The German government will have to amend its energy security law again in September as its gas levy cannot yet be imposed on all consumers, including those with fixed prices contracts, government and parliamentary sources told Reuters on Wednesday. A gas levy, which had been set to come into force from October, was envisaged as a tool to collect funds from all gas consumers to support ailing gas importers that are struggling with soaring prices due to falling Russian gas export flows.

European banks are hoping the boost to their businesses from higher interest rates will be long-lasting as they navigate the economic fallout of war, soaring inflation, and a looming energy crisis, Reuters reported. The German lender Commerzbank on Wednesday reported a bigger-than-expected second-quarter net profit that it said was especially helped by higher interest rates.

German retail sales fell at the largest annual rate since records began in 1994, highlighting the scale of the economic challenges facing the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Retail sales volumes dropped 8.8 per cent in June compared with the same month last year, data from Destatis, the German office for national statistics, showed on Monday.

The Bank of England says it will act forcefully if needed to stop the surge in inflation from turning into a long-term problem, meaning it could deliver a rare half-percentage point interest rate rise as soon as this week, Reuters reported. Here are some of the things that Governor Andrew Bailey and his colleagues will be looking as they assess the persistence of inflation pressures ahead of their next scheduled monetary policy announcement at 1100 GMT on Thursday. Measures of inflation expectations and prices charged by companies have slowed recently but core pay has risen.

Russia's economic contraction will deepen in the third quarter of 2022, while its strong current account surplus, the key driver of the rouble's recent rebound, will shrink in the second half of this year, the central bank said on Monday, Reuters reported. Russia's export-dependent economy is plunging into recession after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, triggering sweeping financial and economic sanctions from the West.

Corporate insolvency numbers in Scotland increased by 49.1% from the same time last year with 243 insolvencies in the last quarter, Accountancy Daily reported. This figure was up from 163 in the first quarter of the year with personal insolvencies rising by 8.1% over the same period. Corporate insolvencies include compulsory liquidations, creditors’ voluntary liquidations, and receivership appointments. Compulsory liquidations rose by 37.5% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022 Creditors’ voluntary liquidations increased by 51.9% in the same period.

A group of ex-Greensill Capital employees sued the defunct firm in London, accusing management of unfairly keeping them in the dark about the company’s “imminent danger of collapse,” Bloomberg News reported. A group of 277 employees -- less than half the UK workforce -- are claiming £4.5 million ($5.4 million) for not being consulted properly on their redundancy. They say the firm did not tell them about potential job-loss risks despite being aware of its obvious financial problems. A judge will decide Thursday whether the claimants are entitled to that level of award.

The U.K.’s audit regulator imposed record sanctions against audit firms during its latest fiscal year, highlighting the seriousness of recent failures in the industry, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Financial Reporting Council on Thursday said financial sanctions during the year ended March 31 totaled £46.5 million before settlement discounts, equivalent to $56.6 million and up from £16.7 million the year before. The FRC also said it resolved more cases than in previous years. Higher sanctions and more concluded cases come as the U.K.

Germany’s annual inflation rate has declined slightly for the second consecutive month, official data showed Thursday, but July’s pace of 7.5% was still within sight of the nearly half-century high it reached in May, the Associated Press reported. Inflation in Europe’s biggest economy rose 7.9% in May from a year earlier, the highest level since the early 1970s, before slipping to 7.6% last month. The preliminary monthly figure for July, reported Thursday by the Federal Statistical Office, is usually confirmed in a final report about two weeks later.

Consumer prices driven by the soaring cost of energy continued to take a toll on Europe, causing growth in the continent’s traditional engine, Germany, to stall even as other large economies grew faster than expected, data released on Friday showed, the New York Times reported. In the 19 countries that use the common European currency, consumer prices in July jumped 8.9 percent from a year earlier, as inflation reached a fresh record, the third straight month of gains.