Barclays is being sued by seven local English councils over controversial bank loans sold before the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The bank entered into lender-option, borrower-option (Lobo) loan agreements with the seven local authorities between 2006 and 2008 which had interest rates linked to Libor, an interest-rate benchmark. Barclays is among a number of banks that have been fined over Libor since the 2008 banking crisis.

It’s a messy end to the week for Italian assets. The country’s bonds and stocks are being heavily sold, besieged by further signs of a slowing economy and deepening concern about the heavily indebted eurozone fiscal position, the Financial Times reported. Bleak data showed business conditions worsened at a faster pace than forecast in January, with new order data falling more sharply, adding to a decline in production. The numbers came a day after confirmation of the return to recession for Italy’s economy at the end of 2018.

Last year corporate deaths rose to levels not seen in five years. On almost every level, personal and company insolvencies are rising, and fast, according to the Insolvency Service, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. It is bleak news in a bleak midwinter. Maybe that is not a surprise. HMV and House of Fraser were just two of the high street names that collapsed last year. Then there was Conviviality and more recently Patisserie Valerie, the Luke Johnson-led cake chain. And of course, Carillion, the outsourcer that went spectacularly bust a year ago.

Debenhams is pushing to restructure its property portfolio ahead of a quarterly rent date in March, as it struggles with a sharp deterioration in its finances, the Financial Times reported. The 200-year-old department store chain is in refinancing negotiations with its lenders, but is also drawing up documents for a company voluntary arrangement — an insolvency deal that includes restructuring leases — which could take place in the next few weeks, said three people familiar with the plans.

British airline Flybe, which is being bought by a consortium of Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital, said on Sunday it had been approached by Stobart’s ex CEO Andrew Tinkler about a possible alternative financing proposal, Reuters reported. However, the airline said the consortium’s offer remained the best option. Tinkler’s approach to Flybe, which was made on Friday, was first reported on Sunday by City AM and the Financial Times.

British private equity firm Actis plans to instigate an investor vote from next week on its proposed takeover of one of Abraaj’s biggest funds, seeking indemnity from potential legal claims against the Dubai buyout group, said a source close to Actis. Abraaj was the largest buyout fund in the Middle East and North Africa until it collapsed last year after fallout from a row with investors, including the Gates Foundation, over the use of their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund, Reuters reported.

Fears of a eurozone slowdown have mounted after the economy stagnated at the end of 2018, growing just 0.2 per cent between the third and fourth quarters last year, the Financial Times reported. The flash estimate of growth from Eurostat, the European Commission’s statistics bureau, is in line with the disappointing figure for the previous quarter, which put growth at its lowest level in more than four years, and tallies with economists’ forecasts. Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone, fell into a technical recession after its second consecutive quarter of contraction.

The Italian economy fell into a technical recession in the last half of 2018 after a sharp increase in government borrowing costs and political uncertainty driven by Rome’s populist government’s stand-off with Brussels over its budget plans, the Financial Times reported. Official preliminary data showed that Italian gross domestic product contracted by 0.2 per cent in the last three months of 2018, following an 0.1 per cent drop in the third quarter. The contraction was worse than average forecasts of economists of a 0.1 per cent drop in GDP in the fourth quarter.

Freelance contractors caught in a controversial tax avoidance row with HM Revenue & Customs could be granted up to seven years to repay debts, MPs were told, as the campaign to scrap the charges gathers momentum, the Financial Times reported. People earning less than £30,000 a year who face difficulty paying the loan charge — a new tax due to come in on April 5 that could affect between 50,000 to 100,000 people — will automatically be given seven years to pay, the authority told MPs at a Treasury select committee on Wednesday.

Eight banks are being targeted in a European Union probe that alleges traders colluded to acquire and trade euro government bonds, a month after the EU regulators implicated lenders in a separate bond-trading case, Bloomberg News reported. The European Commission didn’t identify the banks being investigated for "a collusive scheme that aimed at distorting competition" for trading sovereign bonds issued by eurozone governments from 2007 to 2012.