FirstFT: Bain penalised over ‘grave misconduct’ in South Africa

Good morning. Bain & Co, the Boston-based world 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, informed Bain that the affair had rendered the corporate’s integrity “questionable” and that he was not satisfied that it had taken its function in the scandal “sufficiently seriously”.

In a letter seen by the Financial Times, Rees-Mogg informed James Hadley, Bain’s UK managing accomplice, 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 in opposition to the corporate was crucial 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 in the “state capture” scandal in South Africa. There is strain on the US to observe swimsuit.

Do you assist Rees-Mogg’s intervention? Share your ideas at firstft@ft.com. Thanks for studying FirstFT Europe/Africa — Jennifer

Five extra tales in 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 and 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 contemporary capital Lloyd’s of London hopes a brand new funding construction agreed with UK monetary regulators will entice billions of {dollars} in various capital and increase its competitiveness with hubs reminiscent of Bermuda in the rising market for insurance-linked securities.

3. Liz Truss makes U-turn on reducing public sector pay The UK international 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 in the face of ferocious criticism. Who do you suppose will win the management race? Vote in our poll.

• Go deeper: Truss’s coverage struggled with a fundamental downside: you’ll be able to’t lower salaries in the locations you battle to recruit, writes Stephen Bush in Inside Politics. Sign up for his newsletter here.

• Opinion: Tax lower 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 residing 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 way of 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 in the retail buying and selling fervour from coronavirus pandemic highs. The cuts are a part of a “broader reorganisation”, it introduced in a weblog submit yesterday.

The day forward

Opec+ assembly The oil producers’ group convenes at present in the wake of US president Joe Biden’s go to to Riyadh and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s swing by way of Europe final week. Any transfer to lift 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 companies 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 steerage for the third time this 12 months. Find extra in our The Week Ahead publication — and sign up 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 social gathering 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 comprehend 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 residing, 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 abruptly suspended it final month. These steady streams are designed for individuals searching for not silence however peace, writes Dave Lee.

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

Time to take a position in a sabbatical? The idea of taking prolonged intervals off has lengthy been widespread in the educational 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 day off, however there are essential monetary inquiries to ask first, Claer Barrett explains.

Architecture

The first renderings of the brand new Saudi metropolis of Neom had been launched final week. It is meant to accommodate 9mn residents over a size of 170km in a channel slicing by way of the Tabuk desert. The similarities with a plan in 1969 for a steady metropolis reducing by way of the Arizona desert are irresistible, writes structure critic Edwin Heathcote.