The City regulator has opened an enforcement investigation into the London Metal Exchange related to its freezing of billions of dollars of nickel trades amid a price surge last year. The exchange was thrown into chaos a year ago when the price of its benchmark three-month futures contract for nickel experienced an unprecedented jump to more than $100,000 a tonne. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said yesterday that it had begun an “enforcement investigation into some of the LME’s...

Well-known businesses including AB InBev, Coca-Cola and O2-owner Telefónica are among more than 70 organisations named by campaigners as being among the “slowest and latest-paying companies in the UK”. The research, based on an analysis of public filings from more than 5,000 companies, also criticised the UK arm of Kraft Heinz, one of the world’s biggest food businesses, Tata Steel and Superdry, the fashion retailer. Good Business Pays, a group that campaigns for fairer treatment of...

A banking industry compensation scheme that cost tens of millions of pounds to establish has admitted it has only made 21 adjudications. The troubled Business Banking Resolution Service said it “recognised the disappointment” of those who are not eligible for the scheme. With a campaigner calling it an “abysmal failure”, the service refused to say how much had been paid to complainants as a direct result of its rulings. Andy Keats, of the small business group SME Alliance, who was involved as...

A taxpayer-backed provider of financial services to people who struggle to secure bank accounts says it is close to securing private equity backing amid “significant doubt” over its ability to continue trading. In the latest accounts for Pockit, which has hundreds of thousands of customers, auditors again say there is “material uncertainty” over its status as a going concern. Pockit provides a prepaid card and mobile app-based account and claims to have more than 700,000 customers. Its...

A new restructuring route for saving large businesses and a moratorium on creditor action that risks pushing companies into bankruptcy are among measures introduced yesterday in an overhaul of insolvency rules. The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill contains permanent and temporary amendments to the corporate restructuring regime that the government said would help companies during the pandemic and “lay the foundations for economic recovery”. A new restructuring plan allowing large...