Thursday newspaper round-up: Barclays, Vodafone, BP

John Varley, Barclays' outgoing chief executive, has shot to the top of the City's wishlist for some of the biggest jobs in corporate Britain just a day after announcing that he will hand over to his deputy Bob Diamond in March. Prudential is seen as the most likely option for Mr Varley but Vodafone and BP are also possibilities, says the Times.

An Indian court has thrown out Vodafone's challenge to a tax ruling that could leave the mobile phone giant 120bn rupees (£1.7bn) out of pocket. The dispute centres on whether the British company owes tax to the Indian authorities following its $11.1bn acquisition of a controlling share in the local mobile network operator, Hutchison Essar, three years ago, reports the Independent.

The Herald reports on the reaction of companies that were working alongside BP at the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico to the oil giant's claim that they were also to blame for the explosion that resulted in 11 deaths and a huge oil spill. Transocean criticised BP's report as "self-serving" and an attempt to conceal fatal flaws in BP's well design and a number of mistakes in key decisions. Halliburton said in a statement that it found a number of omissions and inaccuracies in the report and was confident the work it did on the well met BP's specifications.

Ireland is to break up the nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank, hoping to end a disastrous saga that has shattered confidence in Irish finance and left taxpayers with daunting debt. The move came after yields on Irish 10-year bonds rose above 6pc for the first time since the launch of the euro, reports the Telegraph.

Foster's, the Australian brewer which is splitting up its wine and beer businesses, has rejected a A$2.7bn (£1.6bn) bid for the wine division as too low, sparking speculation a better offer will come in. The shares jumped on the news, as investors welcomed the fact that the struggling wine business had attracted the attention of a private equity firm, reports the Telegraph.

City firms are stepping up their efforts to block moves to break up Britain's high street banks as the appointment of Bob Diamond to take control of Barclays bank propelled banking reform back to the top of the political agenda. The Guardian says it has learned that industry leaders are furiously lobbying the Treasury and regulators not to break up the banks because of fears it would force them to move overseas.

The European Union risks prolonging the global economic downturn if its largest members insist on using austerity measures to cut their budget deficits, a leading economist has warned. Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, said the use of deep spending cuts was a "disaster" adding that Europe was heading towards more economic difficulties if politicians cut back spending rather than calm down the financial markets, the Telegraph reports.