Founder of Greensill Capital says there was no finding he acted dishonestly after his company collapsed owing £1.6bn

The disgraced former financier Lex Greensill has been banned from running a UK company for nine years after he was judged to be unfit because of the 2021 collapse of his £1.6bn supply chain invoicing firm.

The government’s Insolvency Service said on Thursday that Greensill had signed a disqualification undertaking, bringing the case to an end before a trial was due to begin on 8 June.

More than 52,000 people respond to Commons committee’s call for evidence amid criticism of loan terms

Thousands of graduates have told an official inquiry their horror stories and bad experiences relating to student loans, underlining what the chair of an MPs’ committee called massive levels of “frustration and upset”.

Amid an ongoing row over the ballooning cost of degree course debts, more than 52,000 people responded to a call for evidence by the Commons Treasury select committee as part of its inquiry into student loans and the taxation of graduates.

Oil company is FTSE’s biggest faller as chair departs immediately after only eight months in the role

BP has removed its chair, Albert Manifold, with the oil company’s board saying it had serious concerns about “important governance standards, oversight and conduct”.

The FTSE 100 company announced Manifold’s departure with immediate effect on Tuesday, without giving further details. He had lasted only eight months in the role.

Nearly a third of vice-chancellors would cut hardship support if necessary over next three years, according to poll

Vice-chancellors have said they may need to cut hardship support for impoverished students and reduce outreach activities aimed at disadvantaged groups if the dire funding struggles at universities continue.

The anonymous poll of leaders by Universities UK (UUK) revealed the extent of the budgetary quagmire facing higher education, with more than two-thirds prepared to cut staff jobs by compulsory redundancy if difficulties continue over the next three years, while nearly 90% said they were looking at hiring freezes or voluntary redundancies.

UK foreign secretary says urgent pressure needed to get strait of Hormuz reopened and fertiliser and fuel moving

Global fertiliser supplies must be freed up within weeks to avoid disaster, with harvests suffering and food prices rising, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said.

The war in Iran has frozen shipments of fertiliser through the strait of Hormuz, creating a supply crunch that has already damaged farming in the UK, Europe and the US and is having its worst impacts in the developing world, where farmers cannot afford the higher prices now being charged.