Morning Edition: Crest fallen, Telewest merger off and employees take online liberties

NEWS A technical error with the automatic settlement system, Crest, misplaced the company after confusion arose surrounding a capital reshuffle by insurance firm Zurich Financial Services. London-based Allied Zurich, which held a 43 per cent stake in Zurich Financial Services, was absorbed into the Swiss company on Monday, and while investors should have been automatically allocated shares in the combined organisation they awoke yesterday morning to discover that millions of pounds of shares have disappeared from their settlement accounts and any trace of the company having ever existed was lost from the Crest system... The Guardian also reports on loss of another kind. Apparently, office workers spending their working day surfing the net are costing business as much as £25m a year. Further findings of a survey conducted by software developer Surf Control reveal that 59 per cent of office internet use is not work-related - with the most common reasons for going online in company time being trading shares, shopping, buying holidays and looking at pornography. Unsurprisingly, pornography, which accounted for an average of 3 per cent of unauthorised internet use in the office, is regarded by employers as the most concerning use of office internet access... Struggling for internet access of its own is cable television provider Telewest who the Independent reports has now ruled out a merger with NTL. The paper quotes Adam Singer, chief executive of Telewest Communications, as blaming the decision not to merge on the large debts of the two companies - though probably more particularly NTL's debts which are more than double those of Telewest at around £9bn. The news will come as a blow to shareholders in both companies and UK consumers alike. A merger between the two companies would have greatly eaten into the market shares in their respective fields, currently dominated by BT and BskyB, and would have created stronger competition in the UK marketplace...