Thursday newspaper round-up: Polly Peck, BHP Billiton, Google

One of Britain's most notorious fugitives will return to the UK voluntarily today to face multimillion-pound fraud charges after almost two decades abroad, it was reported last night. Asil Nadir, 69, who was a Conservative party donor, fled to his native northern Cyprus in 1993 to avoid a £34m fraud trial centred on the collapse of his Polly Peck business empire, according to the Guardian.

Marius Kloppers refused to rule out a higher bid for PotashCorp of Saskatchewan yesterday, but warned that BHP Billiton would not overpay for the world's biggest fertiliser maker. Outlining details of the miner's strategy to take control of PotashCorp after details of the approach were made public last week, the BHP chief executive reiterated that its $130-a-share cash bid remains the only offer for the Canadian company, says the Independent.

Google is to go head-to-head with Skype by allowing users of its Gmail service to make telephone calls from their e-mail inbox. The internet giant already offered free voice and video calls via Gmail but will now allow email users to call landlines and mobile phones directly, writes the Times.

The Swiss franc has surged to an all-time high against the euro on capital flight from the eurozone after Irish, Greek, and Portuguese bonds came under renewed fire, reports the Telegraph.

Harry Thierens, BP's vice president for drilling and completions, told a US political hearing that the blowout preventer was connected to a test pipe, rather than the correct one. "It would mean that the pipe rams could not be closed," Mr Thierens said in evidence to a federal panel on Wednesday, according to the Telegraph.

Ireland's National Treasury Management Agency accuses Standard & Poor's of faulty analysis after its sovereign credit rating was downgraded to AA- and given a negative outlook - brought on by the agency increasing its estimate of the cost of shoring up the banking sector to EUR90 billion - a decision that pushed up the cost of borrowing for the Irish Government, says the Times.

Xchanging went on the offensive to try to stem the slide in its share price yesterday, staging a conference call with investors and analysts to counter "unfounded rumours" about its accounting practices. The company that processes claims for the Lloyd's of London insurance market has seen its share price fall by 40 per cent over the past three weeks - but its unorthodox response served only to unsettle the market further and its stock lost 11 per cent, writes the Times.

KiFin, the investment group backed by South African billionaire Nathan Kirsh, has ratcheted up the row with Minerva, accusing the property group's management of "misleading" other shareholders into believing it wanted to seize control of the company, reports the Independent.