Upmarket British designer fashion chain Nicole Farhi has gone into administration, a form of bankruptcy in the U.K., a business restructuring firm said Wednesday. Zolfo Cooper, a company providing restructuring services, said it is in talks to sell the brand, one of Britain's best-known luxury clothing chains and a regular at London Fashion Week, the Associated Press reported. "As with many other fashion retailers, the decline in high street spend coupled with rising costs has led to increased financial pressures on the business," said Peter Saville, a partner at Zolfo Cooper.

Profits at the insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor have halved because fewer UK companies are going bust, The Guardian reported. The firm, which has been administrator to indebted groups from Port Vale FC to Rotherham-based United Carpets, reported that pre-tax profits were down £2.4m for the year until the end of April, compared with £5.5m the previous year. Revenues fell by more than 10% to £51m. In a statement the board blamed the profit fall on a 10% decline in insolvency cases, which it said had reached historic lows compared to previous recessions.

Bank of England policymakers said on Tuesday they would press ahead quickly with a new curb on banks' risk exposure and would not be deflected by industry lobbying against the plan, Reuters reported. Paul Tucker, the central bank's deputy governor for financial stability, told British lawmakers that the new rule, which would require UK banks to meet a limit on lending as a proportion of their capital, should be introduced now. Ratcheting up the pressure on banks, Tucker said lobbying was "completely unacceptable", pointless and regulators would not be deflected "one iota" from their tasks.

Britain's biggest coal producer, UK Coal, will be placed in administration and most of its mines and pension liabilities transferred to a state-run pensions agency in a bid to save 2,000 jobs, according to a union leader and a newspaper report. The British coal industry has struggled to break even in recent years because of rising costs, hefty pension liabilities and competition from cheap imports from Colombia and the United States, Reuters reported.

Britain did not suffer a double-dip recession early last year as previously thought, but household living standards suffered their biggest drop in a generation at the start of 2013. The Office for National Statistics said on Thursday that following a major annual revision of historic economic data, figures now showed that output flat-lined in the first three months of 2012 rather than contracting.

The U.K. government on Wednesday renewed its commitment to austerity by setting out plans for another round of deep spending cuts that will begin in April 2015—a month before the next general election is likely to take place, The Wall Street Journal reported. The wisdom of cutting budget deficits at a time of slow economic growth has been questioned by a growing number of economists, the International Monetary Fund and other international bodies.

U.S. law firm Brown Rudnick has been hired to represent small investors in Britain's Co-operative Bank who are fighting for a better deal in its 1.5 billion pound rescue plan, sources familiar with the matter said, Reuters reported. The bank's parent, the Co-operative Group, is making bondholders swap their debt at a discount of at least 30 percent for new bonds and equity in the bank, which will be listed on the London Stock Exchange. The so-called "bail in", which has been used in bank rescues in Ireland, Spain and Cyprus, has angered many of Co-operative Bank's 5,000 retail bondholders.

Ulster Bank remained silent yesterday on reports that the UK government will consider hiving off some of its problem assets as part of a wider solution to the financial difficulties of its parent group, Royal Bank of Scotland. “We will have to see the proposals before making comment on them,” a spokeswoman told The Irish Times.

Co-operative Bank PLC asked bondholders to take heavy losses to stave off a potential collapse, the latest case in Europe of debtholders, rather than taxpayers, taking a hit, The Wall Street Journal reported. Co-op Bank, part of the Co-operative Group Ltd., a mutual conglomerate with businesses from funerals to supermarkets, said it aims to raise £1 billion ($1.57 billion) in fresh capital this year by offering holders of its £1.3 billion in subordinated bonds a mix of new senior debt and shares.

New bankruptcy legislation aiming to strike a better balance between the rights of debtors and the rights of creditors has been introduced, the BBC reported. The Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Bill 2013 will provide for improved financial advice. It will also ensure that those who "can pay" their debts "should pay". The legislative reform promises to create a more efficient process and allow people to apply for bankruptcy online.