Barclays Share News (BARC)

The Big Six household energy suppliers have been spared an industry-wide Competition Commission investigation, despite Ofgem finding evidence that they may be profiteering, manipulating their own figures and misleading consumers.Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem's chief executive, said: "Energy companies have failed to play it straight with consumers." But rather than mire the industry in what might be a formal competition investigation lasting years, he said that Ofgem had the powers to whip suppliers into shape. It is understood that Ofgem has serious concerns over transfer-pricing, in which suppliers pay their own power stations more for electricity than on the open market, the Times reports. The "wrong kind of inflation" will mean the government has to borrow significantly more over the medium term than planned, George Osborne will be forced to admit in the Budget. The chancellor is planning a "Robin Hood" budget that closes tax loopholes used by the rich and introduces a "Learjet levy" on people using private jets. The £1bn in extra taxes will fund small sweeteners to motorists, low earners and holidaymakers. But the deterioration in the medium-term government borrowing numbers - in spite of a lower deficit than forecast in November - will cast a shadow over Mr Osborne's deficit reduction programme, the FT writes.Essar Energy will clinch the purchase of the Stanlow oil refinery from Shell within days. The sale of the $350m facility near Liverpool will mean that four of Britain's eight refineries have changed ownership within a couple of years, with a further two up for sale. The Times has also learnt that Esso has put a package of about 50 garage forecourts up for sale as changes in the petroleum market reach the high street, the Times reports.Warren Buffett cheered markets yesterday as he used a visit to South Korea to tell investors that the earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeast Japan nine days ago would not derail the country's economic future. In a symbolic gesture of confidence, the billionaire investor said that although the natural disaster was an "enormous blow" for Japan, it presented a buying opportunity for investors, the Times reports.Britain will get a tough new set of takeover rules, a year after Kraft's hostile takeover bid for Cadbury prompted calls for UK companies to be protected from corporate raiders. The Takeover Panel said yesterday that the balance of power had shifted too far in favour of bidders at the expense of companies and their shareholders. The regulator published a draft code that will severely restrict bidders that rely heavily on bank debt, such as private equity firms, foreign sovereign wealth funds and entrepreneurs, the Times reports.Britons are suffering their biggest drop in living standards for 30 years, according to a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The average household's "real" income - what is coming in after inflation is taken into account - will have fallen by 1.6% over the three years to the end of 2011, the influential think-tank said ahead of Wednesday's Budget. In contrast, over the previous half a century, real incomes rose an average 1.6% a year, or 5% every three-year period, the Telegraph reports.The chief executive and chairman of New Look are both quitting, following a dire year during which the company pulled a £1.8bn flotation, faced a damning investigation by Channel 4, posted tumbling sales and suffered disruption by moving head office staff from Weymouth to London. In a terse statement, New Look said that Carl McPhail had "resigned" from the board with "immediate effect" and that John Gildersleeve, its non-executive chairman since January 2010, intended to "retire" to focus on his "other business interests". Tom Singh, who founded New Look in 1969 and still holds a 22.4% stake, has returned to the retailer as interim chief executive, the Independent reports.Citigroup, the global banking organisation which twice had to be bailed out by taxpayers in the United States, is to restart paying dividends to shareholders, two years after suspending the payout. The bank is the latest US institution to announce it will resume the return of cash to shareholders, following a decision by the Federal Reserve on Friday that the American banking system is no longer in danger, the Independent reports.Hedge funds should accept higher taxes as the cost of doing business in London and stop threatening to move elsewhere, according to one of the world's best-known copper traders. Michael Farmer, a Conservative party donor who runs the near-$1bn Red Kite metals hedge funds, is rare among managers in defending London, with many others telling the government that the 50% top tax rate is hurting their ability to attract the best traders, the FT reports.Barclays is among a group of investors weighing a rival bid for a portfolio of mortgage-backed securities that has already drawn a $15.7bn offer from AIG, people familiar with the matter said. The securities are owned by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and housed within Maiden Lane II, one of the special-purpose vehicles created as part of the insurer's $180bn rescue during the financial crisis, the FT reports.