British English has many phrases for favors that are expected to be repaid.
I owe you one: You did me a favor, and I will return it.
To return the favor: To repay a kindness.
One good turn deserves another: A favor should be repaid.
Mates’ rates: A lower price for a friend.
To call in a favor: To ask for repayment of an earlier kindness.
Sharp practice: Behavior that is legal but dishonest or unfair.
In British house sales, a buyer who lowers an offer after it has been accepted, shortly before contracts are exchanged, is said to gazunder. The estate agent Hamptons calls it “a hard-nosed financial tactic rather than an illegal one.”
Hamptons describes it as increasingly common in slower markets. “Few things rattle a seller more than a buyer dropping their offer days before exchange.”
In October 2016, after the pound fell following the vote to leave the European Union, Unilever demanded price rises of 10 percent from Britain’s big four supermarkets. Unilever products such as Marmite, Persil and Ben & Jerry’s disappeared from Tesco’s website.
The dispute became known as Marmitegate. On 13 October, both companies declared it over.
The Groceries Supply Code of Practice of 2010 requires the largest supermarkets to “deal with its suppliers fairly and lawfully.” Since 2013, the Groceries Code Adjudicator has enforced it.
On 26 January 2016, the Adjudicator, Christine Tacon, found that Tesco had “seriously breached” the Code. It had “acted unreasonably when delaying payments to suppliers.”
On 20 March 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Competition and Markets Authority set up a taskforce. It warned that “businesses might exploit the situation to take advantage of people, for example by charging excessive prices.” It had already contacted traders and platforms about the price of hand sanitizer.
In June 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, the British government published a code of practice for commercial landlords and tenants. It asked them “to work together to protect viable businesses.”
Tenants who could pay their rent in full should do so. Landlords who could support struggling tenants should do so. Both sides were asked “to act reasonably and responsibly.”
Boxing Day, 26 December, takes its name from the Christmas box. According to the Phrase Finder, the name comes from “the giving of ‘Christmas box’ gifts to tradespeople.” These were gifts, usually money, for people “who have rendered some service throughout the year,” such as milkmen.
This meaning of Christmas box dates back to at least the early seventeenth century. The earliest reference to the name Boxing Day that the Phrase Finder found dates from 1805.
On 25 March 2020, Sainsbury’s announced that it would help nearly 1,500 smaller suppliers through the pandemic by paying them immediately.
On 18 April 1906, an earthquake and the fires that followed destroyed more than 80 percent of San Francisco. Some insurers refused claims, arguing that the policies covered fire but not earthquake, or the reverse.
The Lloyd’s underwriter Cuthbert Heath instructed his San Francisco agent to “pay all of our policy-holders in full, irrespective of the terms of their policies.” The prompt and full payment of every claim helped cement Lloyd’s reputation for paying reliably, and made it an important partner for American brokers.