Four in five English local authorities will be in effect bankrupted by rising special educational needs spending unless the government introduces significant reforms to the system, council leaders have said, The Guardian reported. Councils have called on ministers to write off special educational needs and disability (Send) deficits accumulated by local authorities over the past few years. These are projected to reach £14bn in two years’ time.

Vienna club Pratersauna enters bankruptcy proceedings image Pratersauna has entered preliminary insolvency proceedings, RA.co reported. An insolvency case, filed by creditors against Prater Nostra GmbH, opened on January 21st. According to Zwischenbrücken, the case was opened at the request of the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK). The outlet also reports that employees and artists haven't received any payments since October 2025, and that arrears have amounted to a six-figure sum. The specific type of insolvency the club is listed as bankruptcy.

Business activity in Wales has shown mixed trends, with both rising insolvency-related activity and a growing number of start-ups, the South Wales Argus reported. According to R3, the trade body for restructuring and insolvency professionals, the region saw a 2.3 per cent increase in insolvency-related activity in 2025, rising from 844 cases in 2024 to 863 last year. At the same time, the number of new businesses grew by 8.7 per cent, from 21,036 to 22,863.

The UK’s tax office is seeking to block Waldorf Production from restructuring its liabilities in a London court, as the nation’s fiscal body takes an increasingly aggressive stance when it comes to debt collecting, Bloomberg News reported. The struggling oil and gas company owes His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs an estimated $72.4 million, court documents seen by Bloomberg show.

The European Central Bank has kept interest rates unchanged, saying inflation is on track to return to its 2% target even as global trade tensions and geopolitical risks cloud the outlook, EuroNews.com reported. The Governing Council said on Thursday that it would leave its three key rates steady, with the deposit facility at 2.00%, the main refinancing rate at 2.15% and the marginal lending rate at 2.40%. The ECB said their latest assessment confirmed that inflation should stabilise at target over the medium term.

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 3.75% after a knife-edge vote but has opened the door to cuts later this year, BBC.com reported. Borrowing costs were widely expected to be unchanged after the Bank reduced them from 4% in December. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey reiterated his forecast that inflation – which measures the pace of price growth - would fall close to the Bank's 2% target from April onwards, against a previous expectation it would hit that level in 2027. "That's good news," said Bailey. "We need to make sure that inflation stays there.

German manufacturing orders unexpectedly jumped in December, a sign that the recent struggles of the country’s industrial sector might be fading as Berlin’s fiscal stimulus ramps up, the Wall Street Journal reported. Orders climbed 7.8% on month, the strongest pickup in two years, accelerating from the 5.7% rise in November, statistics agency Destatis said on Thursday. Factory orders have now climbed for four straight months. Orders were 9.5% higher in the final quarter of last year than in the third, Destatis said.

Ireland’s jobless rate was 4.7 per cent in January, unchanged from the previous month, but up from 4.5 per cent in January 2025, the Irish Times reported. Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures indicated the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed in January was 138,400, compared with 137,800 in December 2025. The January total represented an annual increase of 8,600.