Markets: WINNERS AND LOSERS

Former Marks & Spencer boss Luc Vandevelde secured the chairmanship of French supermarket giant Carrefour last week after a battle for management control. It was also announced that Carrefour's chief executive, Daniel Bernard, would leave, to be replaced by finance director Jose Luis Duran. Mr Vandevelde represents the chain's largest shareholder, the Halley family, which had become impatient with Mr Bernard's failure to stem a loss of market share in France.

Network giant Nortel started legal action against Frank Dunn, its former chief executive, to retrieve a near C$8m (pounds 3.4m) bonus. Nortel is seeking a total of nearly C$13m from Mr Dunn and two other executives who were sacked over an accounting scandal. Nortel claims the executives signed off financial statements that inflated company profits and triggered the bonus payments.

Mowlem revealed that its finance director, Gerald Brown, who has been with the construction group since 1973, was leaving after the discovery of "a number of historic accounting issues". The group also warned that, as a result of the accountancy problems, pre-tax losses for 2004 would come in at pounds 7.5m.

It was not just Richard Grasso who benefited from the New York Stock Exchange's largesse. A report into the pay and benefits dolled out to the NYSE's former boss revealed his personal assistant was paid $240,000 (pounds 128,055) a year while his two drivers picked up $130,000 each. Mr Grasso received more than $190m over eight years.