A Chinese court has declared bankrupt the company at the center of a scandal over tainted milk, blamed for killing six children and sickening almost 300,000 more, one of the company's owners said Wednesday. New Zealand's Fonterra Group said that a court in Shijiazhuang, in China's Hebei province, had issued a bankruptcy order against Sanlu Group Co. in response to a petition from a creditor, the Associated Press reported. The receiver will have six months to conclude the sale process.

Pawn shops, banned during more than three decades of Communist rule from 1956 to 1987, are making a comeback as China’s government tries to ease the credit crunch that is strangling small businesses, Bloomberg reported. In 1997, Beijing only had four pawn shops. This year, Beijing and Shanghai authorized a record 94 new outlets for 2009 in an effort to channel funds to the entrepreneurs who drove the nation’s biggest economic boom, according to the Beijing Pawn Trade Association and Shanghai Pawn Trade Association.

Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers' insolvency practice, headed by receiver John Waller, has earned more than $6 million in fees from work on finance company receiverships, Companies Office filings show. That is more than two-thirds of the $9.2 million or so in receivers' fees charged so far on about 30 finance companies that have failed over the past three years, The New Zealand Herald reported today. The figures do not include hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars more in legal and advisory fees associated with receivers' work.

Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday it expects to post its first-ever operating loss in the fiscal year through March 2009 and barely eke out a net profit, showing how severely the global economic downturn is hitting even the world's most competitive companies, The Wall Street Journal reported. Japan's biggest company by market cap said it expects consolidated operating loss of ¥150 billion, or about $1.68 billion, in the fiscal year through March 31, 2009, hurt by sliding demand in the U.S., Europe and Japan and the rising yen against the dollar.

Urban Corp., the developer that filed Japan’s biggest bankruptcy this year, may be sold separately after failing to attract final bids due today from investors, two people familiar with the situation said, Bloomberg reported. Daiwa House Industry Co., Japan’s biggest home builder, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Global Investment House (GIH), the largest investment bank in Kuwait, has been downgraded to a notch above default by Fitch Ratings after the bank warned it may default on a loan, The National reported. The rerating to a ‘C’ came after GIH told Fitch that it is unable to repay a loan which matured yesterday. The company has a grace period of 72 hours to meet the obligation before defaulting. The downgrade followed the announcement from GIH earlier this month that it was seeking US$1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) from local banks.

A downturn in sales in recent months has forced DVD retailer EzyDVD into receivership, The Australian reported. The Adelaide-based company has 58 outlets across Australia including 26 company-owned stores and 32 franchised outlets. Only company-owned stores, which employ more than 200 staff, have been placed in receivership. Ferrier Hodgson partner David Kidman has been appointed receiver and manager of the company. As well as a sales slump, Mr Kidman said EzyDVD's financial difficulties stemmed from a significant debt burden and substantial operating losses in 2007 and 2008.

For years, the overseas operations of Ford and General Motors helped buoy Detroit when times were tough in the United States. But now, with the administration of President George W. Bush announcing Friday that it would step in to keep General Motors from falling into bankruptcy, and with Ford in serious trouble as well, fears are growing that the U.S. problems of the automakers will drag down their more successful units in Europe, Asia and Latin America, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Centro Properties Group, one of Australia's highest profile casualties of the global credit crisis, was given a lifeline on Tuesday when lenders agreed to refinance $4.65 billion in overdue debt, Reuters reported. Without the refinancing, Centro could have been forced into administration by its creditors, potentially triggering a fire sale of retail properties in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Centro has been struggling to sell shopping centres to help pay down debt after credit markets froze following its rapid expansion in the United States last year.

Over 100 companies globally have defaulted on their debt this year, affecting $302 billion worth of securities, but that figure could rise as nearly 900 issuers are poised for credit downgrades, Standard & Poor's said on Monday. Of the 108 defaults this year, 86 are from the United States, seven from Europe, five each from Asia and Canada, three from Latin America, and two from Russia. The figure contrasts with 22 defaults in 2007 and 30 in 2006.