The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has upheld an NCLT order setting aside a plea to initiate insolvency proceedings against Gujarat Ambuja Exports Ltd, Business Standard reported. A three-member NCLAT bench upheld the order of the Ahmedabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), which had set aside the plea of Samay Impex, an operational creditor of Gujarat Ambuja Exports Ltd (GAEL).
The true financial cost of Covid-19 is something India would rather not acknowledge, let alone bear — at least not until the pandemic has played out. That explains why the central bank on Thursday allowed a one-time restructuring of corporate and personal loans that have been under stress ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi put the country under a severe lockdown in March, Bloomberg News reported in a commentary. Those nationwide restrictions have given way to more localized containment. But with India becoming only the third country after the U.S.
German prosecutors suspect Wirecard AG extended large loans to partner companies before its implosion in June, at a time when the payments company was already facing media reports alleging accounting fraud, Bloomberg News reported. The prosecutors surmise the loans by the disgraced German firm may have been unsecured and may have been made to partner companies in Dubai, Singapore and the Philippines, a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing the private information said.
Turkey stepped back from currency interventions and moved to relax some of the restrictions that tethered the lira for months, allowing it to tumble to a record against the dollar, Bloomberg News reported. State banks withdrew support for the lira at specific levels against the U.S currency even as it dropped to an all-time low, and were largely absent from the market on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Vacancies at offices in central Tokyo rose by the most on record in July as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic continued to spread and virus-related bankruptcies in the capital reached 100, Bloomberg News reported. Office vacancies in five of Tokyo’s major business districts increased for a record fifth consecutive month, rising to 2.77% from 1.97% in June, real estate brokerage Miki Shoji Co. said on Thursday. It was the largest one-month gain on record, beating a high set in 2009 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Vodafone Idea Ltd., the beleaguered Indian wireless carrier facing a government demand for billions of dollars in back fees, reported an eighth straight quarterly loss and said a court verdict on a staggered payment plan for the dues is critical for survival, Bloomberg News reported. Net loss was 254.6 billion rupees ($3.4 billion) in the three months ended June, the country’s No. 3 mobile phone carrier said Thursday. It took a one-time charge of 194.4 billion rupees for back fees paid.
India’s banking regulator gave lenders power to restructure certain loans, as authorities look to support an economy hit by the pandemic while ensuring the stability of a financial sector where bad-debt is set to swell to a two-decade high, Bloomberg News reported. Ahead of the expiry of a blanket loan moratorium later this month, the Reserve Bank of India said it will permit banks to strike rescheduling agreements with borrowers that were on track to repay their loans on March 1, in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.
China’s efforts to curb predatory lending to the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises could harm the sector rather than helping it by cutting off access to crucial finance, analysts have warned, the Financial Times reported. Multiple shadow banking lenders have told the Financial Times they would stop servicing medium to high-risk borrowers after the Supreme Court announced a plan last month to “significantly” cut the interest rate shadow banks could charge.
The coronavirus pandemic is deepening the pain for Japan’s regional lenders, heightening concerns that a potential wave of business closures will test policymakers’ ability to avert a damaging banking-sector crisis, Reuters reoprted. Many central government and bank officials see the risk of a crisis emerging in the next few months, when more struggling firms could go under and hit regional banks already weakened by a shrinking domestic economy and years of ultra-low interest rates.
