New Zealand's Bed Bath & Beyond is fighting on two fronts to protect its brand. Now, the High Court has knocked it back, Newsroom reported. This country’s most familiar green-and-white High St.

Australia's corporate insolvency laws are facing extensive reforms in the near future, Mondaq reported. On 12 July 2023, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (Committee) tabled its highly anticipated report into Corporate Insolvency in Australia (Report). In December 1988, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) published its General Insolvency Inquiry (ALRC Report 45), more commonly referred to as the Harmer Report, following a five-year review of Australia’s corporate and personal insolvency laws.

Australia's securities regulator said on Wednesday it had canceled the license of the local arm of collapsed U.S. cryptocurrency exchange FTX, effective from July 14, Reuters reported. Bahamas-headquartered FTX, once a star of the crypto industry with a $32 billion valuation in January 2023, filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection last November, saying it was unable to completely repay customers who had deposited funds on its exchange. The industry has since been reeling amid the scrutiny of global regulators, while FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces a criminal lawsuit by the U.S.

Australia's central bank decided to keep interest rates steady this month as policy was clearly restrictive and there was a risk a squeeze on household finances could lead to a sharp downturn and higher unemployment, Reuters reported. However, the bank retained a warning that some tightening may still be required to bring inflation to heel, wary that the wider effects on inflation from higher rents, weak productivity and higher electricity prices had not been fully captured.

The Select Committee appointed to investigate Sri Lanka's bankruptcy will meet for the first time on Tuesday (18) in Parliament, Newsfirst reported. The meeting will focus on the committee's future course of action, Chair of the committee SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam said. They will also discuss the names of those who will first be summoned before the committee. In the meantime, SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara will not be part of the committee. The SJB has decided to appoint an alternative committee instead.

SJB MP Harshana Rajakaruna said in Parliament yesterday that all SJB MPs will resign from the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) appointed to investigate the country’s bankruptcy, the Daily News reported. The MP said in a special statement in Parliament that the Speaker will be informed in writing in this regard. He said that it is very unfair to appoint the Secretary General of the same party that bankrupted the country as the chairman of the Select Committee while the Opposition has requested the chairmanship.

Whatever is driving Wall Street higher — the finishing line of the Fed's rate-hiking cycle, a falling dollar or strong earnings — it is not really filtering through to Asian markets, Reuters reported. The disconnect between Asia and the rest of the world has widened recently, and correlations between the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index and leading U.S. and global indexes are the weakest in about a month. A solid batch of second quarter earnings from some of the largest U.S. banks and financial firms on Tuesday kept the U.S. stock market juggernaut rolling.

China's economy grew at a frail pace in the second quarter as demand weakened at home and abroad, with the post-COVID momentum faltering rapidly and raising pressure on policymakers to deliver more stimulus to shore up activity, Reuters reported. Chinese authorities face a daunting task in trying to keep the economic recovery on track and putting a lid on unemployment, as any aggressive stimulus could fuel debt risks and structural distortions.

Opposition leader Sajith Premadasa yesterday announced the decision made by the Opposition to establish a committee, separate from the one formed in Parliament, to delve into the underlying causes that contributed to Sri Lanka’s state of bankruptcy, the Daily FT reported. Premadasa expressed his belief that the committee appointed by the government to investigate the country’s bankruptcy is a calculated maneuver aimed at fulfilling specific political objectives rather than impartially addressing the issue.

New Zealand inflation probably slowed markedly in the second quarter as the central bank’s aggressive interest-rate increases began to take their toll, Bloomberg reported. Consumer prices rose 5.9% from a year earlier, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 14 economists. That would be a big drop from 6.7% in the first quarter and the weakest reading since 2021. It would also undershoot the Reserve Bank’s forecast of 6.1%. Statistics New Zealand will publish the data Wednesday in Wellington.