Two former executives of collapsed oil firm Afren were convicted on Wednesday of fraud and money laundering offences relating to a $300 million business deal, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said, Reuters reported. Former Afren Chief Executive Osman Shahenshah and former Chief Operating Officer Shahid Ullah received more than $17 million and laundered $45 million, some of which was used to buy luxury properties in Mustique and the British Virgin Islands, it said here.

UK Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) filed for a form of bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after running up millions of pounds of losses, the latest British retail name to fall victim of weak consumer spending and high costs, Reuters reported. The chain’s parent, South Africa’s Famous Brands, said the board of GBK had initiated a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) for the business that would allow it to avoid insolvency or administration and ensure its continued existence.

The chief executive of Gatwick, the UK’s second busiest airport, has said he expects some airlines to fall into bankruptcy this winter following a number of recent failures, the Financial Times reported. “You will have a small number of airline failures,” Stewart Wingate told the Financial Times, adding that he did not anticipate any major airlines would collapse Gatwick experienced the failure of a major airline in 2017 when the UK’s Monarch went into administration. Last week, a small Cyprus-based carrier Cobalt Air failed.

A British peer-to-peer property lender has taken the unusual step of appealing to its regulator for help after one of its biggest borrowers threatened to sue the company and many of its investors, the Financial Times reported. Retail investors in Lendy are already facing tens of millions of pounds in potential losses after almost two-thirds of borrowers failed to repay their loans on time, according to a Financial Times analysis of its loanbook.

The U.K.’s largest active manager is taking up arms against what it sees as an imminent liquidity crunch coming to credit markets, Bloomberg News reported. As bouts of late-cycle volatility prompt fears of an impending race for the exits, Aberdeen Standard Investments has been scooping up securities with greater liquidity relative to cash bonds, like credit default swaps.

The recent near-death experience of Patisserie Valerie and collapse of Conviviality, the bargain booze business, might make Chancellor Phil Hammond think again about all those rich tax breaks attached to shares on Aim, London’s junior market. Both were Aim darlings until Conviviality found a £30m unpaid tax bill, forcing it into administration in March, and Patisserie Valerie uncovered a similar-sized hole in its accounts this month, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

For a moment last weekend, hearts were suddenly aflutter that – out of nowhere – a deal to secure the United Kingdom’s orderly exit from the European Union was in the offing, The Irish Times reported. UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab was said to be “dashing” to Brussels for face-to-face talks with the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier, while EU ambassadors were summoned to a meeting that one report suggested was to get early sight of a deal. But it was just a mirage.

Big companies that regularly pay suppliers late should be stripped of government contracts, the body that represents small businesses has said. The Federation of Small Businesses is seeking to use a UK government consultation on how to solve the late payment crisis to add “teeth” to the regulatory regime. It said late payment caused 50,000 company failures a year, and the annual economic cost was £2.4bn, a figure accepted by government, the Financial Times reported. Estimates of how much businesses are owed range between £14bn and £50bn.

Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) is reportedly drawing nearer to a controversial company voluntary arrangement (CVA) used to shut stores and renegotiate rents, in a battle that would likely pitch the beleaguered restaurant chain against its landlords, City A.M.

Patisserie Holdings Plc Chairman Luke Johnson proposed lending the troubled U.K. cake-shop owner 20 million pounds ($26.3 million) to stave off collapse amid a deepening accounting scandal, Bloomberg News reported. The owner of Patisserie Valerie expects to enter into a 10 million-pound loan agreement with Johnson, who also holds a 37 percent stake, it said in a statement Friday.