Asia Pacific

Indian lawmakers sent a proposed bankruptcy law for review today, closing off a raucous parliament session without transacting any major legislative business including a signature reform on state taxes, Reuters reported. The bankruptcy law is aimed at unifying and overhauling rules governing the liquidation or revival of ailing companies into a single code and for the first time imposing deadlines. Its passage was widely considered to be a done deal after the government introduced the legislation as a money bill which could not have been blocked in the opposition-dominated upper house.

Turkey’s central bank left interest rates unchanged for a 10th consecutive month on Tuesday, sending markets tumbling after it defied expectations that it would raise rates in tandem with the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Monetary Policy Committee kept the benchmark one-week repo rate at 7.5 percent, and left unchanged its interest-rate corridor, ranging from the overnight borrowing rate of 7.25 percent to the 10.75 percent overnight lending rate.

The Indian government yesterday introduced a bill in parliament aimed at bringing sweeping changes to an outdated and overburdened bankruptcy system, setting deadlines for the first time for processing insolvency cases, Reuters reported. At present, Asia's third-largest economy has competing laws with unclear jurisdictions to deal with the liquidation or revival of companies. The bill, introduced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the lower house, seeks to enact a single bankruptcy code.

Shades of the 1990s are haunting China’s rust-belt cities as strapped state-owned employers look at cutting jobs, with beleaguered Wuhan Iron & Steel Group the latest company said to be laying off thousands of workers, the Financial Times reported. The dismantling of market pricing reforms and the “iron rice bowl” system of life-long jobs in the 1990s eliminated thousands of state-owned small or medium-sized enterprises, which specialised in everything from industrial boilers to wedding photographs.

Australian tax authorities on Thursday published the records of hundreds of companies, including Google and Apple, which show that they paid little or no tax on their earnings in the country, the International New York Times reported. Of more than 1,500 largely foreign-owned companies that reported total earnings over 100 million Australian dollars ($72.11 million) in the 2014 financial year, more than one-third paid no tax, the Australian Taxation Office data showed.

The Hong Kong-based civic group China Labour Bulletin says strikes and labor protests nationwide nearly doubled in the first 11 months of 2015 to 2,354 from 1,207 in the same 2014 period. China’s labor ministry says 1.56 million labor-dispute cases were accepted for arbitration and mediation in 2014, up from 1.5 million in 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported. Behind the strife is an economy decelerating faster than the government expected, sparking layoffs and factory closings.

Last week the Australian Securities and Investments Commission fired a shot across the bows of insolvency companies, The Weekly Times reported. In forcing Tony Matthews, of ­Anthony Matthews and Associates, into an “enforceable undertaking” ­arrangement, ASIC has effectively placed all insolvency practitioners on notice that creditors have every right to expect prompt, efficient, diligent and judicious action in relation to companies in financial strife.

If General Motors can continue selling its Chevrolet brand of cars even after filing for the biggest industrial bankruptcy in the world in 2008, why is that Kingfisher Airlines is not flying, nor are its bankers able to recover dues from it despite promoter Vijay Mallya's and group companies' loan guarantees? The difference may lie in how courts look at bankrupt companies, attitude of the borrowers and the lethargy of bankers, The Economic Times reported.

The Monetary Board last week ordered the closure of two rural banks—one in Camarines Sur and the other in La Union, Inquirer.net reported. In a Dec. 10 circular, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. said the Monetary Board had decided to prohibit Peñafrancia Rural Bank of Calabanga (Camarines Sur) Inc. from doing business in the country. Also, the rural bank’s assets and affairs were placed under receivership pursuant to Section 30 of Republic Act No. (RA) 7653 or The New Central Bank Act, Espenilla said.

COSCO Corporation (Singapore) took a beating after its shares resumed trading on Monday, December 14. Investors punished the shipping company after a much-awaited privatisation deal with its parent company fell through last week, Singapore Business Review reported. COSCO shares have been suspended from trading since August 11, after it was reported that its majority shareholder Cosco Group is eyeing a privatisation exercise for the struggling shipping company.