United Kingdom

U.K. entertainment rights company Chorion is on the brink of collapse and owner 3i Group PLC is expected to appoint Deloitte as administrator shortly, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. 3i bought the owner of rights to such popular literary and entertainment brands as Enid Blyton's Noddy and the Agatha Christie crime novels in a GBP136 million ($221.5 million) buyout in May 2006.

The sharpest rise in British jobless claims in over two years is adding pressure on the government to boost the faltering economy at a time when the country struggles to regain confidence after riots hit major cities, the Irish Examiner reported. The number of people claiming jobless benefit rose by 37,100 last month, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday, the largest jump since May 2009. Some of the rise was still due to a change in benefit rules, though this could not explain all of the increase, the office said.

U.K. banks are taking stock of troubled companies they took over when private equity owners were unable to meet debt repayments on large loan packages taken out to finance leveraged buyouts during the boom, Dow Jones reported. Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC and Barclays PLC all own of hundreds of companies via debt-for-equity swaps, the preferred option to writing-off their investment when performance turned sour.

Last week, while parts of London and other English cities blazed in the worst riots for 30 years, the world's bond markets ignored the fires and broken glass to give the U.K. what looked like yet another vote of huge confidence, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. Yields on the 10-year gilt fell to record lows, below even equivalent German Bunds. This is in a country where, for a time, it looked as though the civil authorities had lost control of their capital city.

BDO has secured a six-month extension to its term overseeing the administration of collapsed law firm Halliwells, Legal Week reported. News of the reappointment of BDO joint administrators Dermot Power and Shay Bannon comes as it emerges that unsecured creditors may have to share a maximum of £600,000, despite BDO receiving claims worth £191.5m. The figure is contained within a progress report to the failed firm's creditors issued in July.

Proposals to "tidy up" Scottish bankruptcy laws have been put forward by the Scottish Law Commission, the BBC reported. The independent body has published a consultation paper on consolidating existing bankruptcy legislation. It said the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 had "lost coherence" after being heavily amended in recent years. It added the proposals were intended to "remove anomalies, treat like cases in the same way or to omit provisions that no longer serve any purpose". Most of the law proposed for consolidation is already contained in the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.

Building group Bowen’s British business owed almost €10 million to subcontractors before court-appointed administrators took control of the company, its latest figures show, the Irish Times reported. State assets agency Nama and the Bank of Ireland appointed Paul McCann of Grant Thornton as receiver to the key Bowen group companies last month on foot of a number of secured debts.

Prime Minister David Cameron blamed the worst riots in Britain for decades on street gang members and opportunistic looters and denied government austerity measures or poverty caused the violence in London and other major cities, Reuters reported. Cameron told an emergency session of parliament that police tactics had failed at the start of the rioting. Courts worked through the night to deal with hundreds of mostly young people arrested during the mayhem. "The fightback has well and truly begun," said the Conservative leader, in power for 15 months.

UK bank Lloyds has teamed up with Dublin company Green Property to help manage Irish commercial properties which have been put into receivership by the bank, the Irish Times reported. Green will offer property management services to receivers on assets in the €13 billion commercial property book at what was formerly Bank of Scotland (Ireland). It is estimated that properties supporting up to €1 billion of commercial loans in Lloyds’ Irish subsidiary could fall under Green’s management if receivers choose to avail of the company’s services.

France and Britain are most vulnerable within Europe to a rating review following the U.S. downgrade, with anaemic growth and hefty borrowing placing them among the shakiest of the world's triple-A rated lenders, Reuters reported in an analysis. Both countries have stable rating outlooks, making a sudden downgrade unlikely and markets have been so impressed by Britain's debt-cutting strategy that they have pushed its bond yields to record lows. But a surge in the cost of insuring French debt against default on Monday highlighted alarm sparked by Friday's U.S.