Tuesday newspaper round-up: Trump tax warning, oil pipeline, Comcast, wages

Philip Hammond has joined other EU treasury ministers in warning President Trump about tax plans that they say would breach international agreements and hammer the City of London. In a letter they express “significant concerns” that the Trump administration’s tax plans would have a “major distortive impact on international trade”. - The Times

The closure of a major North Sea pipeline after a crack was discovered will have wide-reaching implications for the oil and gas industry, experts have said. They said even a closure of a few weeks would have significant impacts on the industry. The price of Brent, the international benchmark, briefly rose to a two-year high of above $65 (£47) a barrel after the announcement, up from $63 at the start of the day. - Guardian

More than a quarter of FTSE 100 chairmen fall foul of plans to shake-up British boardrooms so they are not full of the same old faces. Reforms to the corporate governance code proposed by the Financial Reporting Council state that chairmen should not serve more than nine years on the board, with research by governance analysts Manifest finding more than 90 major UK-based companies have chairmen who have been on the board for longer than this – including 27 in the FTSE 100 index. - Mail

Social media companies should face fines or prosecution for failing to remove racist, extremist or child sex abuse content, an influential committee will tell the government tomorrow. Theresa May’s independent ethics watchdog will recommend laws to shift the liability for illegal content on to social media firms, which would recast the companies as publishers and stop them describing themselves as platforms with no control over the millions of messages and videos that they host. - The Times

Comcast said it is no longer looking to buy 21st Century Fox's assets, in yet another sign that a deal between Fox and Disney is nearing completion. Comcast-owned CNBC first reported the cable giant's interest in the block of assets, specifically Fox's 39pc stake in Sky, its film studio and a significant portion of its TV assets, early last month, just weeks after it emerged that Disney had been in talks with Fox over the same assets. - Telegraph

Rogue banks, insurers and investment firms have been hit with a tenfold increase in fines by the City watchdog. The Financial Conduct Authority has doled out £229.4million of penalties this year, up from £22.2million in 2016. - Mail

Pension guardians from the City watchdog are investigating 11 financial advisers which targeting vulnerable savers in the British Steel scheme. The scheme is being restructured as part of a deal to save plants at Port Talbot in South Wales and Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, with members facing cuts to their pay-outs. - Mail

British workers are in line for a 0.5pc pay squeeze next year as inflation stays ahead of earnings – making the UK the worst performing developed economy in 2018. Real pay is set to grow by 2pc in Ireland, 1.8pc in Italy, 1pc in the US, 0.8pc in Germany and 0.7pc in France, according to recruitment group Korn Ferry’s study of firms employing 20m workers across 97 countries. - Telegraph

Britain’s employers are the most pessimistic about hiring staff than at any time in five years, underscoring fears over the number of new jobs available as the country prepares to leave the EU. A poll of 2,102 employers across nine different industry sectors found a net balance of just 4% were planning to increase staff levels rather than make cuts in the final months of the year. - Guardian

Train travellers are being “misled” by rail companies that sell tickets for journeys that they know will be disrupted by engineering work. Research by Transport Focus, the passenger watchdog, found 14,806 errors in the database used to book tickets in the run-up to Christmas when many trains are cancelled, rerouted or replaced by buses. - The Times

Ryanair flights to and from Dublin could be disrupted by strikes over Christmas after pilots based in Ireland voted for industrial action. Europe’s biggest short-haul airline now faces disruption in key European markets following ballots for action by pilots in Italy and Portugal over the past week. - Guardian

Parts of the countryside are being needlessly sacrificed to build homes because thousands of small plots of previously developed land are being overlooked by councils, a study has found. Sites with room for almost 200,000 homes are missing from official registers of brownfield, according to research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). These include former builders’ yards, disused warehouses and blocks of garages no longer used for parking. - The Times

A scandal over suspected accounting fraud at Steinhoff International intensified yesterday when Johannesburg’s stock exchange operator began an investigation into whether the South African retail conglomerate may have broken disclosure rules. The Johannesburg exchange said that it would examine whether Steinhoff, which in 2011 embarked on a debt-fuelled overseas acquisition spree that added chains including Poundland, Bensons for Beds and Harveys in Britain, had violated any of its listing requirements. - The Times

London and the surrounding area will keep on booming as Britain’s richest corners pull further ahead of the rest of the country in coming years. More jobs will be created in London than in other regions between now and 2020, and gross value added – a measure of economic growth – will accelerate in the capital even as it slows elsewhere, according to forecasts from EY. - Telegraph

Manufacturers are demanding an early role in trade deal negotiations as Britain prepares to quit the European Union in an attempt to avoid pitfalls that only become apparent later. EEF, the trade body for the UK’s industrial sector, made the call for business to be involved in talks about both the transition and long-term arrangements. - Telegraph

Ministers missed out on tens of millions extra on the sale of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) in August, according to the spending watchdog. The National Audit Office said the £1.6bn paid in cash by the Australian bank Macquarie came in at the low end of the government’s valuation. Macquarie agreed to spend a further £500m to cover the bank’s existing commitments. - Guardian

More than 360 care homes will fall into the hands of a secretive American hedge-fund boss who specialises in snapping up struggling businesses. Tycoon Spencer Haber has over the last two years bought up debt from the struggling Four Seasons care home chain, which is home to 17,000 vulnerable and elderly residents and looks likely to take over the firm outright. - Mail