Japanese apartment developer Joint Corp filed for bankruptcy protection with about $1.5 billion in debt, underscoring the sluggish state of the property market and dealing a blow to shareholder Orix Corp, Reuters reported. Joint, which received a capital infusion from Orix late last year to shore up its finances, said it was forced to file for court protection from creditors after revenues, mainly from real estate securitisation, dried up.

One of the two trustee companies that presided over the vast majority of New Zealand finance company failures is hitting back at criticism of its role in the industry’s collapse, The National Business Review reported. Perpetual Trust says it’s not to blame for the company failures; instead, out of pocket investors should point the finger at dodgy directors and inadequate auditing by accountants. Perpetual and another firm Covenant, acted as trustees for almost all of the finance companies that have collapsed over the last three years.

Myanmar's financial system and economy are largely cut off from the outside world -- but not the global economic crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported. As the country's military junta wraps up its trial of dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, conditions in the capital and rural areas illustrate the effects of the slowdown on this isolated nation's already-tenuous economy. Key sectors such as agriculture and tourism are reeling, and business in the commercial center of Yangon has dwindled, residents and economists say.

From his secret hideaway, BTA Bank’s former Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov says Kazakhstan’s government caused the default of the nation’s largest lender. Kazakh prosecutors want him for allegedly embezzling the bank’s money, Bloomberg reported. The biggest losers in the dispute may be investors who poured into the former Soviet state as crude oil rose to a record and the economy grew 10 percent annually for eight years.

General Motors Corp. said Wednesday its operations in Thailand and Southeast Asia are unaffected by its ongoing restructuring, Dow Jones Newswires reported. "Operations in Thailand and the ASEAN region will remain unaffected by GM Corp.'s situation in the U.S., even in the event GM Corp. files for Chapter 11. This is because GM Thailand, including Chevrolet Sales Thailand, and other operations in ASEAN are locally-incorporated entities which accords them the ability to operate independently from its parent company in the US," General Motors said in a statement.

Bidders for German carmaker Opel are being pressed to make last-minute changes to their offers ahead of a meeting on Wednesday that could narrow the field of potential investors in the General Motors unit, Reuters reported. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has been considering offers for Opel from Italy's Fiat, Canadian auto parts company Magna International and Belgium-listed industrial holding RHJ International.

Court-appointed administrators overseeing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s global bankruptcy proceedings have signed a multilateral agreement allowing them to share information and coordinate the insolvency process as the financial services firm wends its way through more than 75 distinct bankruptcy filings, Bankruptcy Law360 reported.

Receivers appointed to two companies developing the first stage of Queenstown's $1 billion Kawarau Falls Station six-hotel development say it is too early to know whether the project can be completed, The National Business Review. Yesterday two companies associated with the development, Melview (Kawarau Falls Station) Investments Ltd and Melview (Kawarau Falls Station) Development Ltd, were put into receivership by Australian lender BOS International. Receiver Brendon Gibson of KordaMentha said, "it's too early for us to make any statements around that.

The global financial crisis has tarnished the dollar and will prompt reserve managers to diversify, but the U.S. currency will retain its dominant international role, a senior Chinese official said in remarks published on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Guan Tao from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, which invests China's $1.95 trillion in currency reserves, likened the risk of U.S. inflation and dollar depreciation to "blocked dams" that threatened the stability of the global monetary system in the medium term.

Ailing carmaker Ssangyong Motor on Monday it will proceed with restructuring plans and push for an early sales of idle assets to secure enough funds to operate factories, launch new cars and boost liquidity, The Chosun Ilbo reported. Ssangyong will seek an additional mortgage of W330 billion (US$1=W1,251) from the Korea Development Bank and relocate the Seoul Office from Posteel Tower to the Poongrim Building nearby to save over W1 billion in rent a year.