Indian lenders rushed to be included in a case involving recovery of $19 billion of past dues from telecom companies after a Supreme Court judge questioned banks’ right to sell insolvent carriers’ airwaves, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders led by State Bank of India in a plea said any move to ban bankrupt companies such as Aircel Ltd. and Reliance Communications Ltd. from selling airwaves, leased from the government, will sink their insolvency resolution process and can cause serious prejudice to lenders, according to people aware of the filing.

Thai Airways International Pcl shares were suspended by the bourse on Friday after auditors declined to sign off on its financial statements for the six months to June 30, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Auditor Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Jaiyos Co Ltd said it could not reach a conclusion on the statements due to issues including a lack of liquidity and debt defaults which created "material uncertainty" and may affect the value of assets and liabilities.

China’s multi-year clampdown on its peer-to-peer lending industry has whittled the number to just 29 platforms, down from about 6,000 at its peak, according to the nation’s top banking regulator, Bloomberg News reported. The crackdown, which is likely to be completed at the end of this year, has left investors with more than 800 billion yuan ($115 billion) in unpaid debt from failed platforms, Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said on China Central Television on Friday. Regulators, together with the police, will try their best to recoup the money, he said.

National Australia Bank Ltd on Friday urged customers at high risk of default on their loans to sell their properties sooner rather than later, as it reported ballooning credit impairment charges during the quarter, Reuters reported. Property prices in Australia fell for a third straight month in July but home prices nationwide still stand about 7% higher than in the corresponding month last year.

Lenders to bankrupt Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) and Reliance Telecom Ltd (RTL) have told the Supreme Court that spectrum is an essential and integral part of asset against which banks grant loans to telecom firms, Mint reported. This is contrary to the government’s stance that spectrum is national property and cannot be sold under insolvency proceedings.

Pick five of the worst affected businesses by the pandemic, then put them in a portfolio. That neatly sums up the storied Hong Kong conglomerate Swire Pacific. The businesses of the two-century-old British-controlled hong, including airlines, commercial real estate, hotels and marine services, have suffered, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Once one of the largest constituents in the Hang Seng index, today it is the smallest. Swire — Taikoo in Cantonese — reported a net loss of HK$7.7bn ($1bn), its first half-yearly loss in more than a decade.

Lenders to the world’s biggest airport baggage-handling group Swissport have offered a rescue package that would restructure its €2.1 billion of net debt and could transfer ownership to them from struggling Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, The Irish Times  reported. The owners of €1.4 billion of senior secured bonds issued by Swissport have promised to invest in the business to help it survive the pandemic, which has hit its operations hard with the grounding of flights.

Banks and financing platforms are being swept along as punters look for quick cash to bet on the world’s most volatile equity market. It’s a dangerous strategy both for already overextended households as well as lenders, one that’s drawing closer scrutiny from regulators, Bloomberg News reported. Authorities are also partly to blame. With the economy reeling from the pandemic, policy makers have pumped out liquidity and eased curbs on shadow banking to backstop small businesses and struggling families.

Japan’s pandemic-hit economy shrank last quarter by the most in records going back to 1955, official data is set to show Monday, with a resurgence of the virus threatening to slow a fragile recovery now under way, Bloomberg News reported. Analysts see gross domestic product contracting at an annualized pace of 27% in the three months through June. That means the world’s third-largest economy will have declined in size for three straight quarters, hit first by trade wars and a sales tax hike, then by the virus.

Prushka Fast Debt Recovery revealed through data sourced from court records that the Australian Taxation Office and other government agencies, typically the largest source of company liquidations, have halted their winding up of businesses, Dynamic Business reported. In April to June, 374 businesses issued Notices of Winding Up Applications, a decrease of 47 per cent compared to the last quarter, and 64 per cent year-on-year.