When the Pfizer bid for AstraZeneca was revealed last month most people in the City would have placed a 90 per cent chance on the deal being done.

Britain’s commitment to the efficiency of markets and the Government’s support for a merger that would validate its tax policies looked to make it inevitable.

The most senior Tory politician who had the courage to speak out against the transaction was Lord Heseltine, who was dismissed by critics as a dinosaur.

Deal or no deal? Most people in the City would have placed a 90 per cent chance on the Astrazeneca deal being done

Moreover, Ian Read, the chair and chief executive of Pfizer, was a very different kettle of fish to Irene Rosenfeld, the boss of Kraft who failed to engage with the political classes when she bid for Cadbury.

Read conducted an intense lobbying process on Downing Street and Whitehall and also accepted the need to appear before both the Commons Business and Science committees.

The reception in government was probably more friendly that he had any right to expect and the hostile, if ineffectual, Commons Select Committee appearances provided a useful counterbalance.

Those of us who have covered bids and deals down the years are always told that price should be the overwhelming factor and it is shareholders, many of them global, who should have the last word.

But some disastrous decisions have been made.

The reckless way in which shareholders, for instance, approved the purchase of ABN Amro by Royal Bank of Scotland in 2007 – after Northern Rock had demonstrated the fractures in the banking system – is a case in point.

Indeed, shareholders have become more cautious in their behaviour and did not much like the G4S bid for Danish cleaning company ISS.

The board of water utility Severn Trent also stood firm against an offer from Canadian marauders. So there is no longer any certainty that overseas bids will be automatically approved.

What makes deals in the pharmaceutical sector so different is the time scale of R&D in the industry. AstraZeneca thinks in terms of 12 years to bring drugs to market.

Pfizer’s initial guarantees were only for five years and in the end its heavy play of tax advantages did not win many hearts and minds because it smelled of financial engineering.

If the financial crisis has taught the City anything it is that consumers and citizens have become deeply sceptical about the way business is conducted.

Free and open markets are all very well but the ethics of the marketplace, whether it be the growing wealth divide between directors and workers, or ruthless behaviour such as the payment of bribes in foreign climes, is no longer acceptable.

Companies are starting to get this message and so are some hedge funds. Lansdowne Partners was savaged because it was allowed to be a core investor in Royal Mail.

But it has kept its holding constant whereas other, so-called long funds, have sold. Even the most robust believers in free enterprise are learning that a more moral capitalism is required that pays attention to considerations beyond the money on the table.

Better banking

The fines for the bad bankers keep on rolling in as the regulators require institutions responsible for the ‘great panic’ and ‘great recession’ to pay the price for their misdeeds with heavy fines.

The risk is that such disciplinary action comes to be seen as a cost of doing business rather than a reason to improve behaviour.

That is why the new Banking Standards Review Commission, largely designed by former FT editor Sir Richard Lambert, is so important. It intends to hold banks to account on issues of ethics, culture and behaviour.

Smartly, Lambert managed to persuade Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, to head the senior appointments committee. It is very hard to turn down the governor especially one like Carney who has been working on fixing the banking system since 2010 and the formation of the

Financial Stability Board.

The idea is that the project costing £5million to £10million a year will be funded by the banks and the new commission will seek to draw in citizens, consumers and workers in the financial sector who are impacted by poor ethics in the industry.

Carney wants a system that is ‘safe, fair and acts with integrity’. Good luck with that.

Loyalty shares

Looking after customers is all the rage at present. Silver-haired clients have been given favoured status and free shares in the Saga initial offering.

At another end of the age spectrum Game Retail is planning to distribute virtual shares, to the value of £2million, among thousands of loyal customers in its reward scheme who will be able to spend the points online and in the shops. Kerching!