Sunday newspaper round-up: Car loans scandal, L'Oreal, Cambridgeshire stabbing, Ukrainian drone strike, ZTE Mobile, JLR, council

(Sharecast News) - Victims of the car loans scandal could miss out on more than �4bn in compensation if the City regulator ploughs ahead with plans for an "insulting" interest rate in its redress scheme, consumer groups and claims firms say. The Financial Conduct Authority has been accused of offering a reduced rate of interest which will be added to compensation from banks for borrowers caught up in the car loan commissions scandal. Claims law firms and consumer groups say borrowers should be offered the same terms as Marcus Johnson: the sole driver whose case was upheld by the supreme court in a landmark case in August. While the terms of the final payout are sealed, Johnson is widely believed by industry experts to have received about 7% interest on his compensation package, after judges ordered the parties to negotiate a "commercial rate". - Guardian

A small business owner is preparing to face down the cosmetics giant L'Or�al at a tribunal next week over a trademark dispute she says has had a devastating impact on her. Rebecca Dowdeswell, 49, from Nottinghamshire, has been locked in a three-year legal battle with the French company since it claimed her use of the name nkd for her business would cause "consumer confusion" with its own range of Naked beauty products. Dowdeswell has been forced to close one of her two nkd salons and has run up legal fees of more than �30,000 fighting the �170bn company, which has instructed top-tier law firm Baker McKenzie. - Guardian

Nine people are in hospital with life-threatening injuries after a man armed with a large knife started stabbing people on a London-bound train in Cambridgeshire. Armed police rushed to Huntingdon railway station to respond to the incident, which was initially classified as a major terror attack. Two people have been arrested, with witnesses describing a man with a knife being taken down by a police Taser. Counter-terror police have joined the investigation into the attack, which is understood to have started shortly after the LNER train left Peterborough station. Cambridgeshire Constabulary said the first emergency calls were received at 7.39pm. - Independent

A Ukrainian drone strike has started major fires in Russia's Tuapse city, setting ablaze an oil tanker and the town's port in a move that could disrupt Moscow's fuel exports. A large part of Russia's crude and refined products reach international markets via the port in Russia's southern region of Krasnodar. In recent months, Kyiv has intensified strikes on Russian oil and energy infrastructure, whose profits fuel the Kremlin's war effort. Ukraine's secret service revealed yesterday that it has carried out over 150 strikes targeting Russian oil refineries and pipelines. Kyiv is preparing for new drone and long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure with a goal of causing widespread blackouts in Russia, said Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's drone forces. - Independent

Chinese tech giants blacklisted on national security grounds in Britain and the United States have lobbied for Beijing's new embassy in London, deepening fears it could be used as an overseas "spy centre". ZTE Mobile, a state-controlled company deemed by GCHQ to pose a risk to British telecommunications infrastructure that "cannot be mitigated", urged officials to approve the scheme. In a letter to the government's planning inquiry, it described the proposed development of Royal Mint Court, a grade II listed building in east London that China bought for �255m, as "beautiful"". The company was fined $1bn in 2017 for sending equipment to North Korea and Iran in violation of US sanctions. China Mobile, a state-owned company that has close links to the People's Liberation Army, also expressed its "full support" for the new embassy in a letter. - The Times

Jaguar Land Rover is racing to avoid fresh disruption to its UK car plants in December after China blocked deliveries of automotive computer chips. With Britain's biggest carmaker still reeling from the fallout of a major cyberattack, bosses are bracing for the supply chain to grind to a halt next month. The German engineering giant Bosch, Hong-Kong-based Johnson Electric, and South Korean automotive firm Hanon Systems are among JLR's so-called tier two suppliers to have said that they will halt deliveries of vital parts. - The Times

Families face council tax bills of up to �10,000 a year under plans being considered by Rachel Reeves to double rates on more than a million homes. The Chancellor is said to be looking at proposals to apply a 100% increase to the two highest council tax bands, which would predominantly hit households in London and the South East. On Saturday night, critics warned that many pensioners, who live on fixed incomes, would be unable to afford such steep increases and would end up "forced out of their homes". - The Telegraph

The UK's national debt is growing at the fastest rate of any rich country as a prolonged borrowing binge threatens to push the country into a "doom loop". Debt has close to tripled from 2005 to 2025, analysis by Oxford Economics shows, outpacing increases in any other advanced economy. A failure by successive governments to live within their means has left the UK with a �2.9trn mountain of debt, which is almost as large as the entire economy and costs over �100bn a year in interest payments. Only Spain and the US have seen debt rise at a rate close to the UK over the last 20 years, while Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands have managed to lower debt relative to the size of their economies. - The Telegraph