Wednesday newspaper round-up: Wonga, Zantac, Barclays execs

Customers who were mis-sold loans by the collapsed payday lender Wonga are expected to receive less than 10% of what they are owed in compensation after administrators revealed that only £41m will be put aside for claimants. Administrators for Wonga, which collapsed last year, also revealed that they had scrapped plans to sell its loan book, saying there were doubts that bidders met the criteria, including properly approaching customers for debt payments on outstanding loans. – Guardian

GlaxoSmithKline is recalling the popular heartburn medicine Zantac in all markets, days after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found “unacceptable” levels of probable cancer-causing impurity in the drug. Zantac, also sold generically as ranitidine, is the latest drug in which cancer-causing impurities have been found. Regulators have been recalling some blood pressure and heart failure medicines since last year. - Guardian

The European Commission has issued a stark warning to EU finance ministers, calling for concerted fiscal stimulus to head off a recession and avert a protracted downturn before it is too late. A briefing document for tomorrow's Eurogroup meeting said the twin shocks of a no-deal Brexit and US car tariffs of 25pc days later risks compounding the current global trade slump and could test the limits of eurozone policy. – Telegraph

Britain has slipped down the rankings of the most competitive economies, but has clung on to a place in the top ten. The World Economic Forum’s annual global competitiveness report pushed the UK down from eighth to ninth, leaving it fifth in Europe behind the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. In 2016, the year of the referendum vote, the UK ranked seventh overall. – The Times

Three former Barclays executives lied to the market by hiding £322 million in extra fees that the bank paid to Qatar in return for vital funding during the global credit crisis, a court was told. The case, one of the most high-profile brought by the Serious Fraud Office, centres on alleged undisclosed payments to Qatar as Barclays raised £11.2 billion from investors in June and October 2008 to avoid having to be bailed out by the state. – The Times