Friday newspaper round-up: Brexit, O2, Huawei, Lyft
Theresa May’s plans for a crackdown on immigration after Brexit could cause UK companies to go bust and spark job losses across the country, the head of Britain’s biggest business lobby group has warned. Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said the measures aimed at restricting low-skilled immigration could have unintended consequences, and warned the prime minister against using “derogatory terms” about EU migrants working in Britain. – Guardian
Cabinet ministers including Philip Hammond and Greg Clark ramped up their opposition to a no-deal Brexit on Thursday, as Theresa May convened a meeting in Downing Street with ministers panicked about the extent of the parliamentary rebellion against her plan. Soft Brexiters such as Hammond, the chancellor, Clark, the business secretary, and David Gauke, the justice secretary, have expressed serious alarm about the mounting prospect of no deal if the vote falls next Tuesday. – Guardian
Mobile network O2 says its services have been restored after a technical fault left millions of customers unable to get online. The company said it would be closely monitoring data services over the coming days and promised to carry out a review to understand what went wrong. – Telegraph
As Donald Trump and Xi Jinping tucked into sirloin steaks and goat’s milk ricotta last Saturday night at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, 7,000 miles away, in windy Vancouver, the US administration was making its move. While Meng Wanzhou was travelling through the Canadian airport for a connecting flight, she was seized by local officials. The US Department of Justice had requested the Canadians arrest the chief financial officer of Huawei, the controversial Chinese telecom giant, for extradition to the US over allegations she had violated sanctions on Iran. – Telegraph
The chief executive of a disability car scheme backed by the taxpayer will receive a near £2 million bonus that was not fully made public, according to a critical report from parliament’s spending watchdog. Mike Betts, who since 2003 has been chief executive of Motability Operations, a company that operates a scheme providing cars for disabled drivers, benefited from a five-year incentive scheme, the full value of which had “not previously been disclosed”, according to the National Audit Office. – The Times
The taxi ride-hailing app Lyft has filed key documents for a multibillion-dollar stock market float, beating its bigger rival Uber Technologies in the race to become the next tech start-up to launch an IPO. Lyft is expected to debut on the stock market in March or April but has not specified the number of shares it is selling or the price range for the offering. The details were revealed in a confidential filing it made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. – The Times