Friday newspaper round-up: Forex, Crimea, Barclays

Robert de Groot, the head of foreign exchange trading at BNP Paribas, was suspended on Thursday. De Groot joined the Bank of England´s chief dealers´ group - a panel on which senior forex traders and Bank officials sit - in 2007. Said committee was thrust into the spotlight this week after Bank responded to allegations that it had not provided sufficient oversight of currency markets, in what amounts to a potential blow to London´s position as the premier global hub for forex trading, The Times reports. US and European leaders have branded the Moscow-backed parliament of Crimea´s decision to secede from Ukraine a violation of the country´s constitution and international law. The Crimean government´s decision to carry out a snap referendum while the country is still under de facto Russian occcupation marks a serious escalation in tensions which brings closer the possibility of sanctions being imposed on the Russian Federation, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe.In a bid to pre-empt new European regulations Barclays is to part company with its over a century old auditor, PwC. New rules due to be put into place by the European Union will limit auditors´ links to clients to 20 years. However, switching auditors at the same time that a tender for a new one is executed carries risks. Hence, the lender has decided to postpone the switch until next year at the earliest, The Times reports. Risks in the euro area arising from low inflation will only increase as time passes. If the European Central Bank (ECB) is serious about facing up to the threat from its overindebted sovereigns then it must act, according to analysts at Fathom Consulting cited by The Times. "Time is running out," they added. Lloyds Banking Group will incur in a surprise £1bn charge as it moves to retire £8.4bn in enhanced capital notes. Those instruments are structured so that investors are 'bailed in' - losses are imposed on them that is - when the lender´s capital ratio drops below 5%, but are now trading well above their issue price. Hence the uproar when Lloyds moved to cancel them at face value. Now Lloyds has backtracked partially and is proposing to pay extra, The Guardian says. BP continues to grapple with the fall-out from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. However, the company believes that it has made strong progress over the intervening years, particularly in everything to do with safety but also in terms of reserve replacement. Given the firm´s performance under Chief Executive Bill Dudley, BP has decided to trebel his pay package to £5.2m or approximately £7.86m when pension contributions are taken into account, The Scotsman writes.AB