Legal technology startup LegalPay has partnered with Mumbai-based non-banking finance firm Jumbo Finance Ltd to give interim finance to the companies undergoing the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), the Economic Times of India reported. New Delhi-based LegalPay, which also works as an alternative-investments platform specializing in legal financing, is also in talks with some more such NBFCs to fund companies under CIRP. mid-market companies, including micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), undergoing insolvencies requiring up to Rs 5 crore.

It was once hailed as the future of Chinese banking, a privately run lender that would mint money by outmaneuvering its state-owned rivals, Bloomberg News reported. An ill-fated push into property lending has instead turned China Minsheng Banking Corp. into one of the biggest casualties of the real estate debt crisis that’s roiling Asia’s largest economy. Battered by mounting losses on loans to developers including China Evergrande Group, Minsheng’s stock tumbled 31% in the 12 months through last week -- the worst performance in the 155-member Bloomberg World Banks Index.

Vodafone Idea Ltd. said that India’s government doesn’t want to actively run the unprofitable phone operator after its board approved a rescue plan that made the state its biggest shareholder with a 36% stake in the company, Bloomberg News reported. “They do not have to desire to take over the operations of the company,” Ravinder Takkar, managing director and chief executive officer of Vodafone Idea, told reporters on Wednesday.

The Philippines’ central bank is unlikely to increase policy rates in the first half of this year as it waits for the economic recovery to become entrenched and unemployment to fall, according to central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno, Bloomberg News reported. “After the performance in the first two quarters of the year, that’s when we seriously look at whether we will make some adjustments,” Diokno said in an interview Tuesday. “We want to make sure that the economy is recovering well.” Like central bankers globally, Southeast Asian policy makers are juggling the prospects of a faster U.S.

Vodafone Idea said on Tuesday it is giving the Indian government a 35.8% stake in the company after its board approved conversion of dues and spectrum auction installments into equity to save the third-largest telecom operator in the country from collapsing, TechCrunch reported. The operator, a joint venture between the British telecoms group Vodafone and local billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s conglomerate, has been attempting to avoid a collapse for several years after the arrival of Reliance Jio, which undercut the competitors with cheap data and free calls offering.

OneWeb Ltd., a U.K.-backed satellite company, has been sued in the U.S. by a former Donald Trump business partner who claims he wasn’t paid for helping to secure rocket-launch rights in Kazakhstan, Bloomberg News reported. Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a Georgian-American businessman, said he played a role in helping OneWeb connect with business and government figures in Kazakstan, who paved the way for the company to launch satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and to operate a ground station for its internet network, according to the lawsuit.

Chinese developer Guangzhou R&F Properties Co. succeeded in delaying payment on a dollar bond due Thursday despite buying back only 16% of the note, underscoring the company’s liquidity shortage, Bloomberg News reported. The firm will repurchase $116.4 million of a $725 million note under a tender offer, according to a company filing to the Hong Kong exchange Tuesday. The company last month said it had planned to set aside about $300 million for the buyback. As part of the offer, bondholders agreed to extend repayment on the remaining principal by six months.

Cities across China are imposing tougher restrictions to try to control new outbreaks of COVID-19, with Tianjin battling the highly contagious Omicron variant which has been detected to have been transmitted locally in two other provinces, Reuters reported. A Tianjin official told a Tuesday press briefing that 49 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms have been detected during the latest outbreak. The city of 14 million people, around 100km (62 miles) from Beijing, is now implementing tough controls to stop the coronavirus from spreading, especially to neighbouring Beijing.

Taiwan will set up a $1 billion credit program aimed at funding projects by Lithuanian and Taiwanese companies amid economic pressure from China over an office that the island opened in the European Union country, Lithuanian officials said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. It follows Taiwan’s announcement last week about creating a $200 million investment fund to help Lithuania amid a diplomatic row with Beijing. American and Lithuanian officials say China has blocked imports from the Baltic nation, a close U.S. ally.

Creditors of struggling airline PT Garuda Indonesia have submitted about 198 trillion rupiah ($13.8 billion) in claims as part of a debt restructuring, according to court-appointed administrators, Bloomberg News reported. The administrators for the flag carrier received claims from more than 470 creditors by the end of a Jan. 5 deadline, Martin Patrick Nagel and Jandri Siadari, members of the team of administrators, wrote in replies to questions from Bloomberg. They will now verify the provisional claims and decide on Jan.