Friday newspaper round-up: Royal Mail strikes, FTX, winter blackouts

(Sharecast News) - Royal Mail workers will stage six more days of strike action in December, including on Christmas Eve, as part of the latest walkouts to affect the postal service. Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) at the service will go on strike on 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24 December. - Guardian Collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX's financial records were worse than Enron, its administrator has claimed. John Ray, who was appointed as FTX's liquidator last week, told a US bankruptcy court in filings made public on Wednesday: "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here." - Telegraph

Plans to avert winter blackouts have been dealt a blow as repairs to a key power cable from France to Britain have been delayed until next year. National Grid's Interconnexion France-Angleterre (IFA) cable under the Channel has been running at half capacity since a fire in September 2021 damaged its substation in Kent. - Telegraph

Andy Hornby could be dragged into another controversy after the former HBOS chief was named in a £1.5 billion legal battle over the Libor benchmark interest rate being fought by an entrepreneur and Lloyds Banking Group. It was only in August that City regulators closed a six-year investigation into former senior executives at HBOS after resolving not to take enforcement action against them over the bank's failure in 2008. - The Times

The former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has taken over the Coventry Building Society Arena after buying its three operating companies. The acquisition by Ashley's Frasers Group of the 32,609-seat stadium has provided Coventry City Football Club with a permanent home next season and has secured the future of 1,000 jobs in the stadium, which houses a hotel and a casino. The ground was also the home of Wasps rugby club before it went into administration last month. - The Times