“The Chancellor may just have been looking for a hook,” he said. Asked about the chances of a “yes” then, Professor Barrell said: “If the tests continue to be used, it will be to ensure the political and economic rhetoric are in line with each other”.He said that while Britain’s reliance on variable rate mortgages meant changes in interest rates had more effect on spending than in eurozone states, the impact on German investment was higher. Referring to the Government’s insistence that the tests’ verdict be “clear and unambiguous”, Professor Ray Barrell, from the institute, said: “The tests were designed to be not clear and unambiguous for political reasons”.On Monday, Mr Brown said Britain was not ready to join the euro but would review the progress towards meeting the tests in next year’s Budget. The institute, one of the country’s leading think-tanks, criticised the use of the housing market as a barrier to entry and warned the City of London could decline as “footloose” banks fled to Frankfurt.
Martin Weale, its director, said: “For it to be sensible to stay out forever, the sum of the costs of joining must exceed £35bn a year.”This is unlikely unless one believes that membership would permanently damage Britain’s growth potential.”The institute, which believes Britain should join for economic reasons, attacked the Chancellor’s five economic tests. Gordon Brown’s decision to keep Britain out of the euro will cost the economy £35bn a year, the National Institute of Economic Social Research said yesterday.

Royal & SunAlliance reported a fourth-quarter loss of £245m last year and said it has asbestos reserves of £800m.. Its solvency margin – the accumulated surplus as a percentage of net claims outstanding – also fell, from 10.3 per cent to 8.7 per cent.Mr Stevenson said: “The balance sheet of Equitas is weaker than it was a year ago, and we still face significant uncertainties arising from matters over which we have little or no control.”Equitas says it moved earlier than rivals, increasing its asbestos reserves by £3.2bn three years ago Others insurance groups face similar woes. Its accumulated surplus after tax fell to £527m, compared with £679m the previous year. These three factors have combined to produce the decrease in both our accumulated surplus and our solvency margin.”He added that “asbestos remains the greatest single threat to Equitas”.Equitas said in April it would pay Honeywell International $472m (£283m) to settle asbestos claims at former divisions of the world’s biggest maker of climate control systems.The update on Equitas’ asbestos reserves came as it reported weaker results for the year to March. Equitas, the vehicle set up to reinsure Lloyd’s of London investors, has set aside an extra £399m to settle claims from people suffering from asbestos-related illnesses.
A review of potential defendants identified policies that were not previously recognised as potential targets of asbestos claims, Equitas said.Hugh Stevenson, Equitas’ chairman, said: “When I wrote to reinsured ‘Names’ last December I stated that it was possible we would have to strengthen our asbestos reserves at the end of the year.”I also referred to the falls in the UK and US equity markets and to the impact of exchange losses on the portion of our surplus held in US dollars.

Deloitte & Touche should have investigated the imbalance and revealed Leeson’s unauthorised trading,” the judge said.Rick Murray, a legal adviser to Deloitte Singapore, said he was extremely satisfied by the decision, in which the judge dismissed 21 of the original allegations against the firm.Damages will be decided at a later hearing.Mr Leeson was jailed for six and a half years.. Deloitte should have investigated an imbalance in December 1993 between the amount it had deposited with SIMEX, the Singapore futures and options exchange, and the amount it had received from its customers “This was an indication of unauthorised trading. It was later sold to ING of the Netherlands for £1.While Mr Justice Evans-Lombe found Deloitte Singapore liable in respect of its audits for 1992 and 1993, he said that after 1994 BFS’s fault was so great that Deloitte had no liability. Barings collapsed after Mr Leeson’s unchecked trading activities in derivatives at BFS amassed losses of £850m. The auditors to Barings Bank, which collapsed in 1995 after a rogue-trading scandal, were yesterday found negligent by the High Court for failing to discover losses that heralded the ruin of Britain’s oldest merchant bank.
Although Deloitte & Touche was ordered to pay damages, the accountancy group claimed victory in a case that has dragged on since 1996 after the judge ruled that the bank was largely to blame.Christopher Evans-Lombe said Barings Futures Singapore (BFS) had failed adequately to supervise the rogue trader Nick Leeson, which meant he had to take into account a “very high level of fault” on the part of local management.

Chubb investors have had a rocky ride since the company’s demerger from the Williams conglomerate in 2000.Last year, rival security firm Securitas of Sweden held bid talks, only to pull out when a steep rise in Chubb’s shares increased the price tag.. We’d be reluctant to sell it out too cheaply and give the upside to someone else.”Chubb sold its famous lock and safe-making units in 2000 – the brand has been associated with locks since Charles and Jeremiah Chubb patented their secure lock mechanism in 1818. Since Chubb’s earnings alert, a number of its competitors, including Securicor and Securitas, have also sounded the alert on the state of the market.One shareholder said: “Chubb has got a great brand and it has just hit bad times. In a profits warning in April, Chubb cited poor trading conditions in Asia and in its US hotel locks business and added: “Chubb believes that results for the full year will fall significantly short of its expectations.”Analysts have said a deal at 75p would be disappointing, but Chubb put out the profits warning after announcing the bid talks, thereby damaging its bargaining position.