Lloyds Share News (LLOY)

Cadbury has approached the UK Takeover Panel to ask Kraft to "put up or shut up" on the unsolicited £10.2bn takeover offer from the US food group three weeks ago.Cadbury approached the panel on Monday to ask Kraft either to make a formal takeover proposal or walk away for six months, said people close to the matter, after Kraft made an offer in late August that was initially valued at 745p per Cadbury share, the FT writes. Andrew Higginson, the second-in-command at Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, has predicted that the market will be "flat at best" for UK retailers over Christmas. Higginson, chief executive of Tesco Retailing Services, is one of an increasing number of retail bosses who think that the recession will drag on for longer than initially thought, the Telegraph reports.Negotiators working on the draft of the final communiqué for the G20 summit are developing an 11th-hour compromise which will invoke the spirit of European calls for a crackdown on bankers' bonuses without including any requirements for absolute caps. The deal will stop short of placing hard limits on the exact amounts banks will be able to hand out to staff, for fear of stifling the nascent global economic recovery, the Telegraph reports.Royal Bank of Scotland could be forced to scrap plans to raise up to £5bn from a share sale after its investors indicated yesterday that they would be reluctant to back any more fundraising. The shares fell by more than 5% to 53½p, the Times reports.Hopes of a thaw in the frozen wholesale mortgage finance industry were boosted yesterday when Lloyds Banking Group revealed that it was hoping to find buyers this week for more than £2.8bn of new securities backed by packaged-up prime mortgages, the Times reports.The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) today fined the construction industry £129.5 million at the end of a four-year cartel inquiry into collusion between companies bidding for public sector contracts. The OFT had accused 112 companies of colluding to rig bids on building contracts worth as much as £3 billion, beginning the probe in 2004 after a complaint from an East Midlands council, the Times reports. Soaring energy prices could fuel inflation and derail economic recovery, one of the Bank of England's most senior policymakers warned yesterday. "We need to be looking carefully to see where the next big global shock might be coming from," Andrew Sentance, who sits on the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, told a London conference. "And the energy market is one of the prime candidates we need to keep an eye on," the Independent reports.EDF, the heavily indebted French power group, is close to agreeing a big asset swap with E.ON, its German rival, but it played down reports yesterday that it was also considering the sale of a 20% stake in British Energy, the UK's nuclear generator. The company, which is leading the drive to build the next generation of nuclear reactors in Britain, has begun a sweeping review of its businesses as it aims to cut its €37bn (£33.5bn) debt pile, the Times reports.The US internet regulator has proposed new rules aimed at ensuring that network operators treat the flow of Internet content without discrimination. Internet providers will be barred from slowing down or blocking streamed video, music or other content that uses up a lot of bandwidth, under plans outlined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Times reports. Average hourly rates for London's top commercial lawyers fell by a third last year as law firms offered substantial discounts after competition intensified in the downturn. Partners at London's five elite firms billed an average of £450 an hour, down from £675 a year ago, according to Jim Diamond, an independent legal costs consultant, the Times reports.