A serviced-office provider with a slew of sites in London’s financial district has collapsed into administration, the latest flexible workspace business to fold in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. BE Offices Ltd. and almost a dozen subsidiaries entered an administration application at London’s High Court, according to a filing. This included units responsible for workspaces in the city’s Cheapside, Threadneedle Street and in Paddington, the filings show.

Most Londoners are hunkering down, hoping to weather Britain’s housing storm rather than look for more affordable homes outside the capital, Bloomberg News reported. Londoners spent roughly £29 billion ($37 billion) on homes outside the capital this year, almost a third less than in 2022, according to a report from broker Hamptons International. While affordability pressures caused the rate of London outmigration to rise over the past 12 months, the number of homes bought outside the capital dropped to just over 69,000 — the lowest in nine years.

The U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office must pay Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. after it began a corruption investigation based on tips improperly obtained from a senior lawyer for the company, a U.K. court said. The SFO committed a “serious breach” of its own duties by privately communicating with a lawyer then at Dechert, a law firm hired by the company to run an internal investigation into possible bribery, Justice David Waksman of the High Court in London said Thursday in a written judgment. Without those communications, the agency wouldn’t have launched its investigation, Waksman found.

A trade association is urging business owners to seek help sooner rather than later if they are facing financial problems, the Bournemouth Daily Echo reported. R3, the trade body for restructuring and insolvency professionals in Dorset, has said that corporate insolvencies have ‘shot up’ by more than a fifth compared to last year. Newly published figures for England and Wales show a rise from 2,032 insolvencies in November 2022 to 2,466 for November of this year.

Britain and Switzerland signed a wide-ranging financial services deal on Thursday granting reciprocal market access for their banks, insurers, asset managers and stock exchanges to boost trade and cut compliance costs, Reuters reported. After two years of talks which began after Britain left the European Union, the deal - which will require British and Swiss parliamentary approval - is based on mutual recognition of rules and supervisors, easing regulatory burdens.

English councils will receive a 6.5% funding boost next year to help them battle soaring costs, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government said, but the move failed to quell growing fears of a looming wave of bankruptcies, Bloomberg News reported. Michael Gove, the UK’s secretary of state for leveling up, housing and communities, on Monday announced almost £4 billion ($5.1 billion) of extra cash for local councils in 2024/25, taking their total central government funding to over £64 billion. While the government said this represented a rise in real terms, the sector criticized the uplift.

A streak of unexpectedly good news on inflation has continued in Britain, as the annual rate of price increases dropped to its lowest level in more than two years, the New York Times reported. Consumer prices in Britain rose 3.9 percent in November from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. That was down from 4.6 percent the previous month and the lowest since September 2021. Price growth slowed as fuel costs declined and food inflation continued to ease.

An artificial intelligence system can't be registered as the inventor of a patent, Britain's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a decision that denies machines the same status as humans, the Associated Press reported. The U.K.'s highest court concluded that “an inventor must be a person” to apply for patents under the current law. The decision was the culmination of American technologist Stephen Thaler's long-running British legal battle to get his AI, dubbed DABUS, listed as the inventor of two patents.

Art dealer to the stars, Andrew Valmorbida is locked in a court battle involving a string of prototype Ferraris, artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a £17 million ($21.5 million) west London townhouse, Bloomberg News reported. Luxembourg-based lender Regera Sarl is chasing Valmorbida for $42.9 million, claiming he defaulted on a loan and attempted to sell artwork over which it had security, without permission, according to court documents.

Inverness, Scottland-based Highland Timber Construction has entered liquidation after failing to recover from the financial strain caused by the covid pandemic and a subsequent inability to secure new contracts, Scottish Financial News reported. The company, which was established in 2016 and known for building construction, extensions, renovations, and kitchen remodelling, ceased operations on 27 November 2023, resulting in redundancy for its 11 employees. The decision for liquidation was made after the company petitioned Inverness Sheriff Court on 6 December.