Friday newspaper round-up: Premier League, Talktalk, Carillion challenge, Brexit
Facebook, Google and Netflix are not submitting bids for the next round of Premier League TV rights, with most analysts believing Sky and BT will remain the major players. It had been thought the Silicon Valley tech giants could intervene and cause a price hike from the £5.1bn Sky and BT combined paid in 2015 but the Guardian understands they are not yet ready to get involved in live sport rights in the UK. - Guardian
Senior officials in the Qatari government are set to challenge the evidence of Carillion directors who at parliamentary hearings this week blamed the Gulf state for the construction company’s demise. Their intervention comes as the official receiver laid off another 101 Carillion workers, taking total job losses since the government put the business into compulsory liquidation three weeks ago to 930. - The Times
Newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has agreed a near-£200m deal to buy a string of Northern & Shell titles including the Daily Express and Daily Star. The deal will see the publisher of the Daily Mirror snap up national newspaper titles the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday and three celebrity magazines OK!, New! and Star. - Telegraph
Talktalk defied calls from at least one heavyweight shareholder on Wednesday evening not to go ahead with yesterday’s capital-raising as a row erupted over whether existing investors were being unfairly treated. Critics of the deal said Talktalk and its advisers Barclays and Deutsche Bank were flouting one of the sacred tenets of City behaviour by failing to give existing shareholders first option of buying new shares on offer, a principle known as pre-emption rights. - The Times
British drivers may need new licences and registration certificates to travel in Europe after Brexit under contingency plans being drawn up by the government that experts warn would create “extremely labour-intensive” extra red tape. In the first of a series of steps to deal with the possibility of failing to reach a deal with the EU, the UK is signing up to a United Nations convention on road traffic, which theoretically also affects zebra crossings and parking. - Guardian
Japan has issued a stark warning to the British government over the risks Brexit poses to the county’s businesses operating in the UK. Speaking after a Downing Street summit with 19 leaders from Japan’s biggest businesses with operations in the UK, the country’s ambassador raised the prospect of them pulling out of Britain. - Telegraph
The European parliament has voted to launch an inquiry into financial crime, tax evasion and tax avoidance, saying the Paradise Papers had revealed the “unfinished work” needed to secure fair taxation. A special committee of 45 MEPs, provisionally entitled 'Taxe 3' in its terms of reference, will spend a year investigating issues including those raised in the leak of data from the offshore law firm Appleby. - Guardian
Mark Carney has urged the government to publish the assumptions behind its leaked Brexit impact assessments as he mounted a robust defence of the Bank of England’s forecasts. The governor said it was in the government’s interests to be as transparent about its assessments as possible “so that there is as informed a debate as possible”. He pledged to release the assumptions behind the Bank’s forecasts when they are updated after the terms of the UK’s new relationship with the European Union are agreed. - The Times
Business needs a new relationship with society and must restrict executive pay, a senior Labour MP believes. Chuka Umunna, the former shadow business secretary, called on companies to adopt pay structures that require senior employees to hold onto equity for longer and said there should be a Swedish-style system of large shareholders serving on committees that recommend pay policies. - The Times
One of Europe’s most senior central bankers has said that virtual currencies such as bitcoin should be the focus of regulators despite their relatively small size because of the potential risk they pose. Yves Mersch, a member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, told a meeting in London yesterday that cryptocurrencies were “not money” and that the authorities urgently needed to manage the threat they presented to the wider financial system. - The Times
The Welsh technology company behind a key part of Apple’s new iPhone has been accused of “egregious” account manipulation by a notorious short seller, in the latest allegation of impropriety to be levelled at it. IQE, whose compound semiconductor technology is part of the iPhone X’s facial recognition sensors, fell 11% on Thursday when Muddy Waters Research said the company may be deceiving investors. - Telegraph
BT’s mobile arm EE is to offer broadband to more than half a million of Britain’s most remote homes, in a sign of increasing convergence of the telecoms giant’s fixed line and wireless services. A new antenna will be fitted on the outside of subscriber properties to secure a reliable connection for EE’s 4G network in rural areas where thick stone walls can block mobile signals indoors. A router connected to the antenna will beam a Wi-Fi signal throughout the home. -
Turnaround firms are circling the stricken Toys R Us chain as the retailer’s precarious financial position puts more than 3,000 high street jobs at risk. Last year the UK subsidiary of the bankrupt US chain won a stay of execution after landlords took back the keys to 26 shops and accepted less rent for those that stayed open. - Guardian
Nine hundred jobs are under threat at three poultry plants belonging to 2 Sisters Food Group, the UK’s largest supplier of supermarket chicken, which has been dogged by a controversy over food standards. The potential closure of two of the firm’s West Midlands factories in Smethwick and Wolverhampton, plus a third in Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, follow a nightmare year for the company, which has included the closing of a further site in Smethwick as well as a Guardian and ITV undercover investigation that prompted production to be suspended for five weeks last autumn at the group’s West Bromwich plant. - Guardian
The government has launched a crackdown on unpaid internships, sending more than 550 warning letters to companies and setting up enforcement teams to tackle repeat offenders. HM Revenue & Customs is expected to target sectors such as media, the performing arts and law and accountancy firms, which have a reputation for using unpaid interns. - Guardian