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 professional misconduct” in a corruption scandal in South Africa.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Cabinet Office 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 seriously”.

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

Initially, Cabinet Office officers suggested that no motion towards 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 capture” scandal in South Africa. There is 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

Five extra tales within the information

1. Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan The Speaker of the US House 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 tons of 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 better 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 appeal to 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 reducing public sector pay The UK overseas secretary’s Tory management bid suffered a setback yesterday when she was pressured to desert her plan to chop pay for public sector staff 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 primary downside: you may’t minimize salaries within the locations you battle to recruit, writes Stephen Bush in Inside Politics. Sign up for his publication right here.

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

4. UK dangers deepening recession Britain’s financial system is sliding into recession, with no let-up in a price of dwelling disaster that may exhaust the financial savings of greater than 5mn households by 2024, based on forecasts by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research 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 nearly 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 put up yesterday.

The day forward

Opec+ assembly The oil producers’ group convenes at present 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 may 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 predicted to endure checks by officers from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN at a joint management centre in Lebanon.

Economic information S&P Global 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.

Corporate earnings Axa, Bank of Ireland, Commerzbank, eBay, Hugo Boss, Infineon Technologies, Just 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. Find extra in our The Week Ahead publication — and enroll right here to obtain it by electronic mail every Sunday.

What else we’re studying

The Tories’ wilful blindness on local weather is baffling Both candidates for the UK governing get together 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 develop into Kenya’s subsequent president agree on one factor: China is on the coronary heart of subsequent week’s election. While the deputy president has threatened to deport Chinese 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 tens of millions to focus Lofi Girl, 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 folks searching for not silence however peace, writes Dave Lee.

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

Time to put money into a sabbatical? The idea of taking prolonged intervals off has lengthy been frequent within the tutorial world, however because the conflict for expertise rages, it’s more and more being embraced in skilled workplaces. More employers are ready to grant employees break day, however there are necessary monetary inquiries to ask first, Claer Barrett explains.

Architecture

The first renderings of the brand new Saudi metropolis of Neom have been launched final week. It is 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 reducing by the Arizona desert are irresistible, writes structure critic Edwin Heathcote.