Monday newspaper round-up: Interest rates, Cameron, Daily Mail

Negative interest rates risk hitting consumer spending and undermining the economic growth they are intended to encourage, the head of the world’s largest asset management group has warned. Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, said that not enough attention was being given to the effect of negative rates on saving habits in a downbeat annual letter to his shareholders. – Financial Times

David Cameron will on Monday promise to create a new criminal offence for companies that fail to stop their staff assisting in tax evasion, as he tries to end a week of corrosive headlines about his own financial affairs. The prime minister will tell MPs that he is pressing ahead with the new law in spite of opposition from some banks, law firms and accountants, which claim it would put the UK finance sector at a disadvantage.- Financial Times

China is not to blame for the UK’s steel crisis and has been made a “scapegoat” in the ongoing debate on global over-supply, the country’s ambassador has claimed. Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, denied allegations his country has been “dumping” imports onto the steel market, and claimed that British companies are “less competitive and less profitable” in low end steel production. – Telegraph

The first ever online-only mortgage broker is set to challenge the traditional brokering model after clinching £1.55m in seed funding. Habito claims that it in half an hour it can find “the very best mortgage for each applicant” from over 100 lenders in the market, and process the application without any paperwork or phone calls. – Telegraph

The publisher of the Daily Mail has confirmed it is in talks with private equity companies about a takeover of Yahoo. Ailing tech firm Yahoo, which has a market capitalisation of $38bn (£27bn), put its core business up for sale in February with bids due by 18 April. Daily Mail and General Trust, the parent company of the Daily Mail, has confirmed that it has approached companies interested in a potential bid for Yahoo. – Guardian

Sajid Javid will address MPs about the crisis in the steel industry as a deal securing thousands of jobs at Tata’s Scunthorpe plant is expected to be secured. The business secretary is hoping to announce the news to parliament on Monday that the steelworks, which has been on the market since 2014, has beenpurchased by Greybull Capital. – Guardian

BHP Billiton is facing fresh criticism for its part in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, amid claims that the firm it hired to investigate the incident suffers from a conflict of interest. The Anglo-Australian miner and its Brazilian partner, Vale, ordered an American law firm to conduct the independent investigation into why a dam had burst at their Samarco iron-ore mine in November, sending a torrent of mud and waste water through nearby villages and killing 19 people. – The Times

The owner of the Three mobile phone network has complained to the European Commission that Vodafone, its rival, is seeking to bully it into coughing up £1 billion to drop objections to its takeover of O2. European regulators are weeks away from ruling on the £10.5 billion deal, which would reduce the number of mobile networks in Britain from four to three. CK Hutchison has offered a series of concessions, has gained the backing of Sky and Virgin Media and has agreed a deal with Tesco to use up to 10 per cent of its combined network. – The Times