City View exclusive: Foreign Affairs Committee chief labels Chinese ambassador ‘bully’ July 30, 2020 The chair of the Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee has called China’s ambassador to the UK a “bully”, after the Beijing official accused Britain of cooking up “lies and slander” about the country and of getting too involved in its internal affairs. Speaking on City A.M.‘s daily podcast The City View, Tom Tugendhat said China’s recent [...]
PwC refuses to audit miner Petropavlovsk amid board room battle July 28, 2020 Big Four auditor PwC has said that it will not work with gold miner Petropavlovsk due to concerns over corporate governance at the FTSE 250 firm. Since early July, the Russian focused miner has been gripped by infighting, with two rival groups of shareholders battling for control of the company. At the firm’s last board [...]
Cairn Energy sells Senegal stakes to Lukoil for $400m July 27, 2020 Oil explorer Cairn Energy has sold its entire stake in a number of oil fields off the coast of Senegal to Russian firm Lukoil for $400m (£310m). The firm said it would return “at least” $250m to shareholders as part of a special dividend. Shares in the FTSE 250 firm shot up 7.4 per cent [...]
Brexit: UK-EU free trade deal ‘now unlikely’ after last round of talks July 23, 2020 It is “now unlikely” the UK and EU will agree to a free trade deal before the 31 December deadline, according to the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier. UK chief negotiator David Frost also said a no trade deal exit from the EU’s single market and customs union was a real possibility now, but that [...]
Brexit: No progress expected in latest round of UK-EU trade talks July 23, 2020 UK and EU negotiators are expected to announce today that no significant progress had been made in the latest round of Brexit trade deal negotiations. Boris Johnson last month said he wanted the framework of free trade deal agreed between the UK and EU by July, however it looks like this deadline will pass with [...]
Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun arrested for second time July 22, 2020 The former chief executive of Wirecard has been rearrested as Munich prosecutors accuse him of committing a multiyear fraud. Markus Braun stepped down from the company last month after being accused of misrepresenting the payments company’s accounts and of market manipulation by falsifying income from transactions with so-called third-party acquirers. The Financial Times reported prosecutors [...]
Labour calls for review of Russia Today’s UK TV licence July 22, 2020 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for state-backed broadcaster Russia Today (RT) to have its TV licence reviewed on the back of fresh warnings about Kremlin interference in the UK. Starmer called on Boris Johnson at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) to “stop the spread of Kremlin-backed disinformation”, adding that the UK’s High Court [...]
Grant Shapps says there is ‘no evidence’ of Russian Brexit interference July 22, 2020 Transport secretary Grant Shapps has said there is no evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit vote and therefore the UK secret services did not need to investigate the allegations. Shapps’s statement came the day after lawmakers finally released the delayed Russia report. It said the government failed to investigate possible Russian interference in [...]
Russia report: What were the key findings? July 21, 2020 A long-awited and long-delayed parliamentary report into Russia’s interference in UK politics was finally released today by Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). The report was presented at a press conference by new committee chair, and now independent MP, Julian Lewis, Labour MP Kevan Jones and SNP MP Stewart Hosie. While the report did not [...]
Russia report: Russian influence in UK politics is ‘new normal’ July 21, 2020 Russian influence in UK politics has been described as the “new normal” in Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC)’s long-awaited Russia report. The report said that successive governments “welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’” and “connections at the highest [...]