A proposed multi-billion pound claim brought by thousands of asset managers, pension funds and financial institutions against major banks over alleged foreign exchange (forex) rigging has been blocked by a London court, Reuters reported. London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which had been considering the case against JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, UBS and NatWest since last July, ruled on Thursday the case was not suitable to proceed as a U.S.-style, opt-out class action.

The president of Britain’s Supreme Court said Wednesday that he and a colleague were stepping down from their roles on Hong Kong’s highest court because the administration of the Chinese territory had “departed from values of political freedom and freedom of expression,” the New York Times reported. Their resignations will heighten scrutiny of Hong Kong’s British-style legal system, which the former British colony kept even after it returned to Chinese control in 1997.

Lending to consumers in Britain rose last month by the most in nearly five years, driven by a record rise in credit card borrowing, according to data that analysts said could be a sign of the growing cost-of-living squeeze, Reuters reported. Figures from the Bank of England on Tuesday showed consumer credit rose by a net 1.876 billion pounds ($2.46 billion) in February, about 1 billion pounds more than expected in a Reuters poll of economists and the biggest increase since March 2017.

The head of the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was on Tuesday accused of "very, very basic errors in litigation" and hiding behind a review into the agency's failings in a tetchy grilling by lawmakers, Reuters reported. Lisa Osofsky said she was duty bound to wait for the recommendations of former High Court judge David Calvert-Smith before being drawn on how two convictions in the high-profile Unaoil bribery prosecution were quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Tennis great Boris Becker, who is on trial in London accused of failing to hand over his assets after he was declared bankrupt, has told a jury about his struggles with money including payments for an “expensive divorce” and debts when he lost large chunks of his income after retirement, the Associated Press reported. Becker said Monday that he wasn’t able to earn enough to pay his debts because of bad publicity when his reputation declined. He said that he had “expensive lifestyle commitments” including a house in Wimbledon that cost 22,000 pounds ($28,800) in rent each month.

An Indian-origin soft drinks businessman from central England has been banned from holding a company directorship for nine years after admitting inflating figures to acquire a loan under a Covid-19 pandemic support scheme, the Hindustan Times reported. Inderjit Singh Dadial, whose ban comes into effect from this week, was the sole director of Cali Juices Limited, a wholesaler of specialised soft drinks incorporated in 2019 with a registered address in Wolverhampton.

The U.K. Treasury will pocket about 27 billion pounds ($36 billion) more a year in revenue than previously forecast despite eye-catching tax cuts on pay announced in its Spring economic statement on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. The figures, buried in documents from the Treasury and Office for Budget Responsibility, leave Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak presiding over the highest tax burden since Clement Attlee’s Labour government in 1949.

The U.K. plans to sell fewer bonds than expected over the coming fiscal year, softening the blow of the first borrowing package in over a decade that will be financed without the help of the Bank of England, Bloomberg News reported. Britain will sell 124.7 billion pounds ($165 billion) of gilts in 2022-23, around a fifth less than the median expectation in a Bloomberg survey of primary dealers. The nation’s Debt Management Office said it will also sell 23.2 billion pounds of bills to fulfill the U.K.’s funding requirements.

The United States and Britain ended a four-year dispute over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs on Tuesday, pledging to work together to counter China in a deal that also removes retaliatory tariffs from U.S. motorcycles, whiskey and other products, Reuters reported. In a joint statement, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S.