The move is intended to avoid their work being publicly ridiculed in cross-examination. E&Y must recognise that their defence to this allegation is bleak, fruitless and doomed to failure and we call on them to admit negligence."E&Y, however, emphatically denied it had withdrawn the witnesses because of a weakness in its case, saying it had taken the decision because its points had already been made through the cross-examination of other witnesses. "As regards Equitable's assertion that we have tacitly admitted audit negligence - we have not," it said."As our QC Mark Hapgood explained to the court this afternoon, 'We emphatically deny negligence. The court will be assisted in this matter by evidence from some eight audit and actuarial experts.'"The Equitable case is believed to be the most expensive court case in the UK, with legal costs across the numerous parties totalling£100m. About £35m of this is accounted for by Equitable, whose policyholders will ultimately pay the bill for the case.. The Serious Fraud Office's expenditure leapt more than 25 per cent in the past tax year to its highest-ever level, driven by the escalating costs of two of its most complex investigations.

The SFO was allocated almost £42m by the Government last year, up 25.8 per cent on the £33.2m it received in the previous year, according to its annual report.

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Robert Wardle, the SFO's director general, said the sharp rise in expenditure was caused by an application for extra funds in relation to two major cases. An investigation into price-fixing by six drug companies in their dealings with the National Health Service, which has been under way for about three years, has become one of the SFO's most expensive cases. Its other large investigation relates to Imperial Consolidated, an investment company which went bust three years ago owing investors more than £200m.The annual report also revealed that the SFO tried a record number of defendants over the past year. But the proportion who were convicted was the second lowest level over the past five years, at 64 per cent. Its worst year in recent times was 2003-04, when only 51 per cent of tried defendants were convicted.Mr Wardle said that while he had been happy with the progress of the office over the past year, he believed there was still room for improvement in speeding up its investigations. The average time between the SFO taking a case and beginning a court case is still more than two and a half years, he said.Mr Wardle added that he hoped this situation would be improved by the introduction of new legislation allowing complex trials to take place without a jury."There are always going to be cases which you cannot fairly or justly try in front of a jury," he said.. The British-backed bid for MG Rover was running out of road yesterday as the second of two Chinese bidders formally submitted an offer for the stricken car maker to its administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

David James, the corporate troubleshooter who is heading Project Kimber, said he had until tomorrow morning to come up with the financing for his bid. "I'm still alive and clinging to a cliff face but my fingers are beginning to crack," he said. His comments came as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), the company that originally planned to partner Rover until it pulled out of rescue talks in April, tabled an offer worth just over £50m for MG Rover and its engine division, Powertrain. Both have indicated they will resume production of the MG TF sports roadster and the Rover 75 at Longbridge and support the development of a new range of small- and medium-sized models, although where these will be built is less clear.Nanjing would certainly build any new small Rover model in China while the SAIC/Magma partnership has indicated that many of the 1,600 jobs the unions believe it will generate will be in design and engineering. Sources close to SAIC said yesterday that a new mid-range car would be built in both China and Longbridge if its bid succeeded.Project Kimber's website says it would produce three models, including a new MG Midget and an MG "Flagship" model to compete with the likes of the Porsche Boxster Production could reach 70,000 by 2008. Its management is drawn from some of the best-known names in UK motoring including Jaguar, Lotus, Rolls-Royce and Bentley, and includes MG Rover's former product development director, Rob Oldaker.Mr James said that in order to table a bid he needed to find a backer prepared to put up £60m to £65m in working capital and someone to sell Powertrain on to He said he was engaged in "several meaningful dialogues".. Roman Abramovich and Sibneft, the oil giant he controls, came under legal attack in the British Virgin Islands yesterday as disgruntled business partners sought to repossess their share in a Siberian oilfield which they claim was stolen from them.