Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland were among six banks to be fined a total of $5.7 billion (£3.8 billion) by British and US regulators over allegations that they rigged the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, The Standard reported. The settlement, which also involved US banks JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citi, as well as Switzerland’s UBS, means banks have handed authorities around $10 billion to deal with the scandal. Barclays, Citi, JPMorgan and RBS also all pleaded guilty to a US antitrust violation.

Former UK employees of Nortel Networks, the insolvent Canadian telecoms firm, could receive up to two thirds of their long-deferred pension claims after the US and Canadian courts ruled that the company’s remaining assets should be equally divided among all the insolvent parts of the group. Accountancy firm PwC, a financial adviser to the trustees of the Nortel UK Pension Scheme since the company’s 2009 insolvency, said that the unprecedented joint ruling by the courts could set an example in future insolvency cases involving highly integrated multinational companies.

Lloyds Banking Group is planning to sell €4.2 billion of face value legacy loans connected with Ireland in what will be one of the biggest such real estate portfolio sales here since the financial crash in late 2008, the Irish Times reported. Dubbed Project Poseidon, the disposal covers the vast bulk of what remains from Bank of Scotland’s former operations in Ireland. It has been brought to market by Deloitte with first bids due to be lodged in early June.

The Bank of England has cut the amount that it expects the UK economy to grow this year to 2.4 per cent, down from a previous forecast of 2.9 per cent, The Independent reported. In its quarterly inflation report, the central bank trimmed its forecast for UK economic growth over the next three years and reinforced expectations for an first interest rate rise in around a year's time. The fresh projections follow official data showing that growth slowed sharply to just 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, though many expect the reading to be revised once more data is available.

Barclays Plc is entitled to $4 billion in assets stemming from the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapse, as the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the bankruptcy trustee for the firm’s brokerage business, Bloomberg News reported. The justices left intact a federal appeals court ruling that said Barclays acquired the assets as part of a hastily drafted purchase agreement in September 2008. Barclays bought most of Lehman’s North American brokerage assets in that deal. The trustee, James Giddens, sought to recoup the money, most of which is already in Barclays’ possession.

The Supreme Court has ruled that Olympic Airlines is unable to enter the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) because it did not have an establishment in the UK during its insolvency proceedings, Employee Benefits reported. The case, Trustees of the Olympic Airlines SA Pension and Life Assurance Scheme (Appellants) v Olympic Airlines, relates to the airline’s insolvency in 2009. It entered insolvency in Greece and despite having UK-based operations and a UK defined benefit (DB) pension scheme, it did not have a subsidiary firm in the UK.

Insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor Group warned yesterday that its full year results would be below market expectations thanks to the declining rate of company failures, domain-b.com reported. According to Begbies, the number of UK corporate insolvencies in the first quarter of 2015 were 4,014, a 11.3 per cent decline against the same period last year, and was the lowest level of quarterly appointments since the fourth quarter of 2007.

Royal Bank of Scotland warned it faced a tough 2015 as it plunged to a loss in the first three months of the year, weighed down by £856m of misconduct and litigation charges, The Guardian reported. The 79%-taxpayer-owned bank prepared the way for further penalties for foreign exchange rigging – including possible criminal charges – by setting aside a further £334m for manipulation of the £3.5tn-a-day global currency markets.

Carcraft, once described as the UK's leading car supermarket, has gone into administration today, resulting in the loss of around 550 jobs, The Telegraph reported. The announcement was made to shocked staff at the Rochdale head office at 10.30am today. Grant Thornton, the financial services company, has been appointed as administrator. Carcraft will now cease trading and all employees have been made redundant. According to a statement made by Grant Thornton today, Carcraft is "heavily loss-making", recording losses of £8m per annum "for a number of years".

A “stark” divide between the north and south of England has opened up since the recession in rates of personal insolvency, highlighting the uneven nature of the economic recovery, the Financial Times reported. In London and the home counties, insolvency rates fell 18 per cent and 16 per cent respectively in the five years from 2008 as the services industries staged a concerted recovery, according to research by the accountancy firm Moore Stephens. But in the northeast and northwest of England, personal insolvency rates rose by 5 and 4 per cent respectively.