Friday newspaper round-up: Arena Television, social care, Obama, Netflix, Pret a Manger

Liquidators of Arena Television, the failed outside broadcast business at the centre of what has been called Britain’s “largest ever” asset-based lending fraud, are suing Lloyds Banking Group for up to £285 million. Lloyds and its Bank of Scotland subsidiary are accused of processing payments “without authority”, allegedly allowing Arena’s directors to perpetrate a “substantial and wide-ranging fraud” against scores of lenders, court filings show. - The Times

Labour has been urged to let tens of thousands of pensioners foot the bill for social care costs by delaying reforms, as councils face a £30bn funding blackhole. England’s largest councils have warned Sir Keir Starmer that without more money, reforms to prevent people from being forced to sell their homes to pay for care are “impossible”. Under reforms first proposed by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister in 2020, councils will be forced to implement a lifetime cap of £86,000 on care costs from October next year. - Telegraph

Working parents who are saving as much as £10,000 a year on their nursery costs could be hit with unexpected tax bills because of a clampdown on the misuse of a childcare “benefit” offered by some employers. HM Revenue and Customs has turned its sights on some workplace nursery benefit schemes which allow employees to pay the fees out of their pre-tax salary, resulting in them making big savings on income tax and national insurance. - Guardian

Barack Obama is understood to have told friends that President Biden must seriously reconsider whether he should remain as the Democratic Party’s White House nominee. The former president is said to have studied polling data in recent days and concluded that Biden, 81, who served for eight years as his vice-president, has a narrowing chance of beating Donald Trump. - The Times

British black comedy Baby Reindeer and the new series of Bridgerton helped drive record revenues of $9.6bn (£7.4bn) at Netflix, the streaming giant disclosed last night. Profits for the three months ending in June climbed by 44pc to $2.1bn compared to the previous year, while the US technology business added more than 8m new subscribers, beating Wall Street expectations with a total of 277.6m paying viewers. Executives at Netflix hailed the surprise success of Baby Reindeer, which has racked up more than 88m views since it was released in April. - Telegraph

Pret a Manger is axing its subscription offering members “free drinks”, almost four years after the deal launched in the UK to attract customers back after the Covid pandemic. In a move that has upset some customers, the coffee chain said it was “time to rethink” the Club Pret offer, and that instead of providing five drinks a day and a 20% discount on food for a cost of £30 a month, it would charge £10 for a subscription for half-price drinks. - Guardian