Proposals to toughen penalties for tax evasion have been published, as the authorities prepare to receive a big tranche of new data on offshore accounts, the Financial Times reported. The government is proposing new legislation requiring taxpayers with outstanding offshore tax liabilities to come forward by September 2018, after which they will be subject to a new set of sanctions for “failing to correct”. The move is part of a broader toughening of sanctions for all those involved in offshore tax evasion.

Credit ratings agency Moody's said on Wednesday the restructuring plan put forward by Spanish renewable energy and engineering firm Abengoa would reduce its debt burden, but it was unclear whether it would be successful, Reuters reported. Abengoa, which had been negotiating since November to cut its more than 9 billion euros ($10 billion) of debt, reached a restructuring deal earlier in August with its main creditors in an attempt to avoid becoming Spain's biggest ever bankruptcy.

Mortgage approvals in the UK slumped to a 1½-year low in the month after the Brexit vote, according to a high street banking report. Loans for house purchases slipped 5 per cent to an 18-month low of 37,662 in July, down from 39,763 in June, according to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), the Irish Times reported. The setback comes amid a good week for the property sector, with housebuilder Persimmon shrugging off uncertainty surrounding the EU referendum result to post a 19 per cent rise in pre-tax profits.

Oil and gas companies operating in Norway, western Europe’s biggest producer, cut investment forecasts further for this year and next as they continue to weather a two-year long collapse in crude prices, Bloomberg News reported. Investments in Norway’s offshore oil and gas industry are now expected to fall to 163 billion kroner ($20 billion) in 2016, down from a 166 billion-krone estimate in May, according to a quarterly survey published by Statistic Norway on Wednesday. The estimate for 2017 fell to 151 billion kroner from 153 billion kroner.

The former head of Royal Bank of Scotland said in 2009 it could take up to five years to recover from the biggest bank bailout in British history, the Irish Times reported. At the time, this seemed a formidable period for British taxpayers to wait before receiving some of their money back. But nearly eight years on, and under a new chief executive, RBS is still some way off from returning to private ownership. The bank reported a £2 billion loss for the first half of this year, putting it on track for its ninth successive annual loss.

Brexit will hit the Scottish economy and cut the semi-autonomous government’s tax revenue by as much as 13 per cent by 2030, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s administration said, the Irish Times reported on a Bloomberg News story. Depending on the post-Brexit trading arrangement adopted by the UK government with the remaining 27 European Union nations, Scottish gross domestic product could be as much as £11.2 billion a year lower in 2030 than it would have been if Britain remained in the bloc, the Scottish government said in a report citing analysis by a range of research groups.

UK exporters and overseas shoppers visiting Britain are shaping up to be the biggest winners from the plunge in sterling since the vote to leave the EU, the Irish Times reported. According to the Confederation of British Industry, manufacturers’ export order books hit a two-year high this month in a “tentative sign that sterling’s depreciation is starting to filter through to overseas demand”. Chemical manufacturers accounted for just over half of the improvement in export orders, according to the CBI survey.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that Moscow has no money available to raise pensions further in line with last year’s high inflation rate, news that is likely to be unwelcome ahead of parliamentary elections in September, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We don’t possess enough resources to carry out [an] extra pension adjustment,” Mr. Medvedev said Tuesday at a meeting with government officials. The cost of living has skyrocketed in Russia in recent months, driven by a massive drop in the ruble’s value and the government’s ban on Western food imports.

At an English country mansion last month, lawyers for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) sat down with representatives of angry shareholders to broker an end to what may end up being the costliest case in British legal history, Reuters reported. The meeting at The Grove, an 18-century estate near London that served as the secret World War Two HQ for Britain's biggest railway company, was convened to persuade investors to drop claims they were misled into stumping up 12 billion pounds ($16 billion) just a few months before the bank's bailout in 2008.

Most of the creditors of the company Retail Value Stores, which operates retailer Carrefour, will not see their debts fully repaid after the creditors’ committee approved the restructuring plan for the company acknowledging only 3 percent of the debts’ value, The Slovak Spectator reported. The plan was approved by three members of the committee, while two were against it. Some 400 creditors of Retail Value Stores should meet at the so-called approval meeting that is scheduled to take place in 30 days, TASR wrote.