Morning Business News, Thursday 9 September: Lloyds Banking Group, John Varley, Vodafone, BP, Transocean and Haliburton.

Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) leads a resurgent banking sector on the FTSE 100 this morning, partly driven by news of a new asset disposal.

John Varley

John Varley, Barclays’ outgoing chief executive, has shot to the top of the City’s wishlist for some of the biggest jobs in corporate Britain just a day after announcing that he will hand over to his deputy Bob Diamond in March. Prudential is seen as the most likely option for Mr Varley but Vodafone and BP are also possibilities, says the Times.

Vodafone

An Indian court has thrown out Vodafone's challenge to a tax ruling that could leave the mobile phone giant 120bn rupees (£1.7bn) out of pocket.

The dispute centres on whether the British company owes tax to the Indian authorities following its $11.1bn acquisition of a controlling share in the local mobile network operator, Hutchison Essar, three years ago, reports the Independent.

BP Plc report refuted by Transocean

The Herald reports on the reaction of companies that were working alongside BP at the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico to the oil giant’s claim that they were also to blame for the explosion that resulted in 11 deaths and a huge oil spill.

Transocean criticised BP’s report as “self-serving” and an attempt to conceal fatal flaws in BP’s well design and a number of mistakes in key decisions.

Halliburton said in a statement that it found a number of omissions and inaccuracies in the report and was confident the work it did on the well met BP’s specifications.