Britain’s biggest carmaker has given the British automotive industry a big boost by announcing it is to start building premium-priced cars under its upmarket Infiniti brand in Sunderland. The move by Nissan, which is already bringing Britain its first mass-produced all-electric car, the Leaf, will create a further 1,000 jobs and secure the Japanese company’s position as one of Britain’s most important manufacturers. [The Times]
Swiss bank UBS was hit with a $1.5bn bill and admitted to fraud today in order to settle charges of manipulating global benchmark interest rates. The penalty agreed with US, UK and Swiss regulators is more than three times the $450 million fine levied on Barclays in June for rigging the Libor benchmark rate used to price financial contracts around the globe. It is the second-largest fine paid by a bank and comes a week after HSBC agreed to pay the biggest ever penalty – $1.92 billion – to settle a probe in the United States into laundering money for drug cartels. [The Independent]
Former FSA chief Hector Sants has secured total remuneration worth as much as £3m as part of his move to Barclays next month, according to people familiar with the deal. That would make him one of the 10 highest paid executives at Barclays. [Financial Times]
Royal Bank of Scotland and its NatWest offshoot is paying out £10 million in refunds to 300,000 customers whose money it pocketed when they forgot to take their cash after making withdrawals. Unlike other banks, which have a policy of automatically crediting people’s accounts when they leave money behind at cash machines, state-owned RBS until recently diverted the money into its own “reserves” account and only repaid it if a customer complained. [The Times]
Cerberus Capital Management announced it was selling the American gun company which it helped to create amid a strong investor backlash against firearms firms. The private equity giant said it would “immediately engage in a formal process” to sell Freedom Group, one of America’s biggest firearms firms and the manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle used in the Sandy Hook massacre on Friday. Cerberus made it clear it was “not our role to take positions, or attempt to shape or influence the gun control policy debate”. But in its statement the investment firm said the “Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level.” [The Telegraph]
The business secretary, Vince Cable, has ordered an inquiry into the collapse of high street electricals chain Comet after the government was left with a £50m bill in unpaid taxes and redundancy costs. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirmed that the Insolvency Service had begun a “fact-finding” investigation into the high street chain’s failure: “The purpose of the inquiry is to investigate the circumstances surrounding its insolvency and establish whether further action is required,” said a spokeswoman. [The Guardian]
