Thursday newspaper round-up: Brexit, Google and Facebook, Diageo, SFO
The price of British strawberries could rise by more than a third if the UK cannot ensure access to European workers after Brexit, farmers have warned. Producers have called on the government to introduce a permit scheme for seasonal workers to ensure that the expansion of soft fruit production in the UK is not brought to a halt. – Guardian
Advertisers will pull hundreds of millions of pounds in spending from Google and Facebook this year over concerns about ads running next to inappropriate contentsuch as extremist sites and fake news. Sir Martin Sorrell’s GroupM, which buys more than $75bn (£60bn) of advertising space on behalf of clients globally, has slashed its growth prediction for UK digital advertising and has blamed some of the adjustment on an advertiser backlashover the inability of Silicon Valley giants to stop ads appearing around inappropriate content. – Guardian
Drinks giant Diageo has agreed to pay up to $1bn to down George Clooney’s tequila company. The group behind Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff made its offer just four years after Casamigos, or ‘house of friends’, was founded by the US actor alongside Cindy Crawford’s husband Rande Gerber and real estate developer Mike Meldman. - Telegraph
The Serious Fraud Office appears to have been granted a reprieve from plans to abolish it in a U-turn that came just a day after the organisation targeted Barclays with the first criminal charges ever brought against a bank over the financial crisis. Controversial proposals in the Conservative manifesto to fold the SFO into the National Crime Agency were quietly dropped from the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday. – Telegraph
One of Britain’s leading businessmen will warn today that a cap on immigration will have a “materially detrimental effect on the UK economy”. John Allan, chairman of Tesco and Barratt Developments, the housebuilder, will tell the annual lunch of London First, the lobby group: “If we have an over-restrictive immigration policy we are going to drive the economy down. That will be bad for everyone. It will lead to fewer jobs and decreasing real wages.” – The Times
The failed employment agency embroiled in the pay and conditions row at a Sports Direct warehouse has left the taxpayer with a £8.2 million bill, according to an administrator’s report. The largest unsecured creditor of Qualitycourse, the company behind Transline, is set to be HM Revenue & Customs, which is owed income tax, national insurance and VAT, Deloitte said. – The Times