Shareholders in BT, the telecoms group, could be lumbered with the full ongoing costs of servicing the company's £34bn (€41bn) pension scheme - following a regulator's initial ruling that customers cannot be asked to help pay down its £7.6bn deficit.

Ofcom, the UK's telecoms regulator, put out a statement this morning ruling out the idea that BT might be allowed to put up prices in its "regulated business" - that is, the monopoly it enjoys over the UK's fixed telephone lines - to pay for its pensions costs.