In today’s long-awaited white paper, Prime Minister Theresa May will abandon plans for a tight new relationship with the EU in financial services after Brexit, laying out a new proposal for a looser partnership.

The new approach to the City of London’s relationship with Brussels will mean less access to the European market for UK-based financial service groups.

The City proposal replaces the prime minister’s former “mutual recognition” plan, viewed in Brussels as the UK’s “cake-and-eat-it” approach to Brexit, and forms part of a detailed document including controversial plans for customs and a free trade area in goods.

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US regulator the PCAOB (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board) is to examine auditors’ ‘going concern’ reporting.

The statements, which are made by directors and signed off by auditors, comes as the Big Four accounting firms find themselves under repeated attack over the quality of their work, misconduct, conflicts of interest and their lobbying power.

These criticisms have undermined investor trust in the financial statements signed off by the four — Deloitte, EY, PwC and KPMG. These firms are responsible for auditing the vast majority of the world’s largest companies.