United Kingdom

The number of people in England and Wales entering into insolvency rose to a new high in the first three months of the year, figures from the Insolvency Service showed today. A total of 35,682 people became insolvent during the period, equal to 566 people a day. This was the fifth consecutive quarter during which the total has hit a record level, as increasing numbers of consumers struggle to keep up with their debts, The Guardian reported. But there was better news on the corporate front, with total company liquidations falling by 4% compared with the previous quarter to 4,196.

Barclays Plc, in the midst of a bitter fight with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. over claims it received a secret multibillion dollar windfall when it purchased some of the investment bank's assets, is suing a group of Lehman's former private-equity real-estate funds now controlled by a real-estate investment firm, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Lehman's bankruptcy case, Barclays says PCCP Mezzanine Recovery Partners II owes its wealth management business $16 million in unpaid management fees.

A former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executive on Tuesday disputed a central claim in Lehman's bid to recover billions of dollars from Barclays Plc, saying there was no secret $5 billion discount in the sale of Lehman's core business, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lehman and its creditors claim that Barclays reaped a $5 billion windfall in the deal because as part of the transaction, the bank paid $45 billion in cash in exchange for $50.6 billion in securities.

Barclays Plc had “a right to walk away” from a 2008 deal to buy bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit and would have if certain assets had been left out, the U.K. bank’s top in-house lawyer said, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “That was clearly in Barclays’s mind at that point in time,” Jonathan Hughes, Barclays’s global general counsel, told a bankruptcy judge in New York today, referring to the bank’s discovery during the negotiations that Lehman couldn’t deliver all the promised assets.

Specialist door maker McTavish Ramsey, one of Dundee's oldest manufacturing firms, has gone into receivership with the loss of nearly three-quarters of its workforce, The Scotsman reported. Joint receivers Blair Nimmo and Neil Armour were called in after the firm failed to trade its way out of a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) set up at the beginning of March. It had been hoped that the 146-year-old business, which suffered poor trading through the winter, would stabilise its finances under the reduced debt repayment arrangements of the CVA.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. pressed its case Thursday that former executives of the firm were conflicted as they worked on closing a deal to sell its assets to Barclays Plc in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lehman, which is fighting to recover billions of dollars from Barclays, has claimed top executives working on the sale had conflicted loyalties because they were negotiating new employment contracts with Barclays when they were supposed to be acting on Lehman's behalf.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. continued its court battle Monday to claw back billions of dollars in assets from Barclays Plc, as two witnesses testified that the British bank wasn't supposed to see an immediate gain when it bought Lehman's core U.S. operation in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. A member of Lehman's board of directors and its former president testified that the deal hammered out following Lehman's historic bankruptcy filing called for Barclays to acquire a pool of assets and an equivalent amount of liabilities when it bought Lehman's broker-dealer unit.

A steep rise this year in the number of businesses at risk of going bust has fuelled fears that Britain faces a tougher year than expected with more insolvencies and higher unemployment than predicted by the government, The Guardian reported. The number of companies experiencing significant or critical financial distress rose by 14% in the first three months of the year to top 160,000, according to insolvency experts Begbies Traynor.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. continued its court battle Monday to claw back billions of dollars in assets from Barclays Plc, as two witnesses testified that the British bank wasn't supposed to see an immediate gain when it bought Lehman's core U.S. operation in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. A member of Lehman's board of directors and its former president testified that the deal hammered out following Lehman's historic bankruptcy filing called for Barclays to acquire a pool of assets and an equivalent amount of liabilities when it bought Lehman's broker-dealer unit.

The banking sector strongly criticised International Monetary Fund proposals to impose new taxes on the industry, claiming yesterday that they would hit profits hard, would not reduce the risk of future failures and were at odds with other plans to clean up the industry, the Financial Times reported. The IMF suggested a three-pronged assault on banks and other financial groups that would include a flat tax on the liabilities on their balance sheets and levies on profits and pay.