The uncertain future of Baha Mar, a $3.5 billion mega-resort nearing completion on Nassau’s white-sand Cable Beach, points to the challenges China faces as it finances and builds large-scale construction projects overseas amid language and cultural barriers, lack of regulation and allegations of graft. “The more problems there are and, in a way, the more media attention these problems attract, they erode positive attitudes towards Chinese presence in the region,” said Ariel C.

A Chinese online finance company bilked investors out of more than $7.6 billion, spent lavishly on gifts and salaries and buried the evidence, according to local authorities who described the operation as an enormous Ponzi scheme, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The accusations throw a shadow over China’s online finance industry, a lucrative area for many global leaders in the sector, but one that the authorities say has also drawn a growing number of cases of fraud and flameouts.

The Australian law firm that snapped up the bulk of scandal-hit insurance claims company Quindell has been forced into restructuring talks amid concerns over the deteriorating state of its finances, The Telegraph reported. Lenders to Slater & Gordon, Australia’s largest class-action law firm, have hired turnaround experts FTI Consulting in the UK as its problems mount following the company’s shock takeover of Quindell’s legal arm last year.

An archaic part of China’s banking system meant to provide short-term funding to companies is coming under renewed scrutiny after at least two cases of fraud were uncovered recently, Bloomberg News reported. An alleged fraud of almost 1 billion yuan ($152 million) was discovered late last year at China Citic Bank Corp., where an employee colluded to fake documentation that companies typically use to get quick funds, people familiar with the matter said Thursday. Agricultural Bank of China Ltd.

China is ramping up efforts to halt a flood of money leaving the country in response to an economic slowdown, moves that risk undermining Beijing’s ambition to elevate the yuan’s profile on the world stage, The Wall Street Journal reported. Its latest steps involve curbing the ability of foreign companies in China to repatriate earnings, shrinking the pool of Chinese yuan available for banks in Hong Kong to make loans, and banning yuan-based funds for overseas investments, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Default risks for a pile of $15tn in Chinese corporate debt are rising to their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis as sluggish demand, weak pricing and high leverage sap the dynamism of the country’s most powerful companies, the Financial Times reported. Rating agencies that assess credit risks among China’s top corporations are predicting a jump in bond repayment defaults this year as they add more companies to their watch lists for downgrades, ratings executives say.

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday placed Chaoyang Life Insurance Co (朝陽人壽) under government receivership to prevent further deterioration of the company’s financial condition, the Taipei Times reported.“The company has repeatedly failed to carry out its proposed financial improvement measures and its negative net worth continued to worsen on an annual basis. It was NT$2.2 billion [US$65.23 million] in the red as of last month,” Insurance Bureau Director-General Jenny Lee (李滿治) said at a news conference.

Chinese officials readily admit that communication has not been their strong point when it comes to dealing with international investors, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The question of how China manages the renminbi is critical for global trade and commodity prices; the market turmoil following recent changes in the currency regime was exacerbated by Beijing’s failure to explain its intentions. Policymakers have now made it explicit that they have no wish to engineer a big devaluation.

If any world leader has surfed the wave of the oil boom, it is Ilham Aliyev, the Financial Times reported. In 2003, just as oil prices began to soar, Mr Aliyev succeeded his father as president of Azerbaijan. Over the next decade he presided over an era of rising prosperity that transformed Baku into a kind of Dubai on the Caspian and imbued the country with the newfound confidence to project itself on the world stage. But Azerbaijan’s oil boom has come to a juddering halt.

China's volatile stock markets fell more than 1 percent on Wednesday, though mounting chatter about imminent policy stimulus provided some support against the backdrop of a fresh slide in oil prices, which hit stock markets across the globe, Reuters reported. Asian and European stocks were down sharply as U.S. crude sank beneath $28 a barrel for the first time since 2003, hammering energy stocks and boosting safe havens.