China will put financial institution bankruptcy laws on its legislative agenda for the first time, according to a report by the top legislative body released on Monday, Reuters reported. The absence of a legal bankruptcy framework for Chinese financial institutions has prevented technically insolvent firms from exiting the market effectively. A slew of laws will be revised including the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law in the five-year legislative programme, said the report, signed off by Li Zhanshu, chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress, or parliament.
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UA Cinemas, one of Hong Kong’s biggest movie-theater chains, abruptly shut down operations in the city, citing the pressure that the pandemic had on its business, Bloomberg News reported. It will cease operations in Hong Kong with immediate effect on March 8 and court proceedings to wind up the business have begun, the company said on its website on Monday. The demise turns Hong Kong’s third-largest cinema chain into one of the city’s most high-profile casualties of the coronavirus pandemic, which has ravaged businesses worldwide.
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Singapore’s High Court on Monday approved an application to wind up collapsed oil trading firm Hin Leong Trading Pte Ltd, marking the end of what was once one of Asia’s top oil traders, Reuters reported. Hin Leong, owned by Singaporean tycoon Lim Oon Kuin and his children, racked up some $4 billion in debt and entered court restructuring nearly a year ago. The company had been seeking to restructure its debts after the oil price crash last year when Lim admitted in a court document to directing the firm not to disclose hundreds of millions of dollars in losses over several years.
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Over more than a decade, the Japanese central bank, uniquely among its global peers, has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into local equities and now owns about 7% of all the shares traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s first section. With stock prices near a 30-year high in Japan, shares bought by the central bank years ago have surged in value, the Wall Street Journal reported. Instead of winning praise for its investing acumen, though, the Bank of Japan faces growing pressure to stop acting like the Tokyo whale and find ways to spread the wealth.
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Bankers are worried that there will be a flood of applications at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) after the government suspension of insolvency proceedings ends on March 25 of this year. Some resolution cases like Future Retail could get derailed if operational creditors initiate insolvency proceedings. A section of bankers feels that the government can use the leeway under the amendment and extend the suspension up to June 2021. As part of its Cover relief measures, the government had issued on June 25 a notification to suspend insolvency proceedings by six months.
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Blockchain payments firm Ripple has not experienced any fallout in its Asia Pacific business after being sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company’s chief executive officer said on Friday, Reuters reported. In late December, the SEC charged Ripple, which is associated with cryptocurrency XRP, with conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering. After that, the top U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase shut down trading in XRP, which is the world’s seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market value.
Up to 250,000 workers could lose their jobs when the JobKeeper wage subsidy ends this month as insolvency data reveals just three companies have used the Australian federal government’s new rules to help struggling employers restructure to avoid shutting down, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The end of the $90 billion JobKeeper program on March 28 is expected to result in thousands of businesses failing, pushing 125,000 to 250,000 people out of work, University of Melbourne Professor Jeff Borland estimates.
Dr. Agarwal Healthcare Limited has evinced interest in buying Vasan Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Chennai, was informed, while seeking extension of time for the insolvency resolution process, The Hindu reported. In 2017, the NCLT had ordered the commencement of insolvency proceedings against Vasan Healthcare, in a petition filed by Alcon Laboratories (India) Pvt. Ltd., one of its suppliers. Later the proceedings were stayed by a single judge of the Madras High Court.
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The Singapore High Court on Tuesday granted oil trader GP Global APAC Pte Ltd a six-month debt moratorium, the company’s lawyers said on Thursday, paving the way for its parent company to restructure more than $1 billion in debt, Reuters reported. GP APAC is the Singapore unit of GP Global, a global oil trader and ship fuel supplier based in the United Arab Emirates that is in default amid allegations that employers carried out fraudulent trades.
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China’s chief banking regulator warned about rising risks from the country’s property sector and from global financial markets, underscoring Beijing’s focus on risk controls after a robust pandemic recovery, the Wall Street Journal reported. Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, told reporters in a briefing Tuesday that he was concerned about what he called a “bubble” in Chinese real-estate prices, which he said could threaten the country’s financial sector and its broader economy.