Youngs banned for knee incident April 2, 2012 RUGBY UNION: Leicester and England scrum-half Ben Youngs has been banned for one week for striking London Irish’s Jamie Gibson with his knee last month. The Rugby Football Union’s disciplinary panel backdated the punishment, meaning Youngs is free to play again from Thursday.
Avon lady spurns her $10bn suitor April 2, 2012 COSMETICS giant Avon has shunned a $10bn offer from its upstart European rival Coty, it emerged yesterday. The world’s biggest direct sales company, which is famous for its army of door-to-door sales representatives known as Avon Ladies, dismissed the offer as “opportunistic” after Coty revealed that it had been trying to lure the board into [...]
Shares sink as Groupon goes into red April 2, 2012 GROUPON’S stock tumbled 17 per cent yesterday as the company was forced to re-issue its quarterly results following a deluge of disgruntled customers demanding a refund on bargain vouchers purchased online. The discount deals website admitted to the US financial regulator that it was a further $22.6m (£14.10m) in the red in addition to the [...]
Royal Bank of Canada hit by CFTC’s futures lawsuit April 2, 2012 THE US futures regulator yesterday accused the Royal Bank of Canada of running a “massive” multi-hundred-million-dollar trading scheme to gain lucrative Canadian tax benefits. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s civil lawsuit alleges that a small group of senior RBC employees created and managed a “wash trading” strategy in which they improperly coordinated to allow subsidiaries of [...]
We need peace and free trade – not crazed war-mongering April 2, 2012 PEACE and prosperity, fuelled by free trade and open markets: that is what the world needs. In the main, that is what it is getting, to a degree unprecedented in modern history and fuelled by modern communications. So it is terribly disappointing that the Argentine government seems so desperate to inflame tensions between itself and [...]
Hedgies go to war with EU’s Michel Barnier April 2, 2012 HEDGE funds have called on Europe to clear up how controversial new rules governing the sector will be enforced, but their comments have been dismissed by EU officials as special pleading. The Alternative Investment Mangement Association said that a new directive drafted by the European Commission appears to “significantly and substantially diverge” from the advice of [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 2, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES OBAMA WIDENS LEAD AS REPUBLICAN SOCIAL DEBATE ALIENATES WOMEN Barack Obama has opened a large lead over Mitt Romney among women voters arfter the recent conservative debate in the US over contraception, according to a new poll. Obama has struggled to win voters’ trust on the economy. DATA WATCHDOG JOINS ROW OVER EMAIL [...]
Fuel tanker talks due tomorrow April 2, 2012 Talks to head off a threatened strike by British fuel tanker drivers will take place tomorrow, mediation body Acas said yesterday, over a dispute which has led to criticism of the government and already prompted panic-buying by motorists. The Unite union, which represents the 2,000 drivers who have voted for a strike, and the seven [...]
Murdoch faces call for new chair April 2, 2012 News Corp faces a call to appoint an independent board chairman on concerns Rupert Murdoch’s media company needs to pursue more reforms to deal with its phone-hacking scandal. The proxy proposal, filed by Christian Brothers Investment Services, is likely to fan an ongoing controversy over governance at the company. Although unlikely to get a majority [...]
Recession fears brushed off by UK businesses April 2, 2012 FEARS of a technical recession have eased as a couple of upbeat business surveys suggest that the UK economy grew in the opening three months of the year. The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) announced this morning that they expect GDP expansion of 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, reversing the knock-back [...]
