U.K. inflation is on course to hit 18.6 per cent in January — the highest peak in almost half a century — because of soaring wholesale gas prices, according to a new forecast from Citigroup based on the latest market prices, the Irish Times reported. The investment bank predicted that the retail energy price cap would be raised to £4,567 (€5,386) in January and then £5,816 in April, compared with the current level of £1,971 a year — shifts it said would lead to inflation “entering the stratosphere”.

Cineworld Group Plc, the owner of Regal Cinemas, is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks after struggling to rebuild attendance from pandemic lows, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The British cinema company has engaged lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis LLP and consultants from AlixPartners to advise on the bankruptcy process, these people said. Cineworld is expected to file a chapter 11 petition in the U.S. and is considering filing an insolvency proceeding in the U.K., they said.

The Dubai-owned company P&O Ferries will not face any criminal action over its decision to sack nearly 800 British workers without notice, the Insolvency Service has said, the Epoch Times reported. P&O Ferries, which was bought by Dubai-based logistics giant DP World in 2019, sparked outrage on March 17 when it fired 800 seafarers without any prior notice and replaced them with cheaper agency workers, citing £100 million ($132 million) year-on-year loss.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday it had fined Citigroup Global Markets 12.5 million pounds ($15 million) for past failures to properly apply rules aimed at spotting suspicious trading in shares and commodities, Reuters reported. Banks are required to implement rules introduced in 2016 and known as the market abuse regulation (MAR) to monitor for potential insider trading and market manipulation. But until January 2018, the London-based international broker dealer arm of U.S.

An Ebbw Vale haulier business has collapsed due to soaring fuel costs. The winding up of Scott Commercials has resulted in the loss of 10 jobs with insolvency firm Begbies Traynor appointed liquidators, BusinessLive.com reported. Established in 2013 Scott Commercials provided road haulage services to transport operators across the UK. The liquidation is being handled by Bristol-based partner Paul Wood and Cardiff-based partner Huw Powell. They said that recent rises in PAYE, fuel, ad-blue (fuel additive) and tyres had created significant cash flow issues for the business.

The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation moved into double digits in July and is set to rise even higher by the end of the year, heaping greater pressure on stretched household budgets and threatening a lengthy economic contraction, the Wall Street Journal reported. That pickup in inflation has been replicated in other parts of Europe, even as consumer prices have started to slow in the U.S. That is because energy prices have continued to accelerate across Europe as Russia withholds supplies of natural gas, with the continent facing a possible crunch this winter.

UK job vacancies fell for the first time since August 2020 as real wages dropped at the sharpest pace on record, indicating a tightening inflation squeeze on consumers and businesses, Bloomberg News reported. The number of jobs employers are seeking to fill fell by 19,800 to 1.27 million in the quarter through July, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. Pay excluding bonuses and adjusted for inflation fell by 3% in the three months through June, the most since records began in 2001.

Britain has launched a scheme to extend tariff cuts to hundreds of products, such as clothes and food, from developing countries, part of London's post-Brexit efforts to set up systems to replace those run by the European Union, Reuters reported. In June, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wanted to start a new trade system to reduce costs and simplify rules for 65 developing countries to replace the EU's Generalised System of Preferences, which applies import duties at reduced rates.

UK-based Altera Infrastructure has entered a Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in the U.S. to address its debt of over $1.5 billion, Offshore-Energy.biz reported. Formerly a part of Teekay, Altera Infrastructure is based in Westhill, Scotland and it is a supplier of infrastructure assets to the offshore energy industry. In a statement on Monday, the company said that it has executed a restructuring support agreement (the RSA) with approximately 71 percent of its funded debt obligations, which includes an investment management company Brookfield and a super-majority of its bank lenders.

The British economy contracted slightly in the second quarter, losing momentum as the country experiences a deepening cost-of-living crisis and economists predict that a recession will start later this year, the New York Times reported. Gross domestic product fell 0.1 percent in April to June compared with the previous quarter, when the economy grew 0.8 percent, the Office for National Statistics reported on Friday. The biggest drag on growth in the second quarter was a reduction in health services as pandemic measures, such as coronavirus testing and vaccine administering, declined.