SFO, EU, BP

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been forced to ask the government for an additional £26.5m because of ongoing fraud investigations into Barclays, Rolls-Royce and Libor rigging, the Guardian reported on Friday.

SFO chief David Green said that the agency was handling the “most demanding caseload the SFO has ever shouldered”.

“We have blockbuster or ringfenced funding to protect our most expensive investigations," Green said.

"The arrangement recognises that the SFO is demand-led and honours the pledge that on my watch the SFO will never turn down any investigation simply on grounds of cost. The mechanism is not perfect, but it does the job.”

The European Union (EU) has told Britain to pay an extra €2.1bn to the EU budget over the next couple of weeks, as its economy performed better than other EU nations since 1995, the Financial Times reported.

To compensate for its relative prosperity over the last two decades, the UK will have to make a top-up payment by 1 December, which amounts to almost a fifth of the country’s net contribution last year, while France will receive a €1bn refund.

“It’s not acceptable to just change the fees for previous years and demand them back at a moment’s notice," a Downing Street source said.

Irish drinks company C&C has seen an offer for Spirit Pubs Group rejected late on Thursday, the Daily Telegraph reported.

C&C, best known for producing Magners cider as well as manufacturing Bulmers in Ireland and Tennent’s lager, is understood to have approached Spirit with a 115p per share offer, higher than Greene King’s planned £723m takeover.

On Monday, Spirit announced that it would recommend a proposed 109.5p offer from Greene King, whose brands include Loch Fyne and Hungry Horse, having previously rejected a 100p per share approach on 15 September.

Spirit confirmed late on Thursday that it had rejected C&C’s offer.

Oil major BP announced its first North Sea oil discovery since 2011 yesterday, which may hold 50m barrels of crude. Initial tests generated a flow rate of 5,350 barrels a day, which suggests the reservoir is sufficiently large for commercial exploitation. The company’s regional president described it as a perfect example of the need for collaboration and increased exploration so as to realise the remaining potential of the North Sea.

In parallel the firm announced a significant discovery in the Gulf of Mexico alongside Chevron, The Times reports.

Britain is right the EU has finally conceded, a year after Westminster’s Business Taskforce suggested 30 ways the EU could make it easier for UK companies to operate. Well, on at least six of those points on how to cut red tape, and they have already been adopted. Many of the rest have seen some support from the EU however. In exchange, Europe has introduced 1,000 new financial regulations, according to The Daily Telegraph.