(ShareCast News) - A US appeals court has reinstated a civil lawsuit accusing 16 major banks of conspiring to manipulate the Libor benchmark interest rate. The ruling, which overturns a 2013 decision, could bankrupt the institutions, the judges warned. A lower court judge erred in dismissing the antitrust portion of private litigation against Barclays, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and others on the ground that the investors failed to allege harm to competition, according to the US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan. - The GuardianScores of fracking projects across England were given a boost last night as councillors in Yorkshire approved the first scheme in five years. Third Energy is expected to become the first British company to frack legally since 2011 after it won the right to press ahead with extracting shale gas near the North York Moors national park despite protests from local residents and campaigners. The TimesChina's finance ministry will issue Rmb3bn ($458m) of bonds in London's offshore renminbi market, a test of foreign investors' appetite for Chinese assets amid concerns about the currency's depreciation and capital flight. The UK government has aggressively courted renminbi business for the City of London as part of a broad push to promote greater economic ties with the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power. - Financial TimesBritain attracted record levels of foreign direct investment last year but uncertainty over its future in the EU has put its status as a top investment destination at risk, research shows. More than a thousand FDI projects landed in the Britain last year, according to EY's annual attractiveness survey. - TelegraphSir Philip Green's retail business was warned before the sale of BHS that Dominic Chappell, the man who led the buyout, had been declared bankrupt and lacked experience in the retail industry. Paul Budge, the finance director of Arcadia, admitted that the company was aware that Chappell had been declared bankrupt at least once and was "cautious" about the sale, MPs heard on Monday. - The GuardianVincent Tchenguiz is set to appoint property agents to sell ten Hilton hotels across England with a combined price tag of up to £600 million. The proposed sale is part of a wider refinancing of the entrepreneur's interests after the collapse of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into both him and his brother Robert. - The TimesBricklayers are earning up to £1,000 a week as firms compete for workers to keep housebuilding and infrastructure projects on track, according to a survey of recruitment firms. A skills shortage in the sector is making it hard for recruiters to meet rising demand, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) said. It added that a vote to leave the EU at next month's referendum would exacerbate the problem. - The GuardianPrivate lawyers will be deployed instead of police for the first time amid increased efforts to seize back assets for the victims of fraud. Fraudsters will be hit with criminal investigations and civil asset recovery measures aimed at clawing back millions of pounds lost every year. - The TimesThe coveted triple-A rating is nearly extinct, with just a handful of companies in the world retaining Standard & Poor's seal of approval after ExxonMobil was downgraded last month. The demise of the triple A rating reflects a dramatic rise in the use of debt to help bolster shareholder returns and fund takeover activity.The International Monetary Fund has called for "upfront" and "unconditional" debt relief for Greece as it warned that without immediate action the financial plight of the recession-ravaged country would deteriorate dramatically over the coming decades. In a strongly worded assessment, the IMF said that there was no prospect of Greece meeting the draconian terms of its current bailout plan and that interest payments on the soaring national debt would eat up 60% of the budget by 2060 in the absence of debt forgiveness. - The GuardianThe competition watchdog has objected to government plans to privatise the Land Registry, warning that allowing a private firm to take possession of property ownership information could cause problems for other businesses. The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) said selling off the organisation that keeps the official record of commercial and residential land ownership in England and Wales would give the new owner a monopoly on commercially valuable data with no incentive to improve access to it. - The GuardianShareholders have stepped up the pressure on Volkswagen still further over its rigging of emissions tests by demanding an independent audit to show that the carmaker has set aside enough to cover the costs of the scandal. DSW, a German group representing the rights of shareholders as well as several international investors, said yesterday that it had applied for the appointment of an independent auditor be put on the agenda of VW's annual meeting on June 22. - The TimesThe chairman of Stock Spirits has been defeated in an acrimonious battle with a rebel shareholder after investors backed the activist's campaign to shake-up the board of the struggling vodka-maker. David Maloney, chairman of the distiller, had urged shareholders to reject two board candidates proposed by Luis Amaral, a Portuguese tycoon who owns almost 10pc of the Poland-focused drinks business, but Mr Maloney lost his bid to keep the pair off the board at Monday's annual general meeting by a narrow margin. - Telegraph
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