FirstFT: Bain penalised over ‘grave misconduct’ in South Africa

Good morning. Bain & Co, the Boston-based international administration advisor, was hit yesterday with a three-year ban from tendering for British authorities contracts due to its “grave skilled misconduct” in a corruption scandal in South Africa.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Cupboard Workplace minister, advised Bain that the affair had rendered the corporate’s integrity “questionable” and that he was not satisfied that it had taken its function within the scandal “sufficiently severely”.

In a letter seen by the Monetary Instances, Rees-Mogg advised James Hadley, Bain’s UK managing associate, that the ban would apply retrospectively from January 4 2022. “I belief that after three years have elapsed Bain & Co may have restored its fame,” he wrote.

Initially, Cupboard Workplace officers suggested that no motion in opposition to the corporate was obligatory however Rees-Mogg sought additional recommendation, together with from an exterior QC.

Britain is the primary western nation to impose such penalties on Bain for its function within the “state seize” scandal in South Africa. There may be strain on the US to comply with swimsuit.

Do you help Rees-Mogg’s intervention? Share your ideas at [email protected]. Thanks for studying FirstFT Europe/Africa — Jennifer

5 extra tales within the information

1. Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan The Speaker of the US Home of Representatives touched down yesterday in Taiwan, the highest-level go to by an American official for many years, as China introduced live-fire navy drills.

• Tempers rise: Beijing has blocked imports from a whole bunch of Taiwanese meals producers in what seems to be an try to punish Taipei.

• Go deeper: Tom Mitchell writes that President Xi Jinping’s response has imbued Pelosi’s journey with larger significance than it deserves.

2. Lloyd’s hunts for billions in recent capital Lloyd’s of London hopes a brand new funding construction agreed with UK monetary regulators will entice billions of {dollars} in different capital and increase its competitiveness with hubs comparable to Bermuda within the rising marketplace for insurance-linked securities.

3. Liz Truss makes U-turn on slicing public sector pay The UK international secretary’s Tory management bid suffered a setback yesterday when she was compelled to desert her plan to chop pay for public sector employees in poorer areas of Britain simply 12 hours after it was launched within the face of ferocious criticism. Who do you assume will win the management race? Vote in our ballot.

• Go deeper: Truss’s coverage struggled with a fundamental downside: you possibly can’t lower salaries within the locations you wrestle to recruit, writes Stephen Bush in Inside Politics. Join his publication right here.

• Opinion: Tax lower vows are a distraction from the UK’s woeful productiveness, writes Diane Coyle, professor of public coverage on the College of Cambridge.

4. UK dangers deepening recession Britain’s financial system is sliding into recession, with no let-up in a value of dwelling disaster that can exhaust the financial savings of greater than 5mn households by 2024, based on forecasts by the Nationwide Institute of Financial and Social Analysis that confirmed GDP would fall by the primary quarter of 2023.

5. Robinhood to sack 23% of employees The struggling on-line brokerage will lay off virtually 1 / 4 of its employees because it contends with falls within the retail buying and selling fervour from coronavirus pandemic highs. The cuts are a part of a “broader reorganisation”, it introduced in a weblog submit yesterday.

The day forward

Opec+ assembly The oil producers’ group convenes at this time within the wake of US president Joe Biden’s go to to Riyadh and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s swing by Europe final week. Any transfer to boost output might put renewed downward strain on crude costs, which have bounced round $100 a barrel.

Ukraine grain cargo checks The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tonnes of Ukrainian corn as a part of a deal to alleviate hovering meals costs, is anticipated to bear checks by officers from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN at a joint management centre in Lebanon.

Financial information S&P International releases providers buying managers’ indices for France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US. Italy and the EU publish retail gross sales information for June and July, respectively, whereas the US has month-to-month employment information.

Company earnings Axa, Financial institution of Eire, Commerzbank, eBay, Hugo Boss, Infineon Applied sciences, Simply Eat, Moderna, Taylor Wimpey, Telecom Italia and Veolia report. Maersk releases full quarterly outcomes after elevating its revenue steering for the third time this 12 months. Discover extra in our The Week Forward publication — and join right here to obtain it by e mail every Sunday.

What else we’re studying

The Tories’ wilful blindness on local weather is baffling Each candidates for the UK governing occasion management appear content material to disregard environmental and geopolitical actuality, writes Pilita Clark. If we’re getting ready to changing local weather guarantees into concrete motion, one wouldn’t understand it from watching Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.

China in focus in Kenya’s election The candidates campaigning to turn into Kenya’s subsequent president agree on one factor: China is on the coronary heart of subsequent week’s election. Whereas the deputy president has threatened to deport Chinese language nationals, a lot of whom are struggling to make a dwelling, his veteran rival is highlighting the necessity to renegotiate loans from Beijing.

How listening to uninterrupted noise helped hundreds of thousands to focus Lofi Lady, a music livestream, broadcast uninterrupted for 20,843 hours — greater than two years — till YouTube immediately suspended it final month. These steady streams are designed for individuals searching for not silence however peace, writes Dave Lee.

Nike scores success with girls’s soccer For the sportswear retailer, which outfitted the Lionesses as they scored their option to victory within the European Championships, an look in virtually each British newspaper was the end result of almost a decade of funding in English, and notably girls’s, soccer.

Time to put money into a sabbatical? The idea of taking prolonged intervals off has lengthy been widespread within the educational world, however because the warfare for expertise rages, it’s more and more being embraced in skilled workplaces. Extra employers are ready to grant employees day without work, however there are vital monetary inquiries to ask first, Claer Barrett explains.

Structure

The primary renderings of the brand new Saudi metropolis of Neom have been launched final week. It’s meant to accommodate 9mn residents over a size of 170km in a channel slicing by the Tabuk desert. The similarities with a plan in 1969 for a steady metropolis slicing by the Arizona desert are irresistible, writes structure critic Edwin Heathcote.