One and a half million households, many of them poor families or pensioners, are not on the correct energy tariff for their consumption says the Daily Mail’s This Is Money. The big six power giants – British Gas, EDF, Eon, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE – are overcharging by a net amount of £440 million per year, the paper says. Frank Field MP, who chairs the Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, has written to the Prime Minister to draw attention to the issue. He said that ‘as a next move in protecting the vulnerable human underbelly of British society, the Prime Minister should take the first available opportunity to oblige energy companies to place all of their customers on the cheapest available tariff.’ Many of these households receive the £140 Warm Home Discount, but this is often going straight to profiting the energy companies, it's claimed.
If Downing Street was hoping that Berlin might see Brexit in a more benign light than the rest of Europe, it can stop hoping now. The Financial Times leads with news that Wolfgang Schäuble – the German finance minister - has announced that Britain will be faced by EU budget bills which could last until 2030. In the past, Chancellor Angela Merkel had seemed to signal that Europe ought to remain friendly to the UK post-Brexit to retain trade ties. But it appears that after ceaseless lobbying from French President François Hollande, Germany is now taking a harder line. The revelations follow news earlier this week that the UK is set to have to stump up between €40bn and $60bn as an ‘exit bill.’ ‘This is no à la carte menu,’ said Mr Schäuble. ‘There is only the whole menu or none.’
The Telegraph tells us that JP Morgan is being fined $264 million for a breach of bribery laws. The American firm secured more than $100 million worth of business from Chinese 'ultra high-net worth individuals' by employing their ‘princeling’ children. Other banks operating in Asia are likely to be rattled as it is common practice there to give jobs to potentially influential candidates.
Another day, another newly revealed memo from Deloitte. Today’s one concerns RBS, and the legal case whereby a group of shareholders are suing the bank for £4 billion. The charge? That RBS was misrepresenting its finances in the months leading up to its £45.5 billion taxpayer bailout. A partner at Deloitte urged the bank to make its estimates on losses clearer, but RBS was determined to portray itself in a falsely healthy light, the court heard. The Times reports that thousands of shareholders – small and large – have come together to press the case and seek compensation. RBS remains 73 per cent taxpayer owned.
It was the outrage of the year, with people all over England crying ‘how could this have happened?’ Whether you loved it or hated it, it couldn’t be denied: there was a Marmite shortage. Today, the chief executive of Tesco has warned Unilever and other multinational consumer brands not to pass price hikes onto customers. The Guardian reports that Dave Lewis – who himself worked at Unilever until two years ago – said ‘there are always elements of currency volatility…The only thing we would ask is that companies…don’t ask UK customers to pay inflated prices in order that their reporting currency is maintained.’ Mike Coupe, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, has made similar points in recent weeks.