The Japanese economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the October-December period, sending an unwelcome sign of fragility as the trade outlook darkens, the Wall Street Journal reported. Japan’s real gross domestic product expanded 2.2% on an annualized basis in the final quarter of 2024, compared with the 2.8% growth seen in preliminary estimates released in February, government data showed Tuesday. The economy grew 0.6% from the previous quarter.

Investors in Japanese corporate bonds are increasingly seeking protection against possible credit deterioration when an issuer becomes a takeover target, Bloomberg News reported. Change of Control covenants — which give bondholders certain rights to redeem the debt before maturity if the borrower has a significant change in ownership structure — have until now been very rarely seen in the ¥100 trillion ($680 billion) Japanese credit market.

Japan may see corporate bankruptcy cases hit an 11-year high in the fiscal year to March as some firms go under due to a lack of workers, a think tank survey showed, a sign of the strain intensifying job shortages are inflicting on the economy, Reuters reported. The survey highlights the cost felt by some firms from the Bank of Japan’s past efforts to reflate growth with easy monetary policy enough to tighten the job market and lift wages.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed that the resolution plans to acquire Jaiprakash Associates through the insolvency process should be invited for the entire company as a going concern and not by dividing its different business verticals, the Hindustan Times reported.

Chinese tariffs as high as 15% on a range of US agricultural goods take effect Monday, potentially exacerbating a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, Bloomberg News reported. The levies announced last week are far-reaching, touching commodities from beef and poultry to grains. Along with the tariffs, Beijing also said it would completely suspend soybean imports from three US entities and also halted purchases of American logs. Beijing’s move came after the Trump administration doubled a blanket tariff on all Chinese exports.

China’s consumer inflation dropped far more than expected to fall below zero for the first time in 13 months, an assessment skewed by seasonal distortions but also a sign of deflationary pressures persisting in the economy, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index declined 0.7% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Sunday, compared with a 0.5% gain in the previous month. That was lower than all but one forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, whose median estimate was for a 0.4% drop.

Even as the amendments to be Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) are getting delayed, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has made a slew of regulatory changes in the past 18 months to enhance the efficiency of the resolution process, FinancialExpress.com reported. “Until amendments to the IBC are carried out, it’s only logical for the IBBI to make regulatory changes,” an official source told FE. Going forward too, the IBBI will be making significant changes to regulations to improve the efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness of the resolution process, the person added.

China's Evergrande Property Services Group said on Friday that it expects to record a decrease of up to 37% in its annual profit for the year ended December 31, 2024, due to legal expenses related to a deposit pledge, among other reasons, Reuters reported. In early January, a Guangzhou city court ordered the firm's parent China Evergrande to repay pledge guarantees on deposit certificates totalling 13.4 billion yuan ($1.85 billion).

On the night of Feb. 21, Ben Zhou, the chief executive of the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, logged on to his computer to approve what appeared to be a routine transaction. His company was moving a large amount of Ether, a popular digital currency, from one account to another. Thirty minutes later, Mr. Zhou got a call from Bybit’s chief financial officer. In a trembling voice, the executive told Mr. Zhou that their system had been hacked, according to a New York Times analysis. “All of the Ethereum is gone,” he said. When Mr.