The Times - UK (2021-11-11)

2 S1 Thursday November 11 2021 | the times

News

The Brexit minister, Lord Frost, has

warned the European Union against

“massive and disproportionate retalia-

tion” over the Northern Ireland proto-

col if the UK triggers Article 16, amid

threats of an all-out trade war.

In Brussels, ambassadors instructed

the European Commission to be ready

to take all “possible countermeasures”.

Hawks, led by France, warned that all

trade with Britain was conditional on

Northern Irish arrangements.

Frost told the Lords yesterday that he

would “not give up” on talks with the

commission to reform the protocol that

imposes checks on goods crossing into

Northern Ireland from Britain.

But he warned that if it became clear

that “nothing more” could be achieved

then he would not hesitate to trigger

Article 16. That would unilaterally sus-

about companies incorporated at these

addresses after the furlough scheme

was launched, but this does not necessa-

rily mean their claim was illegitimate.

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, officially

announced the creation of the furlough

scheme on March 20 last year and said

it would cover wages from March 1.

The companies created on or after

that date claimed between £5.7 million

and £26.6 million between last Decem-

ber and June. The wide range is because

HMRC publishes funding bands

claimed by companies, and most

claimed between one penny and

£10,000 each a month, the data shows.

The 7,000 companies at the five

London addresses claimed between

£40 million and £473 million from last

December to June.

The number of companies that made

claims and the sums they claimed are

both likely to have been higher because

the data analysed does not include

claims made before last December.

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Today will be cloudy and damp and
increasingly wet from the west.
Full forecast, page 70

THE WEATHER

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TODAY’S EDITION

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Duchess says

sorry to court

The Duchess of Sussex
has apologised to the
Court of Appeal for a
misleading statement
after her former
communications
secretary revealed the
extent to which she
had co-operated with
the authors of a book
about her and the duke.
Page 5

E-passport

gates fail again

Passengers arriving at

Heathrow had to

queue for up to two

hours after a “technical

issue” caused the

e-passport gates to fail.

It was the third time in

just over two months

that the gates, which

process the vast

majority of arrivals,

had failed. Page 10

Dozens fight for

graduate jobs

A backlog of

unemployed graduates

from last year has

intensified the

scramble for jobs as

competition for jobs

for university leavers

reached a record high

this year, with more

than 90 applications

for every position.

Page 22

Cricketers lose

T20 semi-final

England crashed out of

the T20 World Cup in

Abu Dhabi after they

were beaten by five

wickets with six balls

to spare by New

Zealand in the semi-

finals. Eoin Morgan’s

team leaked 57 runs in

three overs as the

Kiwis passed England’s

total of 166. Page 82

Belarus border

row deepens

Russia sent strategic
bombers over Belarus
yesterday as the
European Union
prepared to impose
further sanctions on
Minsk for luring
people from the
Middle East and
creating a migrant
crisis on the border
with Poland. Page 34

Inflation surges

in America

Prices rose at their

fastest pace in more

than three decades in

the US last month as

inflation accelerated

amid sustained supply

shortages and robust

demand. America’s

benchmark measure of

inflation increased to

6.2 per cent in the year

to October. Page 47

COMMENT

Rules are only rules until someone powerful

and with popular support says they aren’t

DAVID AARONOVITCH, PAGE 29

COMMENT 29

THUNDERER 30

LEADING ARTICLES 33

MARKETS 59

REGISTER 65

LAW 68

SPORT 71

CROSSWORD 82

TV & RADIO TIMES

DAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APP

To day’s highlights

7.20am

11am

2.45pm

8.30pm

10.30pm

Business Minister Paul Scully

Matt Chorley reflects on the MPs who served and

died in the war, with historian Kathryn Rix

and MPs Chris Bryant and Tom Tugendhat

Dire Straits bassist John Illsley, right

Director Ben Turner on his new TV

series behind the scenes at Nasa

Tomorrow’s front pages with former

health minister Sir Norman Lamb

and Chris Southworth of the

International Chamber of Commerce

Frost warns EU against

trade war over Article 16

Oliver Wright Policy Editor

Bruno Waterfield Brussels

pend parts of the protocol, which in ef-

fect keeps Northern Ireland in the EU’s

single market and customs union.

The government is demanding that

the protocol is renegotiated and North-

ern Ireland is removed from the juris-

diction of EU courts but this is being re-

sisted by Brussels.

Frost is due to resume talks with the

EU negotiator, and commission vice-

president, Maros Sefcovic this week.

Government sources suggest that no

decision on triggering Article 16 will be

taken until the end of the month.

Sefcovic told a confidential meeting

of European ambassadors that negotia-

tions with Frost were “disappointing”

and British demands amounted to “re-

negotiation” of the protocol, “reneging”

on agreements.

If the UK uses Article 16 to rewrite

the protocol then the commission will

be asked by some countries to suspend

the trade deal.

an increasingly urgent challenge. We

hope this joint declaration will help to

achieve success at Cop26.”

One source close to the talks said the

joint statement was helpful but that any

final deal had to be signed off by all 197

parties to the negotiations. Unresolved

issues include a new mechanism by

which countries have to update pledges

more frequently and a regime for

verifying carbon-reduction claims.

