Friday newspaper round-up: Port Talbot, Elon Musk, Amazon
Tata Steel has told workers it could to cease operations at its steel plant in Port Talbot months earlier than planned because of a strike. The company had been planning to shut down one of the blast furnaces by the end of June and the second one by September. But workers at the south Wales site have been told that Tata plans to cease operations at both furnaces no later than 7 July because of the strike by members of Unite, which starts the following day. – Guardian
Tesla is claiming Elon Musk won his legal battle over his $56bn pay package because shareholders voted for the compensation, despite a judge rescinding it earlier this year, according to court filing made public on Friday. The company’s filing comes two weeks after Tesla shareholders voted to ratify the 2018 package of stock options. Tesla held the vote following a January ruling by a Delaware judge to void the compensation because Musk improperly controlled the negotiation process and the company misled shareholders about key details. – Guardian
The struggling US owner of Boots has shelved plans for a multibillion-pound sale for the second time, leaving the high street chemist at risk of a further squeeze on investment in its stores. Walgreens, which has owned Boots since 2014, abandoned plans to cash in as it revealed a damaging profit warning on Wednesday. The trading update, which also announced plans to close a large number of stores, saw its share price fall to its lowest level since 1997. – Telegraph
The next government can unlock £100 billion of investment by providing a more stable policy environment and an approach to regulation that encourages a “degree of risk-taking”, according to Dame Amanda Blanc. The chief executive of Aviva, the insurance group, said that businesses were ready to spend if the next administration provided “the right environment with the right incentives and, more than anything, the stability in public policy to allow us to invest the capital we manage on behalf of millions of others”. – The Times
Amazon faces a £2.7 billion legal action for “anticompetitive conduct” over claims that the technology group discriminates in favour of its own retail offers. The claim was issued on Thursday by Andreas Stephan, a law academic, on behalf of more than 200,000 British third-party sellers on Amazon. – The Times