Britain's banking regulator could be handed new powers to enforce government recommendations on how the country's largest banks should ring fence their retail and investment operations, The Sunday Telegraph reported. UK finance minister George Osborne will signal a more accommodating tone on regulation at an annual dinner for bankers this Thursday, hosted by The City of London, where he is due to outline how the government will implement the Vickers report.

Insolvency practitioners have been accused of mis-selling vulnerable debtors into unsuitable bankruptcy agreements that leave them at risk of even greater difficulties, Scotsman.com reported. Scotland’s personal debt crisis is being exacerbated by unscrupulous insolvency practitioners (IPs) raking in huge fees from selling protected trust deeds (PTDs) without explaining the often serious long-term consequences, a leading credit union has claimed.

Britain will demand safeguards to protect its financial sector if the euro zone forms a banking union, its finance minister said on Thursday, placing another obstacle in front of the European Central Bank's efforts to fix a deepening debt crisis, Reuters reported. In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Britain's finance minister George Osborne also urged the single currency bloc to use its bailout fund to recapitalise Spain's troubled banks.

The UK could be called upon to underwrite up to €6bn towards a bailout of Greece if it exited the euro, according to the Open Europe think-tank, the Financial Times reported. David Cameron would face vocal calls for large concessions – including a referendum on EU membership – if a Greek exit prompted full treaty change, the group says in a report published on Monday. Ahead of the Greek general elections on June 17 there are growing concerns about the consequences should Athens leave the single currency in a so-called “Grexit”.

Investors holding notes with a nominal value of USD1.75bn against the UK subsidiary of Petroplus look increasingly unlikely to recover more than a small part of their principal after the administrator of the UK oil refinery business said it had not been able to sell the site after four months of trying, International Financing Review reported. "We have worked tirelessly to explore all feasible options for the refinery. We have had contact with over 100 possible investors and purchasers.

Lenders to UK waste manager Biffa are bracing themselves for a debt-for-equity restructuring if it is unable to sell certain divisions to reduce its 1-billion pound ($1.57 billion) debt, Reuters reported. Biffa is expected to breach loan covenants this year due to reduced waste volume on the back of lower consumption. . Its earnings will also be hit by a new UK landfill tax.

The prospect of fresh action to boost the flagging British economy loomed larger on Thursday after official figures showed a steeper fall in activity than previously thought and the crisis-hit eurozone drifted towards a deeper slump, The Guardian reported. Labour seized on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing that gross domestic product declined by 0.3% in the first three months of 2012 as evidence that Britain is ill-prepared to withstand a deterioration in the rest of Europe over the coming months.

A UK competition probe could define the future of the "Big Four" accounting firms after the European Union delayed its reform of the multi-billion euro sector until after it reports, Reuters reported. KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young check the books of nearly all blue-chip companies in the world and many policymakers want this "oligopoly" cut down to size so that the EU's 8,300 listed companies have more choice of auditor. The Big Four are also under the gun for giving clean bills of health to banks just before they had to be rescued by taxpayers in the 2007-09 financial crisis.

Solicitor Noel Smyth’s Alburn Real Estate UK is to be put into receivership by Rothschild, ending his efforts to regain command of the heavily indebted property portfolio which has breached a number of its borrowing covenants, the Irish Times reported. The move by Rothschild follows the failure on Tuesday of Alburn, which owns 47 offices, warehouses and other properties, to meet a demand from the bank for accelerated repayment of approximately £200 million (€250 million), including interest.

A shareholder rebellion over executive pay rippling through the U.K. is exposing fissures inside some of the country's biggest companies and could reverberate in boardrooms on both sides of the Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal reported. The uprising began last month when an unusually high percentage of shareholders at Barclays PLC voted against the bank's pay plan. People familiar with the matter say the vote was preceded by an internal fight on the bank's board, with some directors pushing Chief Executive Bob Diamond to forgo his bonus—an idea that was rejected.