Lloyds Share News (LLOY)

Financial Times reports that tech giant Apple is facing an import ban in the US on certain models of its iPhone 4 and iPad 2 (as well as some older devices) after the International Trade Commission said that the devices infringed Samsung's patents."HSBC failed to comply with New York state laws that give homeowners facing foreclosure an early shot at negotiating a settlement, thus putting them at greater risk of losing their homes, the state's attorney general alleged in a new case against the bank yesterday," writes The Independent.Terry Duddy, the Chief Executive Officer of Argos owner Home Retail, had his annual pay bumped up by 41% to £1.55m, despite the company reporting last month that profits had fallen for a fifth straight year, says The Guardian.Lloyds' outgoing Chairman Sir Win Bischoff and Chief Executive Antonio Horta-Osorio are to be grilled by the Treasury Select Committee on the failure of Project Verde, the £750m deal to sell 632 branches to The Co-operative, reports The Scotsman.The Times says that the £6.0bn Thameslink project through London is at risk of falling apart if ministers don't sign off on a controversial £1.6bn order for new trains from Siemens.The Telegraph writes that Sir Mervyn King painted a bright picture of the economy in the Bank of England's latest annual report, his last he would oversee as Governor before Mark Carney steps in next month. King said that there are signs of a "gentle recovery" but a full recovery would require "restored" confidence in the banking system.The head of Societe Generale's global strategy team, Albert Edwards, has said that George Osborne's Help to Buy scheme is one of the "most stupid economic ideas" of the last three decades, reports The Guardian. He said that the programme has artificially propped up the market and prevented prices correcting to affordable levels.The OECD has said that Britain has the highest food and energy inflation in Western Europe, according to The Telegraph. The OECD said that UK food prices in April were up 4.6% than the same period the year before.The Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported that Australian economic growth in the first quarter was a worse-than-forecast 2.5%, down from 3.2% annual gain in the fourth quarter, writes the Financial Times.BC