Nick Mabey, chief executive of the

E3G, a climate-change think tank, said

the declaration made it more likely that

countries would agree at Cop26 that

they should return next year with

stronger emissions-reduction targets.

“This truce between US and China,

which have been sniping at each other,

could help deliver a transformational

Glasgow outcome,” he said.

The UK government team at Cop

believe that the declaration is signifi-

cant and hope that it means China will

agree to bring forward from 2029 its

deadline for reaching peak emissions.

Johnson criticises world leaders, page 12

Criticism of China, letters, page 32

Three out of every four current account

customers who were denied a refund

for fraud were treated unfairly by their

bank and should have got their money

back, according to ombudsman data.

The figures show that thousands of

fraud victims every year are not being

reimbursed with banks ignoring their

own code of conduct on refunds.

Most high street banks have signed

up to a voluntary reimbursement code

on transfer scams, also known as

authorised push payment fraud, which

instructs them not only to reimburse

customers who are not at fault but also

to provide them with adequate support.

However, over the past year, nearly

8,000 victims of this type of fraud com-

plained to the Financial Ombudsman

Service after their bank refused to

refund them or only partially refunded

them. This figure is likely to be a

fraction of those who didn’t get their

money back because many victims give

up rather than fight all the way to the

ombudsman.

The industry says that there were

150,000 victims of push fraud last year

Victims of fraud are unfairly

denied refunds by their bank

Andrew Ellson

Consumer Affairs Correspondent

but research suggests that banks return

less than half of the missing cash to

customers. In total, nearly half a billion

pounds was lost to this type of fraud

last year.

The data reveals that 73 per cent of

customers who complained to the om-

budsman about not being refunded had

their complaints upheld.

Some banks are performing worse

than others, with the ombudsman tell-

ing NatWest to reverse nine out of ten

decisions to deny a refund. More than

80 per cent of complaints against

Santander were also upheld, while Na-

tionwide was told to refund 74 per cent.

The figures were obtained from the

ombudsman by the consumer group

Which?. It said the current “reimburse-

ment lottery” left many victims facing

an uphill struggle to recover their cash.

The consumer group is now calling

on the government to make the neces-

sary changes to enable the Payment

Systems Regulator to introduce

mandatory fraud reimbursement obli-

gations on all firms using faster pay-

ments, with a robust regime of regula-

tory oversight and enforcement.

Jenny Ross, money editor at Which?,

said: “Fraud can have a devastating

financial and emotional impact on

victims, so it’s shocking that so many

banks are failing to handle cases

correctly, often wrongly and unfairly

denying victims reimbursement. It’s

clear banks can’t be trusted to make the

right decision when it comes to reim-

bursing their customers who’ve fallen

victim to push-fraud scams.”

NatWest said: “Our proactive stance

and relationship with the ombudsman

service has brought forward the

settlement of many of our cases earlier

than required... As a result of this our

overturn rate for the period is inflated.

We do, however, expect to see this nor-

malise in 2022.”

Santander said: “We invest a great

deal in protecting our customers

against fraud, raising awareness of

scams and fraud, and working closely

with the ombudsman, as well as other

industry bodies, to ensure customers

are treated fairly.”

Nationwide said: “The cases require

careful consideration and each is

assessed on its own merits, taking into

account steps taken by the members

to protect themselves, our own ac-

tions and wider factors such as any

vulnerability.”

continued from page 1

US-China Cop26 pledge

Concerns that the scheme was vul-

nerable to fraud increased after the

Financial Times reported that a group of

four companies was believed to have

fraudulently claimed tens of millions of

pounds of taxpayers’ money.

An alleged fraudster is understood to

have claimed £27.4 million over 14

months despite scant public evidence

that his businesses had any staff or any

substantial trade. Last month HMRC

seized £26.5 million of funds claimed by

the companies controlled by Rajanish

Garibe, who according to filings is a 45-

year-old Indian citizen. At Cardiff

magistrates’ court Judge Shomon Khan

granted a forfeiture order, understood

to be the largest in HMRC’s history, over

five Nationwide building society ac-

counts, and said the sums involved were

“eye-watering” and of “grave concern to

the public”.

Garibe is suspected of using fake or

stolen national insurance numbers to

access taxpayer funds ostensibly for

four companies registered to Kemp

House, an address near east London’s

so-called Silicon Roundabout. The site

is sold as a “premium central London”

off-the-shelf address by Your Virtual

Office London, a company formation

agent and the trading name of Capital

Office Ltd, which owns the leasehold on

the property, according to Land Regis-

try documents. Your Virtual Office did

not respond to a request for comment.

There is no suggestion Your Virtual

Office is suspected of wrongdoing.

Susan Hawley, executive director at

Spotlight on Corruption, a charity, said:

“The British public are going to be pick-

ing up the bill from massive fraud on

government Covid support schemes for

years to come. The lessons from why

these schemes were so open to fraud has

to be learnt, and learnt quickly.”

Garibe could not be reached for com-

ment. HMRC said: “We designed anti-

fraud measures into the Covid support

schemes from the beginning, and we are

taking tough action to tackle fraudulent

and criminal behaviour. We have

blocked tens of millions of pounds of

claims being paid out in the first place

and we are using the full range of pow-

ers to recover incorrectly paid claims.”

continued from page 1

Furlough fraud fears