Moody’s has issued a stark warning that the risk of a no-deal Brexit has “risen materially” in recent months, spelling out the extent of the possible damage on the UK economy from crashing out without an agreement, the Financial Times reported. Britain would risk entering recession, according to the rating agency. While the UK and the EU would “likely take swift steps to limit short-term disruption”, a disorderly exit would “clearly pose more significant challenges than a negotiated exit”, the chief author of Moody’s report, Colin Ellis, said.

While the war in Ukraine’s east continues to rage four years on, the battle between Russia and Ukraine is returning to the calm and order of a London courtroom. There, British judges, unwilling to play diplomat, are this week set to rule on an appeal by Ukraine that it must repay part of a $3 billion bond in default, Bloomberg News reported. The Court of Appeal will rule on the case after Russia won an early verdict last spring in a lower court. The dispute “has multiple venues, and courtrooms are one of them," said Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow at the Chatham House thinktank in London.

Bolton Wanderers have avoided administration after agreeing a deal to pay off their main creditor BluMarble Capital Ltd, club owner Ken Anderson said on Wednesday. Anderson had warned on Monday that the Championship outfit was facing the prospect of insolvency and a points penalty after an initial offer to repay the financial company was turned down, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. However, Anderson confirmed an agreement was reached and the club now has one of the lowest debt positions in the second division.

Britain's aerospace trade body ADS has written to the European Commission for the second time in four months to urge it once again to allow British and European airline regulators to begin technical planning for Brexit. Aviation is one sector that could be most severely impacted by Brexit, as there is no default fallback option for the industry if there is no agreement on future relations after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

British department store retailer Debenhams said on Tuesday that while major store closures were an option, the company was not actively pursuing this route, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Shares in Debenhams slumped on Monday after news that the remit of adviser KPMG had been widened to include consideration of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), which allows retailers to avoid insolvency or administration by offloading unwanted stores and securing reduced rents on others.

Troubled Debenhams has called in advisers to help save the chain, and is considering its options which include store closures and insolvency, The Sun reported. The embattled department store chain is fighting to keep its 240 stores open following a sharp fall in profits and tumbling share prices as consumers turn to online shopping. After issuing three profit warnings this year, the chain had already announced plans to cut up to 90 jobs at its headquarters and 320 store management jobs.

Britain’s biggest labour union on Monday called for a criminal investigation into key individuals involved in the collapse of construction and outsourcing company Carillion. Carillion, which provided services in defence, education, health and transport, collapsed in January, becoming the largest construction bankruptcy in British history, Reuters reported. It left creditors and the firm’s pensioners facing steep losses and put thousands of jobs at risk. The Unite union launched legal action against Carillion in July on behalf of workers who were made redundant.

The UK insolvency service is investigating scandal-hit public relations firm Bell Pottinger, including its influential co-founder Lord Tim Bell, for work in South Africa that led to the company’s collapse last year, the Financial Times reported. According to letters seen by the Financial Times, two senior partners have been told the UK government agency is examining potential “breaches of duties or other misconduct” relating to their controversial work for the Gupta family’s Oakbay investment vehicle.

U.K. retailer Debenhams Plc, which has issued three profit warnings this year, recruited restructuring experts from KPMG LLP as an insurance provider again raised the cost to cover suppliers’ shipments to the company, British newspapers reported. The KPMG team has been instructed to draw up an emergency turnaround plan, including the possible filing of a company voluntary arrangement, a form of bankruptcy protection, the Sunday Telegraph reported, without saying where it got the information, Bloomberg News reported.

Turnround specialist Melrose Industries, which swooped on GKN in an £8bn hostile takeover this year, swung to a loss in the first half but said it had found no financial “black holes” in its new acquisition, the Financial Times reported. The FTSE 100 group reported a statutory operating loss of £256m for the period to the end of June. This included £124m in costs for the GKN acquisition — on advisers and in taxes — as well as £128m in restructuring costs, plus inventory writedowns and hedging losses.