June 17 (Reuters) - British companies have returned more than 1 billion pounds ($1.40 billion) of furlough cash as investors press managements to repay taxpayer funds taken during the COVID-19 pandemic before paying big bonuses, the Financial Times said on Thursday. Companies have repaid 709 million pounds to HM Revenue & Customs that had been claimed under the government"s coronavirus job retention scheme, the newspaper said, with a further 319 million returned as over claimed funds taken in error. The paper cited data obtained through a freedom of information (FOI) request. The amount is still far less than the total of 64 billion pounds Treasury spent up to May 14 under the furlough scheme. ($1=0.7144 pounds)