United Kingdom

The number of company insolvencies in England and Wales rose sharply in the early months of 2011, while individual insolvencies continued to decline, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The government's Insolvency Service said Friday that there were 4,121 compulsory liquidations of businesses during the first quarter, an increase of 3.7% from the fourth quarter of 2010, and of 2.1% from the first quarter of 2010.

The number of British retailers falling into administration jumped 30 percent to 60 in the first three months of this year, the highest number for two years, and more could be on the way, a report said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The gloomy assessment from business advisory firm Deloitte came just hours after British home improvements chain Focus DIY said it was on the verge of appointing administrators, in what would be one of the biggest casualties in the retail sector since the demise of Woolworths in 2009.

The U.K.'s financial regulator is pressuring some European financial institutions to restructure their London operations in ways that would subject them to greater oversight by the regulator, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Financial Services Authority's goal is to prevent certain companies from exploiting European rules to set up banking and brokerage operations that the agency views as potentially risky because they use a structure that doesn't face tough local supervision. But the move by the FSA is controversial.

Lloyds Banking Group PLC Tuesday said it has put a package of distressed commercial real-estate loans on the market, stepping up its asset-disposal program to boost its balance sheet in line with other U.K. banks, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The portfolio, code-named Flagstaff, comprises some 38 assets including office, retail, leisure and industrial space, all of which were in receivership. It is the first time a package of individual assets in receivership has been aggregated.

Britons with billions of pounds hidden in Switzerland will pay tax at 50 per cent under a groundbreaking deal that will legitimise their undeclared assets, according to a source familiar with negotiations between the Swiss and British governments, the Financial Times reported. The agreement, which is expected to be announced this month, marks a shift in emphasis in the international crackdown on tax havens. Over the past two years, the focus has been on lifting bank secrecy and exposing evaders.

The prospect of an increase in U.K. borrowing costs any time soon diminished Wednesday following the publication of a dovish set of minutes from the Bank of England's April policy meeting and a survey showing a drop in Britons' inflation expectations, The Wall Street Journal reported. The hawks on the rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee have appeared tantalizingly close to winning over enough colleagues to secure a rate rise in recent months, but in April their arguments for tighter policy were overshadowed by worries about the U.K.'s hard-pressed consumers.

Three European asset management firms accused banks including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Bank Plc, Citibank NA and Credit Suisse Group AG of conspiring to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, Bloomberg reported. The banks sold Libor-based futures, options, swaps and derivative instruments “at artificial prices that defendants caused,” harming investors, FTC Capital GmbH of Vienna, FTC Futures Fund SICAV of Luxembourg and FTC Futures Fund PCC Ltd. of Gibraltar said in an April 15 complaint in New York federal court.

The number of British companies in serious financial distress soared in the first quarter with restaurants, professional services businesses and the leisure industry in particular difficulty, a report showed, Reuters reported. Begbies Traynor, a corporate recovery company that helps wind up or restructure firms, said its Red Flag Alert database showed 186,554 UK businesses were facing significant or or critical problems in the first three months of this year.

British care home operator Southern Cross Healthcare said chairman Ray Miles would be replaced with non-executive director Christopher Fisher to help the company's restructuring drive, Reuters reported. "Given that my own experience has mainly been building businesses and improving their operational performance and that the company now faces a period of intense financial restructuring, it is time to hand over to others with more experience of this," Miles said in a statement on Tuesday.

The U.K.'s largest banks should hold more capital and ring-fence their retail banks from riskier investment banking operations under options laid out Monday by a government-appointed panel that are seen wiping billions of pounds off bank profits in order to protect taxpayers from future bail-outs, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Independent Commission on Banking, which has been tasked with coming up with ways to improve stability and competition in U.K.