
Council 'committed' to keep Abbey Cinema in Abingdon town centre
The council said the current cinema lease ends on 31 August and the venue needs to be able to book its autumn schedule. Leader of the town council Jim Halliday said they wanted to see "a thriving cinema in the centre of Abingdon""We have been working with Abbey Cinema Ltd to transfer the building to them so that they can carry out their ambitious investment plans," he said."We remain committed to working through the legalities so that we safeguard the future of publicly owned areas around the building whilst allowing the cinema to go from strength to strength."
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The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on car finance scandal redress: mis-sold loans demand action, not excuses or spin
With its ruling in the car finance case, the UK supreme court sent a clear message: some motorists purchased vehicles with deals that were indeed unfair, but it's not the judiciary's job to redraw the boundaries of consumer protection law. That burden, the justices suggested, rests with regulators and elected governments. This reasoning is in line with a major speech in June by the court's president, Lord Reed, who argued that judges aren't policymakers – and shouldn't be. He led a bench that nonetheless upheld a finding of unfairness in the case of the factory supervisor Marcus Johnson. The court flagged the danger, defined the threshold – but stopped short of imposing redress itself. Now, the baton has been passed. Millions could get payouts if the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) follows the court ruling with its proposed redress scheme, now out for consultation. The regulator admits what courts and campaigners have long suggested: that hidden commissions and opaque contracts were endemic, and that consumers were misled on a large scale. It may be 2025, but the roots of this scandal stretch back decades. More than 90% of new car purchases are financed, and for years, buyers weren't offered the best deal – just the one that earned the broker the biggest cut. Last October, the court of appeal saw hidden commissions as tantamount to bribes – secret incentives to push pricier loans. Banks had been on the hook for potentially £40bn in compensation had that view prevailed. But the supreme court disagreed. Dealers aren't fiduciaries, it said. They're not priests or doctors. They're salespeople and everyone knows it. The Treasury had tried, and failed, to intervene on behalf of banks that feared big payouts. The supreme court dismissed that petition with waspish brevity. Rachel Reeves may argue she was guarding financial stability, but it is not a good look to be siding with lenders over misled consumers, especially when there is a strong case to suggest regulators had been asleep at the wheel. The FCA now admits that many firms broke the rules. It plans a compensation scheme covering loans dating back to 2007, including both discretionary and some non-discretionary commission arrangements. The potential bill? At least £9bn, and possibly double that. Most individuals will probably receive less than £950 in compensation. The court's refusal to stretch the law to encompass issues of trust wasn't a shrug; it was a signal. The law allows unfairness to be addressed. But the heavy lifting must be done by the state. This episode lays bare a deeper malaise. Britain's credit system often runs on skewed incentives and asymmetric information. Brokers pose as advisers but act as commission-driven salespeople. In Mr Johnson's case a £1,650 hidden commission – a quarter of the car's price – went undisclosed. That's not a quirk; it's economics' classic lemons problem. In car finance, consumers didn't know how much brokers were pocketing or how that skewed the deal. Without trust or clarity, quality suffers – and everyone overpays for 'lemons' (duds). The court of appeal did focus minds; and failing to interpret the law robustly in the face of clear wrongdoing is itself a judicial choice. The supreme court smartly redirected the narrative. The regulator is stirring. Ministers must now support a consumer-facing system of redress and not shield the City from the consequences of its own mis‑selling. The public will be watching.


