Small firms in Scotland are at risk of collapse because public bodies are withholding £120 million of debts owed to private construction companies, The National reported. According to research carried out by industry body the Specialist Engineering Contractors (SEC) Group Scotland, “little effort” is being made to ensure secondary or sub-contractors get the same treatment as primary contractors who are paid within 30 days. The primary reason for withholding the cash is to improve the public bodies’ working capital.

Beginning next October, corporate reorganization professionals in Britain are going to have do something quite amazing: At the start of a case, they are going to have to estimate what their total fees will be. And if they exceed that amount, they will have to go back to the creditors and obtain further approval, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Various proposals have been floated to help rein in costs, like greater judicial oversight and fixed fees, but the British proposal may have hit on an intriguing idea.

Insurers, asset managers and clearing houses should be subjected to the rigours of annual stress testing just as banks are, a Bank of England official has said, the Financial Times reported. The UK already stress tests its banks by scrutinising their balance sheets to see if they can withstand a major economic blow, such as a plummet in house prices. But financial stability could be improved by extending their use to other sectors, Alex Brazier, the newest member of the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee, told a parliamentary select committee on Tuesday.

The most senior bankers running the UK operations of non-European banks are being brought under a tough new accountability regime but have been spared the ultimate penalty of jail time, the UK’s financial regulator said on Monday. The Prudential Regulation Authority announced details of how senior executives of banks outside the European Economic Area would be captured by their Approved Persons’ Regime, which was unveiled on February 23 and comes into force in March 2016, the Financial Times reported.

TSB Banking Group, the lender spun out of Lloyds Banking Group last year, said on Thursday that it had received a preliminary takeover offer from Banco Sabadell of Spain, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The deal, if completed, would greatly expand Sabadell’s presence in Britain, where it primarily offers business accounts and banking services to Spanish companies. Under the terms of the offer, Sabadell would pay 3.40 pounds in cash for each share of TSB, valuing the company at £1.7 billion, or about $2.6 billion, TSB said.

The Bank of England is facing an unprecedented criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over emergency lending measures it took at the height of the credit crisis to inject cash into financial markets, The Guardian reported. In late 2007 and early 2008, as the authorities struggled to prevent financial markets from freezing up, banks were invited to bid to borrow funds from the Bank of England, in exchange for collateral, in a series of so-called “auctions”.

As many as 14,000 staff in the investment banking arm of Royal Bank of Scotland face the axe in the coming years as the bailed-out bank retrenches from its expansion into the US and Asia, The Guardian reported. The scale of the cutbacks – which would represent four in five jobs in investment banking – emerged after last week’s remarks by Ross McEwan, the boss of the 81%-taxpayer bank, that substantial numbers of jobs would be lost.

Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins is on Tuesday set to accept his first bonus since taking charge three years ago, in a sign that bankers are showing less restraint even though pay remains a political flashpoint, the Financial Times reported. Of the UK’s biggest banks only one chief executive — Ross McEwan of Royal Bank of Scotland — has declined to take an award for 2014. HSBC rejected calls for bonuses to be cut in response to the tax evasion scandal at its Swiss private bank, arguing this dated back to 2005-2007, before the current management team took over.

British regulators have exempted junior non-executive directors of banks and insurance companies from a tough new personal liability regime which could make them criminally liable for bank failures, the Financial Times reported. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), had originally planned to include all non-executive directors of banks and insurers in its new rules, after criticism that those running collapsed UK banks could not be held personally liable for their institutions’ demise.

Investment banks in the UK face an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority regulator into possible conflicts of interest and anti-competitive practices, the Financial Times reported. However, the probe is unlikely to lead to an overhaul of the sector, say financial experts, and some of its intended beneficiaries question whether it is needed at all. The FCA announced on Thursday a review of investment and corporate banking, invoking new powers that could force banks to stop selling products and be more transparent about how they charge clients.