Wednesday newspaper round-up: Tata Steel, Brexit, BHS

India’s Tata Steel has completed the sale of part of its European steel business, even as it remains silent on progress towards finding a buyer for the bulk of the UK operation. The European long products business — mostly consisting of UK operations including a steelworks in Scunthorpe and two mills on Teesside, as well as a mill in France — has been sold to Greybull Capital, an investment company that specialises in turning round struggling companies. – Financial Times

Washington and Brussels are scrambling to rebuild momentum for a landmark trade accord, amid signs that it is faltering under an increasingly bitter onslaught from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, travelled to Paris on Wednesday to sell potentially the world’s biggest trade deal to one of the toughest political constituencies in Europe — a convention of France’s mayors. – Financial Times

Two-thirds of Britons believe that they would not be worse off in the event of a Brexit vote, in a blow to the assembled forces of “Project Fear”. The findings came despite warnings issued by the Treasury, the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, and the OECD, all of which have cautioned on the economic repercussions of a Brexit vote to some degree, and suggest that most voters have been left unconvinced. – Telegraph

There is a good reason why federal plebiscites are outlawed under the German constitution; it is because they are thought to have been a major contributor to the political and economic chaos of the country’s inter-war years. Repeated referendums were very much part of the decay in institutional authority that defined the period, including two crucial ones in the early 1930s, the first of which sanctioned Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations, and the second combining the positions of President and Chancellor, allowing Hitler to assume the absolute power of Führer. – Telegraph

A decision to leave the EU would be a “disaster” for British workers who would be £38 a week worse off outside the EU by 2030, according to the TUC. The trade union federation, which is campaigning to persuade voters to remain part of the EU, said Brexit would hit wages, jobs and workers’ rights and warned of a “devastating” blow to Britain’s manufacturing sector, where highly skilled jobs would be lost. - Guardian

Dominic Chappell, the owner of BHS at the time it fell into administration, has blamed former owner Sir Philip Green for the retail chain’s demise. Chappell said Green had failed to deliver on a pledge to ensure the backing of credit insurers and had not left sufficient cash in the business. – Guardian

The former boss of Lloyds Banking Group has been accused of keeping silent on rate-rigging at the state-backed bank in a court claim that raises fresh questions about the City watchdog’s investigation into market abuse. Eric Daniels, chief executive of Lloyds until 2011, and his Mike Fairey, his deputy at the time, took part in a meeting in April 2008 at which manipulation of the interbank Libor lending rate was allegedly discussed, according a lawsuit brought against the bank by a care home operator. – The Times