United Kingdom

Families will be hit by a spiralling debt crisis over the next four years that will see average British households plunge further into the red as the government austerity programme bites, official figures reveal, The Guardian reported. The Office for Budget Responsibility has raised its prediction of total household debt in 2015 by a staggering £303bn since late last year, in the belief that families and individuals will respond to straitened times by extra borrowing.

British drinks merchant Oddbins said it expects to go into administration on Monday after it failed to get the backing of major creditor Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs for a company voluntary agreement (CVA), Reuters reported. "As HMRC is a significant creditor, this means the CVA cannot proceed and Oddbins is expected to go into administration on Monday, 4th April, following the court hearing of the administration application," the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Electrical retailer Dixons Retail PLC Wednesday lowered its fiscal-year earnings target amid a slump in consumer confidence, heightening concerns about the performance of key U.K. high-street chains, The Wall Street Journal reported. Dixons Retail, the U.K.'s largest electrical retailer by market share, now expects underlying profit before tax, excluding operations in Spain, to be around £85 million ($136 million) for the year ending April 30, from a previous range of between £100 million and £110 million. The U.K.

A sale of the British taxpayer’s 65.8 billion-pound ($107 billion) stake in Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) is likely to start next year, creating a one-time budget windfall before the next election, according to four people familiar with the talks, Bloomberg reported. Lloyds, 41 percent government-owned, will probably be offered to investors first as the London-based bank is better prepared for a sale, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private and the plans may change.

Britain's Treasury Chief George Osborne delivered a largely business-friendly budget that aimed to dull the pain of belt-tightening and high inflation rates, after already having set the U.K. on a course of aggressive deficit cutting, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Osborne also announced Wednesday a series of measures to lift economic growth, which he said would be slower than expected when he began the deficit-reduction course—among the most aggressive of the major economies. The economic pain for Britons is about to increase, regardless of the budget Mr. Osborne unveiled.

Struggling British retailer JJB Sports avoided collapsing into administration for the second time in two years, agreeing a restructuring with landlords who will forfeit millions of pounds of rent, Reuters reported. Unsecured creditors of the Wigan, northwest England-based sportswear retailer, which has America's richest man Bill Gates as a 5 percent shareholder, backed its proposed company voluntary arrangement (CVA) at a meeting on Tuesday. The arrangement was later backed by the owners of a majority of the company's shares.

Linklaters has filed negligence claims against Italian law firm Gianni Origoni Grippo & Partners relating to advice given by the magic circle firm to Credit Suisse on a deal with Italian food company Parmalat nearly 10 years ago, LegalWeek.com reported. The claims, which were filed in the Admiralty and Commercial division of the High Court earlier this month (10 March), see Linklaters suing the Italian independent law firm as well as launching five claims against individuals.

When Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne presents his budget to the House of Commons on Wednesday, he will seek to make the point that while the U.K. is ardently sticking to the course of eliminating the budget deficit, there won't be additional pain for squeezed households, The Wall Street Journal reported. The first part of this message—reasserting his commitment to the ambitious austerity measures that will result in £111 billion of fiscal tightening by 2015—leaves Mr.

The world’s most powerful central banks joined forces to sell billions of dollars worth of yen, battling speculators – described as “sneaky thieves” by one Japanese official – who have driven the currency to record highs, the Irish Times reported. The intervention by banks including the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England began early yesterday, after ministers from the Group of Seven most industrialised nations approved the first such co-ordinated action in more than a decade.

The U.K.'s financial regulator broke ranks with its colleagues in Europe Thursday, urging banks to include the risk of a sovereign-debt restructuring in the euro zone in their stress tests, The Wall Street Journal reported. "In their stress testing, firms should consider a range of policy options in the euro-area peripheral countries, including a prolonged period of austerity and possible restructuring of bank and sovereign debt," the Financial Services Authority said in an annual survey that assesses the main risks facing the U.K.'s financial sector.