1 Britain is setting up a body to rule on trade disputes when it leaves the EU, government advertising has revealed. The Department for International Trade is creating the UK Trade Remedies Organisation, which it hopes will be operational by October 2018, six months before Brexit.
2 The City watchdog has been warned that it is failing to give financial firms a clear idea of how to prepare for Brexit with fewer than a fifth of them saying it was doing a good job. The FCA commissioned a survey of more than 2,000 regulated businesses. A third of respondents said that it was not doing a good job.
3 The pound fell to a nine-month low against the euro after the Bank of England dashed any hopes still lingering among City traders that interest rates would be increased this month.
4 Improvements to its online business helped Next to a better-than-expected second quarter despite declining footfall and tough high street trading. The retailer said its full-price sales rose by 0.7 per cent in the three months to July 29 after an outstanding performance from the directory business.
5 Growth in the UK economy will be weaker than expected, real wages will fall by more than anticipated and inflation will be higher than forecast, the Bank of England warned in its latest quarterly Inflation Report.
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6 The boss of Three UK, one of Britain’s leading mobile operators, has rejected calls for the company to abandon a threat to mount a legal challenge to Ofcom, the industry regulator, over a key auction of spectrum rights.
7 Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, has given tacit support for a proposed change to listing rules to allow the flotation of Saudi Aramco in London.
8 The car insurance market is not working in consumers’ interests, the chief executive of Aviva has said. Insurers “take a big loss in their first year” to grab business but then “put premiums up year after year”, Mark Wilson said.
9 Convatec, the British medical products maker that came to market last autumn in the biggest float of the year, reported a fall in interim profits, sending its shares down sharply.
10 Cobham is to refocus on defence and commercial aerospace and will exit the market providing for next-generation 5G mobile telecommunications for the civilian population.