A London judge ordered the shuttering of the UK unit of La Perla, a maker of luxury lingerie, over unpaid tax debts, underlining the pressure facing parent company Tennor Holding BV and its ultimate majority owner, Lars Windhorst, Bloomberg News reported. La Perla Global Management (UK) Limited was wound-up by a High Court judge in London on Wednesday, as the group faced £2.8 million ($3.4 million) of unpaid tax and a petition from His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.

The number of companies going bust this year is on track to be the highest since the depths of the financial crisis in 2009. Insolvencies rose 10% from a year ago in the three months to the end of September, the latest official figures for England and Wales show, BBC.com reported. There has also been a sharp rise in the number of firms at risk of going bust. Firms in "critical financial distress" jumped 25% in the last three months, insolvency expert Begbies Traynor says. They are defined as having county court judgments exceeding £5,000 against them - often a precursor to going under.

The question of how Britain will respond to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the $369 billion landmark legislation offering deep subsidies for green investment, has followed Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s finance minister, for most of the past year, the New York Times reported. Mr. Hunt urged patience and promised an answer when he updates the country’s budget in a few weeks. But as that speech approaches, expectations that he will offer anything as generous as the American largess have been squashed.

A British fintech company that was forced into insolvency just over six months ago has secured a multimillion-pound funding boost as it sets its sights on a more measured growth path. Sky News understands that Railsr, the trading name of Embedded Finance, will announce in the coming days that it has struck a deal with investors to raise $24m (£19.8m). The funding is predominantly from existing investors, including D Squared Capital and Moneta Venture Capital, which people close to Railsr said reflected their confidence in the company's growth potential and strategy.

It might never be possible to know precisely how an economy is performing in any given moment. But recently it has gotten harder to get a clear picture of Britain’s economy, particularly the labor market, the New York Times reported. This month, Britain’s Office for National Statistics delayed the release of its flagship report on jobs to give itself more time “to produce the best possible estimates” of how many people are working or not.

Corporate insolvencies in Scotland rose 19.9% during the second quarter, when compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and rose by 4.8% compared to the same period last year, Business Insider reported. Meanwhile, personal insolvency numbers in Scotland saw no real change, with a decrease of just 0.05% - which equates to a single case - to a total of 2,074. Personal insolvency numbers also fell by 40.2%, when compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Landlords have been warned that the Renters (Reform) Bill could cost them dearly, despite plans to abolish Section 21 evictions being kicked into the long grass, PropertyIndustryEye.com reported. According to Landlord Licensing & Defence, the bill will bring in a raft of new enforcement measures against landlords that could result in massive fines and “even bankruptcy for some”.

The UK economy lost jobs again in the quarter though August, marking the longest drop in employment since the depths of the coronavirus pandemic and a sign that inflationary pressures may be abating, Bloomberg News reported. Employment fell 82,000 in June to August after a 133,000 drop in the period from May through July, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. It was third consecutive three-month period in which employment has fallen compared to the previous three months, the worst stretch since early 2021.

English councils are grappling with £4 billion ($4.9 billion) gap in their finances over the next two years, threatening to further fuel a wave of bankruptcies that’s crippling local authorities, Bloomberg News reported. The Local Government Association said the funding shortfall has increased by £1 billion since its previous calculations in July after an soaring inflation worsened long-running pressures on council budgets. The squeeze on council budgets is likely to tip more authorities into financial trouble.

The management of bankrupt electric truck maker Volta Trucks is urgently seeking a buyer to take the company out of administration and help it complete the ramp-up to mass production, a source familiar with the issue told Reuters. Volta, which is headquartered in Sweden and has operations in the United Kingdom, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday citing the bankruptcy in August of its supplier Proterra and uncertainty over its battery supplier, which had made it hard to raise sufficient capital.