Two furloughed jumbo jet pilots and a burnt-out finance worker have been among the more unusual candidates to learn how to drive 44-tonne trucks at Laurence Bolton's school in south London during the pandemic, Reuters reported. "You get people from all industries, and think: 'Blimey, I never saw you here before 2020'," Bolton said. "There are more people that have been displaced from retail, with the high street closing or certainly running down, and from hospitality." Business is brisk for truck driving schools as Britain emerges from its COVID-19 crisis.

Credit Suisse Group AG’s London legal battle with Sanjeev Gupta was delayed by another six months, as the metals tycoon continues to seek funding for his empire, Bloomberg News reported. An initial hearing over the bank’s attempt to push some of Gupta’s companies into insolvency has been rescheduled to March by consent between the parties, a court official said by email. Earlier this year, the Swiss lender, through Citibank, filed “winding-up petitions” against a number of companies in Gupta’s GFG Alliance Group, including Liberty Commodities Ltd.

The Financial Reporting Council has issued a formal complaint against KPMG and several of its current and former employees for allegedly providing “false and misleading information” relating to its audits of the outsourcing firms Carillion and Regenersis, The Guardian reported. The accounting watchdog’s allegations of misconduct relate to documents provided to the FRC during its inspection of audits carried out on Carillion in 2016 and Regenersis in 2014.

It began as a market stall in West Yorkshire, selling eggs and butter just before the turn of the 20th century. Today that market stall is Morrisons, Britain’s fourth-largest supermarket chain, with nearly 500 stores and the prize in a 7 billion-pound ($9.6 billion) bidding war between American private equity groups. It is a financial drama that is playing out almost weekly in Britain: A domestic company is courted and snapped up by, most likely, private equity investors awash with cash, the New York Times reported.

U.K. mortgage approvals fell for a second month in July but remained well above pre-pandemic levels, suggesting demand for property is holding up despite the tapering of a tax break on purchases, Bloomberg News reported. Banks and building societies authorized 75,152 home loans, the least in a year and down from 80,272 in June, the Bank of England said Tuesday.

Fugitive Indian businessman Vijay Mallya has filed papers in the UK high court seeking permission to appeal against his bankruptcy order, the Times of India reported. Mallya was declared bankrupt by the insolvency and companies court (ICC) of the high court on July 26 this year. His name is now listed in the individual insolvency register. A spokesman for the chancery division of the high court told TOI that Mallya had on August 16 filed a notice seeking permission to appeal the decision of Chief ICC judge Briggs, who had declared him bankrupt.

Britain's accounting watchdog plans to strengthen "significantly" its audit firm governance code, it said on Thursday, after a number of issues around audits of UK firms in recent years, Reuters reported. The Financial Reporting Council's code applies to the Big Four accounting firms - Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC - and to other firms auditing FTSE 350 companies, the FRC said in a statement. In future it will also apply to firms which audit other types of public interest entities, the FRC said.

A takeover of Morrisons by either of its two suitors could "materially weaken" the security of the supermarket's pension schemes if no additional protection were agreed, the trustees said in a letter to the company published on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The British retailer is at the heart of a $9.5 billion bidding war between U.S. private equity groups Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) and a consortium led by SoftBank owned Fortress Investment Group.

Britain's competition regulator said on Monday it has started its investigation into whether business information provider S&P Global's $44 billion purchase of London-based peer IHS Markit Ltd would hurt competition, Reuters reported. S&P Global last year agreed to buy IHS Markit, creating a new data powerhouse serving Wall Street and the corporate world. The Competition and Markets Authority said it has set a deadline of Oct. 19 for its phase 1 decision. The regulator had invited comments from interested parties in June.

A Belfast man is to stand trial in connection with an alleged multimillion-pound banking fraud, a judge ordered on Monday, the Irish Times reported. Ciaran Brendan Barr is accused of multiple offences against his former employer Santander. He is charged with 66 counts of fraud by abuse of position, and two further frauds by false representation. It is alleged that he caused a loss to Santander in relation to applications for banking services made on behalf of companies and individuals. The charges cover a period from March 2013 to February 2018.