Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. continued its court battle Monday to claw back billions of dollars in assets from Barclays Plc, as two witnesses testified that the British bank wasn't supposed to see an immediate gain when it bought Lehman's core U.S. operation in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. A member of Lehman's board of directors and its former president testified that the deal hammered out following Lehman's historic bankruptcy filing called for Barclays to acquire a pool of assets and an equivalent amount of liabilities when it bought Lehman's broker-dealer unit.

A steep rise this year in the number of businesses at risk of going bust has fuelled fears that Britain faces a tougher year than expected with more insolvencies and higher unemployment than predicted by the government, The Guardian reported. The number of companies experiencing significant or critical financial distress rose by 14% in the first three months of the year to top 160,000, according to insolvency experts Begbies Traynor.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. continued its court battle Monday to claw back billions of dollars in assets from Barclays Plc, as two witnesses testified that the British bank wasn't supposed to see an immediate gain when it bought Lehman's core U.S. operation in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. A member of Lehman's board of directors and its former president testified that the deal hammered out following Lehman's historic bankruptcy filing called for Barclays to acquire a pool of assets and an equivalent amount of liabilities when it bought Lehman's broker-dealer unit.

The banking sector strongly criticised International Monetary Fund proposals to impose new taxes on the industry, claiming yesterday that they would hit profits hard, would not reduce the risk of future failures and were at odds with other plans to clean up the industry, the Financial Times reported. The IMF suggested a three-pronged assault on banks and other financial groups that would include a flat tax on the liabilities on their balance sheets and levies on profits and pay.

Hector Sants, the chief of Britain’s financial regulator, pledged last year to reverse his agency’s reputation as a toothless tiger. He wanted to spread fear across the financial services industry by stepping up the aggressiveness of its inquiries and by pursuing more prominent fraud cases. His opportunity has arrived, and its name is Goldman Sachs, The New York Times reported. The Goldman investigation comes at a pivotal time for the British regulator. The F.S.A.’s reputation, like its American counterpart’s, was damaged badly by the financial crisis.

Real estate company Hansteen Holdings has agreed to buy 61 properties from a trio of distressed investors for around 80 million pounds ($124 million) as the frequency of firesales in Britain's indebted property market picks up, Reuters reported. The multi-sector portfolio was bought from receivers acting for various subsidiaries of collapsed property firms Kilmartin Holdings Limited and Kilmartin Group Limited and administrators of Annfield Assets Limited. Some 42 of the 61 properties are in Scotland, 18 in England and one property is in Northern Ireland.

Canwest Global Communications Corp.’s insolvent newspaper division won an extension of bankruptcy protection until June 30 to let it complete an auction for the publications, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. Ontario Superior Court Judge Sarah Pepall granted the extension today following a hearing in Toronto. The bankruptcy protection, first granted Jan. 8, was due to expire April 14. Canwest Global agreed to sell Canwest Ltd.

Top Russian oil producer OAO Rosneft said a U.K. court lifted an order freezing GBP425 million ($648 million) of its assets, the latest twist in a legal battle with an affiliate of bankrupt Russian oil giant Yukos, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The freeze had been obtained last month by Netherlands-based Yukos Capital S.a.r.l., which is seeking to recover a $389 million debt Rosneft assumed when it acquired Yukos assets in 2004. Rosneft had refused to comply with an arbitration award by a Dutch court ordering it to repay the sum, plus interest and penalties.

The UK subsidiary of the Reader's Digest magazine has been bought out of administration by Better Capital, Jon Moulton's new turnround private equity group, the Financial Times reported. The £13m deal is Mr Moulton's second investment since he floated Better Capital in London last year. Reader's Digest UK filed for administration in February after failing to secure backing from the pensions regulator for a deal to fund its £125m pension deficit.

Wilbur Ross, the billionaire US turnaround specialist, has bought a 21 per cent stake in Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Money for £100 million as the group prepares to make a major assault on the UK banking market, The Scotsman reported. Ross, nicknamed the "King of Bankruptcy", is also prepared to pump in "hundreds of millions" more to fund acquisitions, including Virgin's £2 billion bid for 318 Royal Bank of Scotland branches. Virgin will join Clydesdale Bank owner National Australia Bank and Santander in submitting a bid for the RBS assets ahead of tomorrow's deadline.