Wednesday newspaper round-up: Avanti West Coast, car finance scandal, Boots

Britain’s car finance scandal could end up being as big as the payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling saga, which cost UK banks £50bn, the City regulator’s top lawyer has admitted. Stephen Braviner Roman, the Financial Conduct Authority’s general counsel and executive director in charge of legal affairs, said October’s shock court of appeal ruling into car finance commission arrangements vastly expanded the scope of potential consumer compensation. - Guardian

The US owner of Boots is in talks with an American private equity giant about a potential takeover, in a move that is expected to trigger a fresh auction of the British high street chain. Walgreens Boots Alliance, which has owned the UK chemist since 2014, is reportedly in discussions with Sycamore Partners about a deal that could value the company at as much as $10bn (£7.8bn). – Telegraph

The Financial Conduct Authority has warned MPs that a push for the regulator to encourage growth must not encourage a “race to the bottom” and that parliament must be prepared to stand by the revised remit when “more things go wrong”. Nikhil Rathi, the authority’s chief executive, and Ashley Alder, its chairman, told the Treasury committee about the challenges the regulator would face after being asked by the government to do more to promote economic growth alongside its objectives to protect consumers and market integrity. – The Times

A settlement has been agreed between Shell and Greenpeace after the environmental charity occupied one of the multinational’s vessels to protest against its North Sea oil drilling plans. The campaign group has agreed to donate £300,000 to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, after the oil major claimed that it had incurred significant costs when six Greenpeace activists boarded a ship carrying a floating production, storage and offloading vessel last year, as it was en route to a shipyard in Norway. – The Times