Monday newspaper round-up: Brexit bribes, Huawei, Berenberg, Metro Bank
Left-behind towns in England are to get a £1.6bn funding boost as part of a package of measures to win support for Theresa May’s Brexit deal among Labour MPs, who said the new cash would not buy their votes. Labour MPs including Lisa Nandy and Gareth Snell who have signalled they might back May’s deal criticised the approach and said the cash would do little to tackle the effects of austerity. – Guardian
Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese technology company Huawei, is suing the Canadian government, its border agency and the national police force over her high-profile detention. Meng claims they detained, searched and interrogated her before telling her she was under arrest. Lawyers for Meng said on Sunday they had filed a notice of civil claim in the British Columbia supreme court. Canada arrested Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, at the request of the US on 1 December at Vancouver airport. US prosecutors will accuse her of misleading banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran. – Guardian
The offshore wind industry is poised to clinch a long-awaited Government deal that could double the number of turbines in UK waters. After more than a year of negotiations between officials and industry leaders a so-called “sector deal” is expected to emerge later this week detailing a new partnership to help make the most of Britain’s lead in offshore wind power. – Telegraph
When Persimmon’s then-boss Jeff Fairburn agreed to do a local TV news interview in front of a towering pile of bricks outside the booming housebuilder’s factory in Yorkshire last October he probably didn’t realise he was about to become a viral hit. But after he refused to answer a question about his record-breaking £100m bonus, the sight of him storming off in a huff was beamed to television screens and Twitter feeds up and down the country. – Telegraph
One of Germany’s most powerful bankers has been accused of involvement in a suspected multimillion-euro insider trading scandal. Prosecutors believe that a former colleague and an acquaintance of Hendrik Riehmer, joint managing partner of Berenberg bank, made €3.2 million in profit from their advance knowledge of the sale of shares in a shipping company. Officials froze assets worth more than €20 million at the weekend after searching Mr Riehmer’s villa in Hamburg, the bank’s headquarters and the offices of a property company in the city. – The Times
Metro Bank may have breached the terms of a competition for millions of pounds of extra cash to expand business banking by using it for previously stated business plans. The high street lender won a grant worth £120 million to improve services for small business, part of £280 million of awards allocated for the purpose last month. It said that the money would help it to open 30 branches in the North, among other improvements. – The Times