The Bank of England says it will act forcefully if needed to stop the surge in inflation from turning into a long-term problem, meaning it could deliver a rare half-percentage point interest rate rise as soon as this week, Reuters reported. Here are some of the things that Governor Andrew Bailey and his colleagues will be looking as they assess the persistence of inflation pressures ahead of their next scheduled monetary policy announcement at 1100 GMT on Thursday. Measures of inflation expectations and prices charged by companies have slowed recently but core pay has risen.

Corporate insolvency numbers in Scotland increased by 49.1% from the same time last year with 243 insolvencies in the last quarter, Accountancy Daily reported. This figure was up from 163 in the first quarter of the year with personal insolvencies rising by 8.1% over the same period. Corporate insolvencies include compulsory liquidations, creditors’ voluntary liquidations, and receivership appointments. Compulsory liquidations rose by 37.5% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2022 Creditors’ voluntary liquidations increased by 51.9% in the same period.

A group of ex-Greensill Capital employees sued the defunct firm in London, accusing management of unfairly keeping them in the dark about the company’s “imminent danger of collapse,” Bloomberg News reported. A group of 277 employees -- less than half the UK workforce -- are claiming £4.5 million ($5.4 million) for not being consulted properly on their redundancy. They say the firm did not tell them about potential job-loss risks despite being aware of its obvious financial problems. A judge will decide Thursday whether the claimants are entitled to that level of award.

The U.K.’s audit regulator imposed record sanctions against audit firms during its latest fiscal year, highlighting the seriousness of recent failures in the industry, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Financial Reporting Council on Thursday said financial sanctions during the year ended March 31 totaled £46.5 million before settlement discounts, equivalent to $56.6 million and up from £16.7 million the year before. The FRC also said it resolved more cases than in previous years. Higher sanctions and more concluded cases come as the U.K.

Hartley Pensions Limited, which provides retirement products to UK consumers, is preparing to file for insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. The firm has approached insolvency practitioners in recent weeks to assess options including administration, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not yet public. The company is preparing to appoint administrators from UHY Hacker Young, and could file as soon as today.

In central England, birthplace of the industrial revolution, factories are buzzing anew, hammering out parts for cars, planes and medical machines that used to be made in Asia, Reuters reported. After two years of global supply-chain disruption, and with dark clouds on the horizon, manufacturers around Britain's second city of Birmingham say they are inundated with orders, helped by new and old domestic clients bringing some production back home. For decades, supplier decisions were based largely on price.

Ukraine is fighting for its survival and is desperate for cash, but that isn’t deterring London hedge-fund manager Richard Deitz from demanding money back from an ill-fated investment there, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Deitz’s VR Capital has a long history of making money in countries going through upheaval. His fund paid $123 million in 2019 to buy distressed loans issued by state-owned Ukrainian Railways, hoping they could work out a repayment and get a double-digit return.

Britain’s biggest mortgage lender expects the housing market to slow in the coming year, as rising interest rates make loans more expensive for borrowers and property prices finally begin to fall, Bloomberg News reported. Charlie Nunn, chief executive officer of Lloyds Banking Group Plc, said the bank’s open mortgage book rose just 1% in the three months through June and now stands at £296.6 billion.

U.K. satellite operator OneWeb plans to join forces with European rival Eutelsat in a deal the two companies hope will help them take on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, CNBC.com reported. The all-stock merger will see Eutelsat issue 230 million new shares and exchange them for all remaining shares of OneWeb, according to a press release Tuesday. Shareholders of OneWeb and Eutelsat will own 50% of the combined firm, respectively. The deal values OneWeb at $3.4 billion.

British former finance minister Rishi Sunak said his first economic priority if he becomes prime minister will be tackling high inflation, not the tax cuts pledged by some of his rivals in the race to replace Boris Johnson, Reuters reported. British consumer price inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1% in May, and the Bank of England forecasts it will exceed 11% in October when regulated household energy tariffs increase next. "I think our number one economic priority is to tackle inflation and not make it worse," Sunak told BBC radio on Thursday.