Closing summary
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has brought fraud charges against four people, including a former director, over the collapse of bakery chain Patisserie Valerie.
The company, which ran almost 200 high street bakeries, collapsed in early 2019, a few months after it was found to have a multi-million pound black hole in its finances, which was blamed on “potentially fraudulent” accounting irregularities.
The UK economy shrank in July by 0.5% amid industrial action and extremely wet weather, official figures indicate, heightening fears of a recession in the second half of the year.
Analysts expected gross domestic product (GDP) to fall back by 0.2% but the Office for National Statistics said that strikes by junior doctors reduced health service activity, while retailers who had benefited from a warm June suffered in July, which was the sixth wettest on record.
BP shares fell on Wednesday after the previous night’s shock announcement that its chief executive had resigned having admitted to failing to fully detail relationships with colleagues.
Bernard Looney, who spent his entire career with the oil and gas multinational, departed the £88bn company with immediate effect, less than four years into his tenure.
Rishi Sunak refused three times to commit to maintaining the pensions triple lock beyond the next election, as Keir Starmer mocked him as “inaction man” over national security.
In his final Commons grilling before MPs break up for party conference recess, the prime minister was evasive about the future of a policy that has become a hallmark of recent Conservative governments.
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Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care – JK
Germany's Buch to head up ECB's supervisory arm
Germany’s Claudia Buch has been picked to head up the European Central Bank’s supervisory arm, overseeing the eurozone’s €26 trillion banking sector.
Buch is a German economist who currently serves as vice president of the Bundesbank and previously worked as a professor at the University of Tübingen and also sat on the German Council of Economic Experts.
In a close contest, she beat Spain’s Margarita Delgado to become chair of the ECB’s supervisory board, a non-renewable five-year role.
She will run the Single Supervisory Mechanism, covering more than a hundreds of the eurozone’s top lenders at a time of rising interest rates, slowing economic growth and climate threats.
