Thursday newspaper round-up: Cameron, Tata, Petrofac

David Cameron personally intervened in 2013 to weaken an EU drive to reveal the beneficiaries of trusts, creating a possible loophole that other European nations warned could be exploited by tax evaders. The disclosure of the prime minister’s resistance to opening up trusts to full scrutiny comes as he faces intense pressure to make clear whether his family stands to benefit from offshore assets linked to his late father. – Financial Times

Dutch voters opposed a trade deal between the EU and Ukraine by a margin of nearly two-to-one, in a result that could trigger ructions in Brussels and boost those in the UK campaigning for Britain to leave the bloc. Turnout breached the 30 per cent level required to force the hand of a government that had agreed to abide by the result if the threshold were passed. – Financial Times

Barack Obama’s derailment of Pfizer’s $160bn (£114bn) merger with Allergan sparked immediate speculation on Wednesday that the US drugs company would turn its attention to another big pharmaceutical takeover. Pfizer, best known for Viagra and its cholesterol pill Lipitor, will pay the Botox producer Allergan $150m for pulling out of what would have been the world’s biggest healthcare deal, first announced in November and now abandoned after the US Treasury Department stunned financial markets with measures to clamp down on tax efficient mergers and takeovers. – Guardian

Sajid Javid has said that he has received assurances from Tata that it will allow time to find a saviour for its British steelmaking business, including the Port Talbot plant. The business secretary said Tata will impose “no set time-frame” on the sales process and sought to assuage fears that the company could shut the loss-making Port Talbot steelworks within weeks after meeting its senior figures in Mumbai, including the chairman, Cyrus Mistry. – Guardian

Hutchison, the owner of mobile operator Three, has signed deals worth £3bn to guarantee space on its expanded mobile network as it makes its final appeal to officials in Brussels to allow its controversial takeover of O2. The future of Britain’s mobile phone sector is in now the hands of European competition watchdog after Hutchison made its final offer of concessions today. – Telegraph

The Federal Reserve is preparing to raise US interest rates yet again, despite the financial turmoil that gripped global markets after the central bank increased its rates last December. Members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which decides on US monetary policy, were split on raising rates as early as this month, minutes of the committee’s last meeting have revealed. - Telegraph

A director of the oil company Petrofac ordered “confidential payments” worth $2 million to help to secure an oil contract in Kuwait, according to documents seen by The Times. Internal emails and invoices from Unaoil, a Monaco-based oil services company that is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over bribery allegations, appear to show that a manager at the FTSE 250 oil services group authorised payments “in the range of two metres” to help to win a project in Kuwait. – The Times