The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
A fair price to the public for water nationalisation
The environment secretary, Steve Reed, claims that water cannot be put into public ownership because it would cost £100bn, and that the government would have to raid the NHS budget to fund it ('Broken' water industry in England and Wales faces tighter controls under new watchdog, 21 July). This is inaccurate. The People's Commission on the Water Sector has investigated the £100bn figure in detail and found that the costs are based on biased evidence and have no basis in law. We have also found that any temporary funds needed to refinance the water sector would be through ringfenced bonds and would not affect the NHS budget. The environment secretary should not use figures that are clearly misleading and have no bearing on the actual costs of public ownership. The £100bn figure is the regulatory capital value (RCV) of the water companies, used by Ofwat and calculated using the market value of water companies in 1989, adding capital spending and depreciation since, multiplied by the retail prices index. Two water companies listed on the stock exchange have market values around half their RCV. KKR merely offered £4bn in its takeover bid for Thames Water, which has an RCV of £21bn, before it pulled out in June. RCV bears no resemblance to the market value of the company and should not be used as the cost of public ownership. Market value is also not the correct way to value a water company. In law, the government would simply need to pay a fair value, not market value, to take a company into public ownership. This would take into account the inadequate investment in the sewage infrastructure, the dividends paid, the high debts incurred which have weakened financial resilience, and the huge costs required to rectify the damage done under private ownership. The law ultimately has to ensure that a 'fair balance' has been struck in the public interest, and 'appropriate value' for secured creditors. In the case of failed water companies that have returned billions to shareholders and creditors, while leaving billions more in repair costs, this would mean paying something closer to zero for transfer into public Becky Malby, Dr Kate Bayliss, Prof Frances Cleaver, Prof Ewan McGaugheyThe People's Commission on the Water Sector Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Divorced man awarded only 0.5 per cent of wife's $80million fortune wins 'gender bias' appeal
A city trader who claimed his divorce settlement was 'gender prejudice' after being handed $450K of his ex-wife's $80million family fortune has won an appeal case to have the arrangement reviewed. Simon Entwistle's three-year marriage to Jenny Helliwell ended in 2022 but he was awarded just 0.5 per cent of her fortune. He blamed gender bias for the decision and has won his case at the Court of Appeal in London, meaning his settlement will now be considered again. Appeal judges ruled Jenny had engaged in 'fraudulent' behavior by not declaring almost $64milllion of her £personal fortune whilst making a prenuptial agreement. The couple had a lavish wedding in Paris in August 2019 and Entwistle 'enjoyed the trappings of being married into a family of exceptional wealth,' it was said. They were living in a luxury villa in Dubai gifted to Helliwell by her father, businessman Neil Helliwell. But when they split up, Helliwell got her lawyers to order her husband out of the family home with just 48 hours' notice in August 2022. The pair, both 42, then went to court, with Entwistle asking for $3.3million from his interior designer ex-wife's personal fortune. Entwistle claimed he needed $48K a year for flights and $35K a year 'on a meal plan just for himself' because he said: 'I can't even cook an omelet. The judge told him: 'Being married to a rich person for three years does not suddenly catapult you into a right to live like that after the relationship has ended.' He was left with a 0.5 per cent share of the pot after the judge upheld a pre-nuptial agreement the pair had signed promising they would each keep their own assets in the event of a split. Appealing that ruling, Entwistle said he was a victim of 'gender prejudice' and that the prenup had been invalidated by Helliwell having failed to disclose assets worth almost $64milllion- amounting to 73 per cent of her wealth. Now, Lady Justice King has ruled that the nondisclosure by the heiress amounted to 'fraudulent' behavior which had invalidated the prenup. She allowed Entwistle's appeal and sent the case back to the divorce courts, ordering it to be recalculated as if the pre-nuptial agreement did not exist. The judge said: 'Willful or fraudulent breach of that agreement such that the disclosure made bears no resemblance to the true wealth of a capable of being material non-disclosure, as it deprives the other party of the information that they have agreed is necessary in order for them to decide whether to agree to a pre-nuptial agreement. 'Since the husband in the instant case was deliberately deprived of information which it had been agreed that he should have, in my judgment, the agreement cannot stand.' Challenging the judge's ruling at the Court of Appeal, Deborah Bangay KC, for Mr Entwistle, said: 'The judge was warned against gender prejudice, but failed to heed that warning. 'Had the positions been reversed, it is very unlikely that he would have so ungenerously assessed the needs of a wife after a six-year relationship.' She also argued that the prenup, which had been key to the husband's low award, was invalidated by Helliwell's failure to disclose her full wealth. Lady Justice King, giving her ruling, made no finding on the gender prejudice argument but said: 'The husband and wife entered into the agreement on the day they married, July 12, 2019. Upon divorce, each party would retain their own separate property and split any jointly owned property as to 50 per cent each. 'At the heart of the dispute is whether the wife's undoubted failure to disclose the majority of her substantial wealth should have the consequence that the agreement should not be upheld by the court. 'In the present case, the non-disclosure of the majority of her assets by the wife was undoubtedly deliberate.'