Barclays will begin to hand out bonuses on Friday to its 140,000 staff around the world from a bonus pool expected to be bigger than last year's, The Guardian reported. In a move that could inflame relationships with shareholders after the bank's £5.8bn cash call last year, the bank is thought to be planning to hand out larger bonuses to some employees than a year ago to prevent top staff quitting for higher-paying rivals. This time a year ago the bank handed out a total of almost £2.2bn in bonuses – £1.8bn for the 2012 financial year and another £300m in deferred payments.

Hopes that Punch Taverns might finally be able to put its debt woes behind it appeared to be dashed on Wednesday as lenders to the pubs group dismissed a financial restructuring plan as “unsignable” and “flawed”. Bondholders reacted angrily to a last minute plea by Stephen Billingham, the executive chairman of Punch Taverns, to back a deal to restructure the group’s £2.3bn debt pile, which will be put to the vote next Friday. Punch, which is the second biggest pub landlord in the UK with some 4,000 properties, last month published a final proposal to solve the group’s complex debt problems.

Christie's has withdrawn 85 artworks by Spanish surrealist Joan Miró from its auctions in London this week, after an uproar in Portugal over the government's move to sell the works in an attempt to cut its debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision, announced on Tuesday just hours before the Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist evening sale, represents a blow to Portugal's coffers—as well as an embarrassment for one of the world's largest auction houses during the most important time of year for the London art market.

Hibu, the Reading-based Yellow Pages company, has placed six US subsidiaries into Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection as the firm attempts to restructure its overseas operations, following the firm’s UK restructuring which started last month, IT Pro Portal reported. Hibu filed with the US Bankruptcy Court in New York, listing over $1 billion (£600 million) in assets and liabilities. Just over half of Hibu’s revenue comes from the US, where it operates the “Yellowbook” (the US version of the Yellow Pages directory) across most states. The firm employs almost 5,000 personnel in America.

A Hull-based legal firm has been wound up by the High Court in Manchester for abusing the UK insolvency regime, Insolvency News reported. An investigation by The Insolvency Service found Lovell Hill & Co LLP (LCH) had been offering bankruptcy relocation services to Germans seeking to take advantage of the shorter bankruptcy discharge periods in the UK; an act known as bankruptcy tourism. Acting as bankruptcy relocation advisers, LHC assisted German nationals who wished to wrongly claim their Centre of Main Interest (COMI) was in England and Wales for bankruptcy purposes.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc set aside a further 3.1 billion pounds ($5.1 billion) to cover legal and compensation claims, putting Britain’s biggest bailed-out lender on track to post its largest pretax loss since 2008, Bloomberg News reported. The provision includes 1.9 billion pounds for lawsuits and fines tied mostly to the sale of $91 billion of mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007, according to the lender. It follows agreements Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and UBS AG struck with U.S.

Three junior holders and a committee representing senior bondholders of Punch Taverns' securitised debt said on Monday morning they would reject a proposed restructuring at an investor meeting scheduled to take place on February 14, Reuters reported. In its restructuring proposal launched on January 15, the company threatened to default if investors fail to agree to the terms put forward that would cut debt from GBP2.3bn to GBP1.83bn and net leverage from 11 to 8.7 times Ebitda.

The author of a report into state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland's lending to small businesses said he found no evidence of the bank engineering companies into default, Reuters reported. Andrew Large, who was commissioned by RBS last year to conduct the review, said he hadn't found anything to back up accusations made in a separate report by government adviser Lawrence Tomlinson. However, he did say there was an "element of plausibility" behind them.

The accounting watchdog has joined a long list of investigators examining the near collapse of the Co-operative Bank as it launched a review into KPMG’s auditing of the lender’s accounts, the Financial Times reported. The formal investigation by the Financial Reporting Council, which has the power to fine and suspend accountants, will examine the bank’s financial reports in the years leading up to the exposure of a £1.5bn capital shortfall last May.

Insolvency trade body R3 have put forward new proposals regarding current bankruptcy procedures, including extending the standard bankruptcy terms from one year to three, Insolvency News reported. In a new report, R3 have called for the reform of personal insolvency procedures to provide better protection to creditor and debtors alike, as “thousands of indebted individuals struggle to access a debt relief solution that is suitable for their needs”.