The Dubai-owned company P&O Ferries will not face any criminal action over its decision to sack nearly 800 British workers without notice, the Insolvency Service has said, the Epoch Times reported. P&O Ferries, which was bought by Dubai-based logistics giant DP World in 2019, sparked outrage on March 17 when it fired 800 seafarers without any prior notice and replaced them with cheaper agency workers, citing £100 million ($132 million) year-on-year loss.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday it had fined Citigroup Global Markets 12.5 million pounds ($15 million) for past failures to properly apply rules aimed at spotting suspicious trading in shares and commodities, Reuters reported. Banks are required to implement rules introduced in 2016 and known as the market abuse regulation (MAR) to monitor for potential insider trading and market manipulation. But until January 2018, the London-based international broker dealer arm of U.S.

An Ebbw Vale haulier business has collapsed due to soaring fuel costs. The winding up of Scott Commercials has resulted in the loss of 10 jobs with insolvency firm Begbies Traynor appointed liquidators, BusinessLive.com reported. Established in 2013 Scott Commercials provided road haulage services to transport operators across the UK. The liquidation is being handled by Bristol-based partner Paul Wood and Cardiff-based partner Huw Powell. They said that recent rises in PAYE, fuel, ad-blue (fuel additive) and tyres had created significant cash flow issues for the business.

Spain's trade deficit in the first six months of the year widened almost six-fold from the same period a year earlier to 32 billion euros ($32.6 billion), the Industry Ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The outcome was wider than the deficit for the whole of 2021 and compared with a 5.4 billion euro deficit in the first six months a year ago, the ministry said in its monthly report. Excluding energy imports and exports, the trade deficit in the period was 6.1 billion euros, the ministry said.

Euro zone inflation reached a new record high of 8.9% year-on-year in July, the EU's statistics office confirmed on Thursday, with the core measure, excluding the most volatile components and key for monetary policy, also sharply up, Reuters reported. The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said consumer prices in the 19 countries using the euro rose 0.1% month-on-month in July for a 8.9% year-on-year increase, the highest since the euro was created in 1999.

The International Monetary Fund is tapping for a key role in talks with Ukraine the economist who led negotiations with Argentina to rescue its record loan, as the lender of last resort seeks to help the European country upended by Russia’s invasion, Bloomberg News reported. Julie Kozack is set to oversee and guide the staff team dealing with Ukraine after she becomes a deputy director of the European department next month, according to the fund.

Endo International Plc filed for bankruptcy yesterday after reaching a $6 billion deal with some of its creditors, as the U.S. drugmaker seeks to settle thousands of lawsuits over its alleged role in the country's opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. The pharmaceutical company is the latest to file for chapter 11 to address opioid claims. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, filed in September 2019, while Mallinckrodt Plc, a generic opioid manufacturer, recently emerged from bankruptcy.

The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation moved into double digits in July and is set to rise even higher by the end of the year, heaping greater pressure on stretched household budgets and threatening a lengthy economic contraction, the Wall Street Journal reported. That pickup in inflation has been replicated in other parts of Europe, even as consumer prices have started to slow in the U.S. That is because energy prices have continued to accelerate across Europe as Russia withholds supplies of natural gas, with the continent facing a possible crunch this winter.

Uniper, Germany’s largest importer of natural gas, reported on Wednesday a loss of more than 12 billion euros (or $12.2 billion) for the first half of the year as the company coped with dwindling supplies of natural gas provided by Russia, the New York Times reported. Uniper said that the losses were a direct result of having to pay inflated prices for gas on the open market in order to make up for the Russian shortfall.

Germany’s RWE AG has turned to the debt market for funding, as Europe faces its worst energy crunch in decades, Bloomberg News reported. The company saw over 2 billion euros ($2 billion) of investor demand for at least 500 million euros of three-year bonds on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak publicly. It’s RWE’s first venture into Europe’s debt market since May and adds to the region’s busiest day for new deals in two months.