Britain’s biggest energy companies can’t agree on what the U.K. needs to do to soften the blow of soaring bills for customers, making it harder for the government to tackle a cost-of-living crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Octopus Energy Ltd., Britain’s fifth-largest gas and power supplier, is leading the push for a fund to help companies cope with the increase in wholesale costs. While the move is backed by some, several firms including Centrica Plc prefer instead actions including a tax cut, according to people familiar with the talks between the companies and the government.

East Yorkshire contractor PDR Construction, which Construction News revealed on Tuesday had ceased work on its sites across the country, has appointed administrators. The £83m-turnover main contractor had made all its staff redundant ahead of the administration, a statement from Leonard Curtis Business Rescue & Recovery has revealed. The statement blamed the impact of the pandemic on contracts, as well as a “significant” recent failed adjudication, which the administrator has not given details of.

A unit of offshore driller Seadrill Ltd yesterday filed a fast-tracked reorganization plan in Houston bankruptcy court, where it expects to seek approval of the proposal today, Reuters reported. The case comes just a few months after its parent entity emerged from its own bankruptcy proceeding. That reorganization plan is scheduled to go into effect early this year. Seadrill New Finance Ltd’s chapter 11 case is intended to be the “final component” of the entire Seadrill Group’s restructuring efforts, according to a declaration from financial controller Tyson de Souza.

OneWeb Ltd., a U.K.-backed satellite company, has been sued in the U.S. by a former Donald Trump business partner who claims he wasn’t paid for helping to secure rocket-launch rights in Kazakhstan, Bloomberg News reported. Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a Georgian-American businessman, said he played a role in helping OneWeb connect with business and government figures in Kazakstan, who paved the way for the company to launch satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and to operate a ground station for its internet network, according to the lawsuit.

Prominent cabinet minister Michael Gove promised tax cuts down the line as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under pressure from senior Tories to reduce the burden on ordinary Britons, Bloomberg News reported. Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Brexit chief David Frost have criticized Johnson’s approach to tax in recent days, with the former calling for the premier to scrap an upcoming increase in payroll taxes to fund the National Health Service. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Frost said Johnson should return to a low-tax agenda.

A 10-minute walk from the Bank of England, on the eastern edge of the City of London, lies a gateway to a new shadow world of money. Here on Dukes Place is the office of Moorwand Ltd., one of a fast-growing breed of upstarts that bill themselves as alternatives to old-fashioned banks when moving money around the world. Each day in the U.K. alone, an estimated 1.4 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) courses through loosely regulated digital payments businesses like Moorwand, Bloomberg News reported.

Getting ahead in global finance after Brexit needs sustained British government impetus, the City of London's policy chief said on Wednesday, adding that COVID-19 may be masking some of the impact of leaving the EU, Reuters reported. Britain's financial sector lost most of its access to the European Union, which had been its single biggest export customer, after completing its exit from the bloc a year ago.

British consumers took on the most debt since July 2020 in the runup to Christmas, with a surge in borrowing on credit cards, Bloomberg News reported. Consumers added 1.2 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) to their unsecured debts in November, up from 828 million pounds in the previous month, Bank of England data published on Tuesday show. Economists had expected a gain of about 800 million pounds. The figures indicate strength in the economy in the weeks before the omicron variant of the coronavirus struck the U.K.

For 12 months, British businesses have been confronting the reality of the country’s decision to distance itself from its largest trading partner. Initially, the new system collapsed: Perishable goods got stuck at ports, retailers discovered their supply chains were obsolete and trucking companies stopped delivering to the whole island of Ireland. The worst of the problems (outside of Northern Ireland) eased after a few months. But what remains is a frustrating regime of higher costs, time-consuming customs paperwork and countless lost opportunities, the New York Times reported.

The British government has asked public sector managers to test their contingency plans against a worst-case scenario of 25% staff absence as part of efforts to minimise disruption from the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Reuters reported. With daily infection numbers at a record high and people who test positive required to self-isolate for at least seven days, the government expects businesses and public services to face disruption in the coming weeks, it said in a statement.