The liquidators of BHS are conducting a detailed investigation into property transactions that took place during the regimes of Sir Philip Green and Dominic Chappell, including whether the directors of the retailer breached their duties, The Guardian reported. Insolvency practitioners have a legal duty to review the conduct of the directors of a collapsed company, but the scope and depth of the BHS investigation is rare. FRP Advisory is undertaking a “massive exercise in data collation”, according to one source close to the winding up of BHS.

We already knew 2016 had been a difficult year for North Sea oil, and the revelation that 16 firms in the sector became insolvent last year only confirms it, The Herald reported. What is alarming is the pace of these insolvencies – there were just two the year before – and the likelihood that many more firms may be teetering on the brink. A 25 per cent increase in oil prices in the last quarter of 2016 may herald better times ahead, and if the price stabilises at above US$50 a barrel, that would be a significant improvement since world oil prices collapsed dramatically in 2014.

Households are being left with less cash to spend on treats or to stash away as savings as the rising cost of essentials like food and fuel take a bigger chunk out of family budgets, The Guardian reported. A new report on household finances from Lloyds bank echoed other signs that the pound’s steep fall since the Brexit vote is raising import costs for the UK and trickling through to higher prices for consumers.

The number of people in work in the U.K. fell for the first time in more than a year in the three months through October, data showed Wednesday, signaling that the labor market may be softening and adding to signs of economic weakness emerging in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, The Wall Street Journal reported. Deteriorating economic conditions would spell trouble for the ruling Conservatives as they prepare to extricate the U.K. from the European Union, with formal divorce proceedings due to begin early next year.

There is tremendous uncertainty across the world. Electorates in the EU are increasingly tempted by radical populists from the left and right, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to scrap or renegotiate the US’s largest trade deals, which have been in the preparation for years. Institutions that are the product of the postwar political centre ground are now discredited. The world is in the grip of an epochal crisis of political economy.

An increasing number of firms are jeopardising their long-term survival by paying only the interest on their debt, not the capital itself. According to insolvency and restructuring trade body R3, the number of firms in this position has risen to 139,000 – 8 per cent of all UK businesses. Last year it was just 69,000 (4 per cent). Paying off only the interest on debt is often a sign of a ‘zombie business’ – a business surviving only because of low interest rates.

The European Union’s Brexit point man signaled an uncompromising stance on talks, laying out a tight timetable for the U.K.’s exit from the bloc and sticking to its warning that the country couldn’t freely pick and choose its future relationship with the bloc, The Wall Street Journal reported. In his first public comments since taking the job, Michel Barnier kept up the pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who has suggested her country wants both migration control and economic access—a stance many in the EU say is unrealistic. Mrs.

In one of the most significant constitutional cases in decades, Britain’s Supreme Court began a hearing on Monday to determine whether Parliament should vote before the government begins formal steps to quit the European Union, the International New York Times reported. The outcome of the case could affect the timetable laid down by Prime Minister Theresa May, who wants to start withdrawal negotiations by the end of March. Mrs. May wanted to use prerogative powers to avoid a vote in Parliament.

A UK distressed debt investor that has been at the centre of a rescue plan for Italy’s third biggest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Sienna, has emerged as the leading bidder for a niche bank being sold in Dublin, the Irish Times reported. Sources said Attestor Capital in London is the preferred bidder for EAA Covered Bond Bank in Dublin, which is being sold under the wind-up of failed German bank WestLB.

Eight years after the financial crisis, we were all getting bored of bank stress tests. Most of the institutions are so much stronger and better capitalised than they were, and the laggards were so obvious that the tests were starting to get dull, the Financial Times reported. But on Wednesday, the Bank of England turned up the heat, hitting Britain’s seven largest banks with tougher stress tests. Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered and Barclays all failed to clear some of the hurdles, although only RBS was ordered to find more capital.