London house prices plunged in December and may barely increase next year after the “froth” came off the market, according to Rightmove Plc, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Asking prices in the capital fell 5.1 percent from November, it said in the last of its monthly property reports for 2014. It forecast a 2015 gain of 1 percent to 3 percent after an 11 percent surge this year. The weakness in December wasn’t confined to London, with a record 3.3 percent monthly drop recorded nationally.

The results of the Bank of England’s stress tests on banks could make this a decidedly stressful week for executives at some of the more vulnerable institutions, The Scotsman reported. Regulators are keen that all the stress arrives at the same time, and it has been leaked that the central bank has stressed that leaks will not be tolerated. The officially designated stress point is Tuesday morning, and that will make for a frenzied few hours as analysts and investors rush to interpret the results.

Business groups warned Britain’s government on Wednesday that it risked undermining international efforts to rewrite tax rules after officials published plans to target multinational companies, including Google, that use complex strategies to cut their British tax bills, the International New York Times reported. Details of a new measure, which has become known as the “Google tax,” were released on Wednesday, a week after George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, promised a crackdown on tax-avoidance strategies.

The Bank of England is willing to put aside its own forward guidance to determine how well the country’s eight largest lenders would fare in a crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Governor Mark Carney has said rate increases from the current record-low 0.5 percent are likely to be gradual and the peak in rates lower than in previous cycles. Yet in its stress test of the U.K.’s eight largest banks, the BOE assumes an increase to 4 percent by the end of 2015.

The Co-operative Bank has torn up this year’s long-term incentive plan for its senior executives amid expectations that it has failed stress tests mandated by the Bank of England, The Independent reported. The beleaguered bank’s chief executive, Niall Booker, this week confirmed widespread rumours that it was likely to fail the tests, which gauge a lender’s ability to survive a 35 per cent crash in house prices, combined with soaring unemployment and interest rates.

Banks were in the firing line when the British Treasury went looking for revenue to someday balance its budget, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, sought to curb the favorable treatment that banks have received when he delivered the Autumn Statement, Britain’s annual spending plan, on Wednesday. Starting in April, banks will be able to apply only 50 percent of their profits against past losses to calculate their tax bill, rather than all of their profits.

British firms hired permanent employees at the slowest rate in 18 months in November, although starting salaries rose faster due to staff shortages in many sectors, a survey showed on Friday. The monthly survey from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation tallies with official data which has shown Britain's rapid pace of job creation slowing, after a sharp fall in the unemployment rate to just 6 percent in the three months to September. "(There's) not much sign of a happy Christmas in the job market," said Bernard Brown, a partner at accountancy firm KPMG, which sponsors the survey.

Multinationals will face a penalty tax if they are found to have artificially moved profits out of the United Kingdom to lower tax jurisdictions, such as the Republic, the British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne has said, the Irish Times reported. Delivering his autumn statement to the house of commons, Mr Osborne, who is bidding to bring in £5 billion-a-year more from curbing tax avoidance, said he was determined to ensure that multi-nationals “pay their fair share”. “That’s not fair to other British firms. It’s not fair to the British people either.

The property developer Vincent Tchenguiz has filed a $3.5 billion claim in London against the accounting firm Grant Thornton, the Icelandic bank Kaupthing and three individuals, claiming they were behind a flawed criminal inquiry into the bank’s collapse, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The Serious Fraud Office of Britain dropped its inquiry against Mr.

Bonuses handed out to senior bosses at Royal Bank of Scotland are facing renewed scrutiny after the chairman of the bailed-out bank apologised for inaccuracies in evidence given to MPs about its restructuring division, The Guardian reported. Sir Philip Hampton admitted evidence given by two of the most senior bankers to the Treasury select committee was incorrect. The division is facing accusations about its treatment of small businesses.