Monday newspaper round-up: Brexit, BT, AstraZeneca
Downing Street fears that Michel Barnier has lost his grip on the fishing negotiations, throwing doubt over Boris Johnson’s hopes of a summer of swift and definitive progress towards a trade and security deal with the EU. The bloc’s chief negotiator had been expected to present a compromise proposal on access to British waters during the talks last week but was blocked at the last minute by member states with large fishing communities. – Guardian
One of Britain's top bankers has urged the Treasury to rapidly take responsibility for tens of billions of pounds of toxic business loans as lenders seek to free themselves of coronavirus debt. Lloyds chairman Norman Blackwell, a former policy chief to Margaret Thatcher and John Major, called on the government to set up a vehicle that will take on debts from some companies unable to repay their state-backed coronavirus loans. – Telegraph
Royal Bank of Scotland delayed a £20m deal to import personal protective equipment by freezing the account of a pub where David Cameron and Xi Jinping, China’s president, once shared a pint. The Plough at Cadsden was forced to shut during the pandemic but its Chinese owners were using their contacts to import PPE during the crisis. The pub launched a legal action in the High Court after RBS froze its bank account in April without explanation. – Telegraph
The external auditor of BT has issued an “adverse opinion” on the company’s internal financial reporting controls in a fresh blow to its accounting credibility. KPMG wrote in a letter that BT “did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of March 31, 2020 [the end of its financial year] because of . . . material weaknesses related to general IT controls and risk assessments”. – The Times
Astrazeneca has abandoned a tentative interest in combining with an American rival behind remdesivir, the coronavirus treatment. The London-listed, Cambridge-based pharmaceuticals company made a preliminary approach to Gilead Sciences last month, according to Bloomberg. – The Times