Administrators investigating the £2.6 billion collapse of a mortgage lender have said the group is exposed to so much valuable London property that sales will need to be drip-fed into the market to avoid "depressing prices" in the capital.

The French company Le Coq Sportif has filed for insolvency proceedings against its Spanish subsidiary, Modaes.com reported. The Spanish company of the sports equipment and fashion company has filed for bankruptcy proceedings, after the French parent company also went to court and was rescued by businessman Dan Mamane. Le Coq Sportif, which once had stores in the main Spanish cities, currently operates only two outlets in outlet format, located in Viladecans (Barcelona) and San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid).

Swiss inflation jumped in April as the Iran war sent imported energy costs climbing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were up 0.6% on year, higher than the 0.3% inflation rate in March, Switzerland’s statistics agency said Tuesday. It was the second consecutive rise in inflation, to its highest level since December 2024. Switzerland is less exposed to the rise in energy prices, given its lower reliance on fossil fuels. However, imported fossil fuels are still expected to keep inflation higher this year.

A mammoth economic stimulus passed last year in Germany was meant to jolt the country—and Europe—out of its economic slumber. The problem: Germany has been reticent to spend the money, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. A year on, much of the planned $584 billion infrastructure plan remains unspent, locked behind bureaucratic bottlenecks set up to guard against excessive spending in the notoriously frugal country. Money from the “Big Berlin Bill”—as Deutsche Bank called it—has yet to show up in a meaningful way.

It’s highly likely that the European Central Bank will have to raise interest rates at its next meeting in June due to the Iran war, Governing Council member Peter Kazimir said, Bloomberg News reported. While officials aren’t pre-committing to any fixed path and more data are needed to assess the conflict’s fallout, “we remain firm in our approach,” the Slovak official said. “On this basis, policy tightening in June is all but inevitable,” he said Monday in an op-ed.

The European Parliament on Wednesday backed €2 million in EU aid for workers laid off after the bankruptcy of Liberty Steel Belgium, according to a press release. MEPs endorsed a Commission proposal to mobilise €2 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for Displaced Workers (EGF) to support 507 workers who lost their jobs following the bankruptcy of Liberty Steel Belgium, a manufacturer of basic metals, in April 2025. The report passed with 586 votes in favour, 48 against, and 16 abstentions.

Annual inflation in the 21 countries that use the euro rose to 3.0% from 2.6% in March, driven by a 10.9% increase in energy prices, the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat reported on Thursday, Euronews.com reported. Among the main components, energy recorded the highest annual increase in April at 10.9%, compared with 5.1% in March. This was followed by services at 3.0% (down from 3.2%), food, alcohol and tobacco at 2.5% (up from 2.4%), and non-energy industrial goods at 0.8% (up from 0.5%). Prices across Europe have been fuelled by soaring energy costs due to the Iran war.

The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold on Thursday and set out scenarios for the economic impact of the Iran war, one of which could require a "forceful" increase in borrowing costs, Reuters reported. The Monetary Policy Committee's nine members voted 8-1 to keep ​the BoE's benchmark Bank Rate at 3.75% with only Chief Economist Huw Pill seeking a hike to 4.0% now. A day after U.S. Federal Reserve kept rates on hold and shortly before the European Central Bank was expected to stay on hold too, the MPC said it would continue to monitor closely the situation in the Middle East.