A report by a cross-party group of MPs and peers believes senior bankers should face jail and lose bonuses if they are involved in a future banking collapse, The Telegraph reported. The government has been urged to introduce a new criminal offence for senior staff who run banks in a “reckless manner” along with stricter rules that could see managers being stripped of several years’ worth of pay.
Deloitte has agreed to a one-year suspension from soliciting new consulting work from hundreds of financial institutions and will pay a $10m fine after the New York’s Department of Financial Services cited the company’s “misconduct, violations of law, and lack of autonomy” in its review of anti-money laundering practices at Standard Chartered. It comes as the state begins an unparalleled crackdown on independent consulting firms, the Financial Times said.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is not ready to return to the private sector, The Times reported, citing a final report by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. Chancellor George Osborne, who delivers his highly anticipated Mansion Speech on Wednesday, is expected to use the report to signal a change of strategy, agreeing to the cross-party commission’s proposal to hold a quick review into whether to force RBS to hive underperforming assets into a “bad bank”.
News Corporation will be split in half on Wednesday as founder Rupert Mudoch hopes to build two new empires out of his vast portfolio of assets, according to The Guardian. Entertainment assets – including the 20th Century Fox movie studio and the Fox broadcast network in the US – will form 21st Century Fox while the company’s publishing assets – including HarperCollins and its troubled newspaper division – will trade under the old News Corp name.
Liberty Global is set to offer assets instead of cash in a proposed €7.5bn putative bid for German cable operator Kabel Deutschland. The media group has proposed injecting its existing German cable assets and keeping Kabel’s public listing, two people familiar with the move told the Financial Times.
