Insurers would potentially be able to use billions of pounds of expected gains from a relaxation of capital rules for share buybacks and to pay dividends, under plans by both candidates to succeed Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, Bloomberg News reported. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak have both said overhauling Solvency II capital requirements, a legacy of the UK’s European Union membership, is a key part of a drive to boost the UK’s competitiveness.

A London judge has told Kazakh mining company ENRC, its former legal adviser Dechert and the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to consider mediation to end bitter litigation over events that led to a near 10-year criminal investigation, Reuters reported. Despite ruling in May that former veteran Dechert partner Neil Gerrard had grossly betrayed his own client and former senior SFO officers had behaved with bad faith, High Court Judge David Waksman suggested all sides call a truce. "Notwithstanding what's happened in the past and the serious allegations ...

The Bank of England raised interest rates by half a percentage point on Thursday, the largest jump since 1995, as policymakers strengthened their efforts to tackle inflation even as they warned Britain was heading into a long recession later this year, the New York Times reported. The bank raised rates to 1.75 percent, the highest since 2008, from 1.25 percent as it forecast the annual rate of inflation would climb above 13 percent when household energy bills jump higher in October. That would be the highest level of inflation in 42 years.

Rising energy and fuel bills are driving growing numbers of UK companies into insolvency, as firms struggle to cope with higher costs, supply and staff shortages, and the withdrawal of Covid support packages from the government, the Guardian reported. Corporate insolvencies in England and Wales jumped by more than 80% in the past quarter from a year earlier, while the number of firms opting to be liquidated hit the highest level in at least six decades. They accounted for almost nine in 10 of the total.

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.