A Chinese maker of synthetic fibres that was on the verge of becoming the first company to default in China's bond market said on Monday that it would repay its obligation, bringing short-term relief to worried investors but raising doubts about the longer-term development of the market, Reuters reported. Shandong Helon Co Ltd, an insolvent chemical fibre manufacturer based in eastern China, said on Monday that it will repay its commercial paper on schedule next week.

Sino-Forest, the Chinese forestry company whose stock collapsed after a short-seller's fraud accusations, said on Monday that Canada's top securities regulator found that its conduct ran afoul of sections of securities law pertaining to fraud, Reuters reported. The Ontario Securities Commission made its findings known to Sino-Forest by serving the Toronto-listed company and some of its current and former executives with enforcement notices, the company said in a statement on Monday.

Ernst & Young LLP has resigned as Sino-Forest's auditor, days after a Canadian court granted creditor protection to the embattled Chinese forestry company and months after fraud allegations triggered a stampede out of its stock, Reuters reported. Sino-Forest's Toronto-listed shares tanked last June after a short-seller accused it of exaggerating the size of its forestry assets. The company says the allegations have paralyzed its business.

Toshiba Corp. has been removed from the list of prospective sponsors to back the rehabilitation of elpida Memory Inc., it was learned Thursday, the Daily Yomiuri Online reported on a Jiji Press story. As a result, the Japanese chipmaker may be acquired by a foreign company. Micron Technology Inc. of the United States, SK Hynix Inc. of South Korea and a foreign-affiliated investment fund remain on the list of possible sponsors, informed sources said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told a national audience on Tuesday that China's state-controlled banks are a "monopoly" that must be broken, in an unusually blunt appeal for a shake-up of the creaky financial system of the world's No. 2 economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Wen's declaration on a national radio program on Tuesday represents an unprecedented 11th-hour push for an overhaul by China's top economic official, who formally came into office in 2003 with a reputation as a reformer but has acknowledged publicly his regrets that he didn't go far enough. Mr.

Richard Chandler, the New Zealand billionaire and biggest shareholder of Sino-Forest, has hired a team to plan a rescue restructuring of the Chinese timber group after it filed for bankruptcy protection last week, the Financial Times reported. Richard Chandler Corporation, his investment vehicle, said on Monday that it had assembled a group including David Walker, an expert in the Asian forestry sector, to lead its proposal for the restructuring of Sino-Forest. “Sino-Forest faces a range of complex problems,” Mr Walker said.

Japan's credibility as a future investment location could be hurt unless the government takes aggressive fiscal reforms decisively and swiftly, according to the new chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the country's banks, among the biggest buyers of Japan's government bonds in recent years, aren't likely to face an immediate risk of the kind of sovereign debt crisis seen recently in Europe, said Yasuhiro Sato in a recent interview.

Sino-Forest Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection as part of a plan that may see the Chinese timber grower company sold to bondholders, nine months after it was accused of fraud by short seller Carson Block, Bloomberg reported. The company obtained an initial order for creditor protection in the Ontario Superior Court under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, Sino-Forest said yesterday in a statement.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. requested 1 trillion yen ($12 billion) of public funds to avert collapse, paving the way for the government to take control of what once was the world’s biggest private utility, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The company known as Tepco also asked for 845.9 billion yen in extra aid from a government-backed fund to compensate people affected by the Fukushima disaster, President Toshio Nishizawa said at a news briefing today. The utility may face insolvency if its capital keeps falling, he said.

Toshiba Corp has decided to join the bidding race to sponsor Elpida Memory Inc's turnaround from bankruptcy, setting stage for a battle with U.S.-based Micron Technology, the Nikkei business daily said, Reuters reported. Toshiba, which believes adding Elpida's cell-phone-use DRAMs to its offerings is crucial for its survival in the chip industry, might seek financial assistance from the government-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan, the newspaper said. Elpida Memory will soon stop accepting applications for the first round of bidding, Nikkei said.