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Friday newspaper round-up: Tech taxes, Brexit, Snapchat, Carillion
The Treasury is threatening digital companies such as Facebook and Google with a new tax, as it pushes for global agreement on a fairer system for ensuring digital businesses pay their way. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, is expected to use next month's spring statement to announce the results of a consultation launched by the Treasury in November, on how to update the tax system to reflect the nature of online businesses. - Guardian
Jeremy Corbyn could use a key Brexit speech on Monday to pave the way for Labour to inflict a Commons defeat on the government, by backing a rebel Tory amendment seeking to keep Britain in "a customs union". With Theresa May expected to unveil her vision for departure from the EU next week, following eight hours of talks with key ministers at the prime minister's Chequers country retreat, she now faces the prospect of Labour sabotaging the carefully choreographed process. - Guardian
Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and chief executive of Snapchat, was awarded a $638m (£458m) payout for 2017, a sum which is likely to make him among the best paid US executives for the year. It comes after he received a $636.6m stock award when Snap went public last year, and despite him having slashed his salary down to $1 from $500,000 in March, around the time of the photo messaging app's initial public offering. - Telegraph
Standard Life Aberdeen has pressed the firing gun on its search for a new chairman as Sir Gerry Grimstone prepares to step down from the group. Sir Gerry plans to leave the firm's board in the second half of 2019, one person said, triggering the search for his successor barely a year after the £11bn merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management. - Telegraph
Lazard, Morgan Stanley and the stockbroker Stifel have been drawn into the parliamentary investigation into the collapse of Carillion after it emerged that there could have been a false market in the shares for at least six weeks before the construction company's blockbuster profit warning last summer. It also emerged yesterday that Carillion directors could yet be forced to use millions of pounds of their own money to plug the hole in its pension funds. - The Times
One of the country's leading private providers of public services has warned the government about its treatment of outsourcing contractors, telling ministers that without reform Whitehall officials might create another Carillion. Rupert Soames, chief executive of Serco, said in an unprecedented intervention that the government needed to commit to transparency and co-operation if private sector companies were to continue delivering services in cleaning, catering and maintaining public buildings. - The Times