Friday newspaper round-up: Tax relief bill, New Look, BT, Patisserie

British taxpayers face a £24bn bill for tax relief awarded to oil and gas companies removing hundreds of North Sea wells, rigs and pipelines, the UK public spending watchdog has said. The National Audit Office (NAO) said the figure would climb if companies collapse and are unable to pay for cleaning up their operations, leaving the government to pick up the tab. – Guardian

The struggling clothing retailer New Look may be forced to put itself up for sale in order to complete a rescue refinance. New Look, which has 500 stores, will hand bondholders up to 92% of the company in return for reducing its £1.35bn debt pile to about £500m. The company closed 85 stores last year through an insolvency procedure after an annual loss of nearly £235m, which its chairman blamed on its product range becoming too young and edgy and on an ill-starred international venture. - Guardian

The City's top lobby group has warned MPs there is "no appetite to take a bulldozer" to banking rules after Brexit as an inquiry into the future of financial services kicks off. The Treasury select committee said it had begun an investigation into the impact Brexit could have on the industry, where bosses are growing increasingly concerned about the negotiations. - Telegraph

BT has become the first international company to secure a licence to sell its services directly to Chinese customers, representing a potential thawing of relations between the UK and China. The telecoms company received a nationwide licence from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that will allow it to directly sell to customers in China and bill them in the Chinese Yuan. – Telegraph

HM Revenue & Customs raised concerns with Patisserie Valerie’s parent company that some of its invoices and cheques had been forged more than two years before the café chain revealed an alleged fraud that led to its collapse, The Times has learnt. The tax authority sent letters to Patisserie Holdings in 2016 questioning the authenticity of documents submitted as part of its tax return. – The Times

A senior Barclays executive told a colleague that he did not want to go to prison as a result of a secret deal to pay multimillion-pound fees to Qatari investors during the financial crisis, a court was told yesterday. Tom Kalaris, 63, head of wealth management, made the comment to Richard Boath, a senior Barclays investment banker, as they scrambled to find a way to pay £42 million in undisclosed fees to Qatar alongside an agreement to invest £2 billion in the bank. – The Times