TO NEW BREXIT REALITY

04 NEWS MONDAY 16 JANUARY 2017
CITYAM.COM
Single Market retreat hearing due
next month as Article 50 case looms
HAYLEY KIRTON
@HayleyLEK
A COURT hearing that could cause a
headache for Prime Minister Theresa
May, as she plans to trigger Article 50,
has been postponed until early
February.
A case brought last year argues the
government cannot leave the Single
Market without triggering Article
127 of the European Economic Area
agreement – and says it must seek
approval from MPs to do so. The
hearing will decide whether or not
the case carries enough clout to go to
a full trial.
It was initially brought by chair of
pressure group British Influence
Peter Wilding and lobbyist Adrian
Yalland.
The merit hearing was due to take
place this week. However, City A.M.
has learned this has now been
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postponed until early February.
Meanwhile, the government’s
legal eagles are bracing themselves
for the outcome of their Article 50
appeal, which was heard by the
Supreme Court justices in December,
after a trio of High Court judges
decided the government must get
the thumbs up from MPs before it
can trigger Article 50.
No official date for the hand down
of the judgment has been given.
HUNT TO MAKE A KILLING UK business
co-owned by Jeremy Hunt to fetch £35m
UK HEALTH secretary
Jeremy Hunt could
pick up a £15m
windfall as his
education business
Hotcourses is
expected to be sold in
a deal worth up to
£35m. Hunt and his
business partner Mike
Elms set up the
business in 1996. A
deal with an
Australasian firm with
interests in the
education sector was
close to be signed late
last night, Sky News
reported. Hunt owns
approximately 48 per
cent of the shares.
City buoyed by
Barnier pledge
for special deal
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May’s speech comes as a report from
think tank Policy Exchange calls on
her to go public with plans for a socalled
clean Brexit, including departures
from the EU’s trading blocs.
Asked if the City had made peace
with Brexit, report author and economist
Gerard Lyons, a former adviser to
Boris Johnson, echoed the view that
firms had come round to the realities
of quitting the EU.
“A lot of the City wasn’t fully prepared
for the Brexit vote, or at least
had not thought through a strategy if
the country was to vote to leave,”
Lyons said. “But as time has gone on
more and more firms have started to
develop their plan, and they have
started to see things in a new way.”
The City will likely take some comfort
from leaked European parliament
minutes, which cite EU chief Brexit
negotiator Michel Barnier calling for
Europe to maintain a “special” relationship
with the London and the
UK’s financial markets. The comments
echo those made by the Bank
of England governor last week, with
Mark Carney telling the influential
Treasury Select Committee a badly
constructed Brexit deal with no transition
period “would be greater for Europe
than the UK”.
Although a spokesperson for the European
Commission said the minutes
did not “correctly reflect what Barnier
said” and the man himself has since
taken to Twitter to clarify that his
comments were in relation to equivalence
, a source at meeting told the
Guardian, which first published the
news, the minutes were “more or less
accurate”. Also, a report by the Financial
Services Negotiation Forum notes
a clampdown by the ECB could make
it look like it’s trying to build “fortress
Europe”
“The EU should not rush to make a
decision on this topic as a political
backlash to Brexit,” said Anthony
Belchambers, chairman of the honorary
advisory council, FSNForum.
French ex-PM trails in TV debate
with immigration plan panned
RICHARD BALMFORTH
FORMER Prime Minister Manuel Valls,
long tipped to win the left-wing ticket
for France’s presidential election this
spring, trailed his rivals after a debate
last night where his immigration
policies came under fire.
In the televised debate, Valls faced
six other contenders ahead of a
Socialist primary starting on 22
January to pick a candidate who can
keep next May’s presidential poll
from becoming a contest between the
center-right’s Francois Fillon and
Marine Le Pen of the far-right.
The candidate chosen in the
primary’s runoff on 29 January could
also have a crucial impact on the
chances of independent Emmanuel
Macron, a popular former economy
minister whose campaign is rapidly
gaining momentum.
An Elabe poll of 1,053 people of
mixed political views said 29 per cent
found former economy minister
Arnaud Montebourg “more
convincing” than Valls. Reuters