Wednesday newspaper round-up: Barclays, HSBC, BP...

The appointment of Bob Diamond as chief executive of one of Britain's biggest banks has split the coalition along party lines, it emerged last night.

Downing Street and the Treasury - both of which were told of the appointment before it was announced - insisted that they were relaxed about the promotion of Britain's best-paid investment banker to head up Barclays Bank. Vince Cable, however, privately made clear his concerns about the appointment yesterday. The Times has learnt that he argued that Barclays had failed to appreciate public anxieties about the risks posed by investment banks to savers and taxpayers.

HSBC was heading for confrontation with its shareholders as it appeared ready to flout boardroom best practice by elevating its chief executive to the chairmanship. As Stephen Green announced plans to quit as chairman to become a government minister before the new year, it emerged that Mike Geoghegan was regarded as a serious candidate to succeed him. While the bank traditionally has appointed its chairmen from within the executive ranks, the move to promote the chief executive would breach corporate governance guidelines, forcing HSBC to issue a public explanation, the Times reports.

BP is to reveal the findings of an internal inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, giving its first full account of the causes of the oil rig explosion that killed 11 people and caused the largest offshore oil spill in history. The report, to be published on Wednesday, is expected to accept that BP staff made mistakes that contributed to the accident on April 20. However, the company has consistently rejected any suggestion that it was guilty of gross negligence, the FT reports.

One in five tax records held by HM Revenue & Customs could contain errors, an internal review has concluded. Of the 45 million employment files held by HMRC, nine million potentially contained mistakes, according to the review. The flaws identified in the records have heightened fears that many people could end up paying the wrong amount of tax this year after being issued with the incorrect code, the Telegraph reports.

Investor worries over the eurozone have deepened, hitting the markets of the single currency's weaker economies and sparking a flight to the safety of US Treasuries, German bunds, the yen and the Swiss franc. Global equities lost ground and the euro weakened on Tuesday, while European bank stocks came under pressure as doubts over the continent's financial system resurfaced, the FT reports.

The rest of the week promises more uncertainty for the banking industry as financiers await the announcement of the new capital rules agreed yesterday in Switzerland. A group of central bankers and regulators from around the world agreed on the new capital requirements for banks, however the industry will have to wait until after a further meeting at the weekend to hear the final proposals, the Telegraph reports.

Vodafone is selling its 3.2% shareholding in China Mobile for £4.3bn ($6.6bn), in a move that highlights the UK mobile phone group's determination to dispose of its minority stakes. Vodafone said on Tuesday that 70 % of the proceeds from the sale would be returned to shareholders in the form of a share buyback, with the remainder used to reduce the UK group's net debt, which stands at £33.3bn, the FT reports.

Citigroup is heading for a court showdown with Guy Hands after the collapse of last-gasp peace talks intended to resolve a bitter dispute over EMI. The two sides have been at war since December, when Mr Hands filed a claim alleging that the American investment bank had committed fraud when it bankrolled a £4.2bn buyout of the heavily indebted music group by Terra Firma, his private equity house, in 2007, the Times reports.

The crisis at De La Rue deepened yesterday when the banknote printer said that employees had been falsifying reports about the quality of its paper. The company, which has called in the Serious Fraud Office, has discovered that certain staff deliberately falsified paper specification test certificates. As a result some of its customers received lower-quality paper for printing currency than they had ordered, the Times reports.

Connaught, the social housing maintenance company, is preparing to go into administration, becoming one of the biggest corporate failures of the recession and placing 10,000 UK jobs under threat. The FTSE 250 support services group confirmed in a statement last night that attempts to draw up a rescue plan with lenders had broken down and that it is in the process of appointing KPMG as administrator to the parent company and the social housing maintenance division, the Telegraph reports.

Hewlett-Packard is suing its ousted chief executive, Mark Hurd, to prevent him immediately taking up a senior position at rival computer giant Oracle. A month to the day after he was forced to resign over a sex and expenses scandal at HP, Mr Hurd was named co-president at Oracle, and put in charge of the company's expansion into the sale of IT hardware - pitching the company into a headlong battle against HP, the Independent reports.