December is poised to be a record month for Chinese offshore corporate defaults after missed payments by indebted companies including China Evergrande Group and Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., Bloomberg News reported. Chinese firms have defaulted on a record $3.8 billion in offshore bonds so far this month, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The previous monthly high was in January when Chinese borrowers failed to repay $2.7 billion of such notes.

China is ramping up support of the embattled real estate sector as growing stress in the industry threatens to deepen an economic slowdown, Bloomberg News reported. Authorities are encouraging banks to fund acquisitions of projects of distressed developers and pushing financially healthy property firms to make such purchases, the central bank-backed Financial News reported Monday. China is also providing credit support to an economy showing strain from the property slump, with domestic banks on Monday lowering borrowing costs for the first time in 20 months.

Kyrgyzstan is pushing for an out-of-court settlement with Canada's Centerra Gold to resolve a dispute in which the state seized the company's Kumtor mine and both sides launched legal challenges, Reuters reported. Centerra in May kicked off arbitration against the Kyrgyzstan government, after it took over the country's biggest mine for allegedly posing danger to human lives or the environment.

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., which in 2015 became one of the first Chinese developers to default abroad, said it had failed to make several payments on dollar bonds as planned, and is talking to creditors about a wide-ranging restructuring plan, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move sets the stage for parallel debt workouts by two of the mainland real-estate sector’s biggest offshore borrowers, Shenzhen-based Kaisa and China Evergrande Group. Kaisa said Monday it had $11.8 billion of dollar bonds outstanding, while the tally for Evergrande is nearly $20 billion.

Philippine Airlines Inc. won court approval for its reorganisation plan, paving the way for the carrier to exit bankruptcy, cut $2 billion in debt and revive its fortunes after a slump in international travel due to the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman in Manhattan said on Friday that she would approve the chapter 11 plan after unsecured creditors voted to back the proposal. The reorganization didn’t face any major opposition from debt holders. "This case is a model for what can be accomplished in chapter 11,” Chapman said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government announced extraordinary measures to bolster the Turkish lira, including the introduction of a new program that will protect savings from fluctuations in the local currency, Bloomberg News reported. The government will make up for losses incurred by holders of lira deposits should the lira’s declines against hard currencies exceed interest rates promised by banks, Erdogan said after chairing a cabinet meeting in Ankara.

A chain of Hawaiian-themed salad bars called Poked have collapsed, with the directors attributing repeat COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne as the driving factors, SmartCompany reported. Founded in 2016, Poked Group operates eight restaurants employing about 50 staff, with seven located across Melbourne’s CBD and one on Sydney’s George Street. The restaurants sell customisable salad bowls, including options for people with alternative dietary requirements.

Neville Tuli-owned arthouse Osian's Connoisseurs of Art has been placed under bankruptcy proceedings, the Economic Times of India reported. The Mumbai bench of India's dedicated bankruptcy court admitted a plea by state-run lender IDBI Bank to put the company under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) after it defaulted on dues worth around ₹125 crore. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) also appointed Girish Sriram Juneja as interim resolution professional (IRP) to oversee its day-to-day affairs and revival plans.

China's antimonopoly bureau will step up legal enforcement against monopolistic behaviour and push forward the amended antimonopoly law to improve the regulatory framework, said Gan Lin, chief of the national antimonopoly bureau, Reuters reported. China last month elevated the seniority of the market regulator's antitrust unit, the National Anti-monopoly Bureau, and appointed Gan as chief, a move which would help antitrust investigators gain resources when examining mergers and acquisitions.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has conveyed to its central board that it favours a complete ban on cryptocurrencies, the Economic Times of India reported. The RBI made a detailed presentation to the board highlighting "serious concerns" relating to macroeconomic and financial stability as well as exchange management, according to a source. "The board was apprised of RBI's stance on the matter."The central bank also highlighted the challenge of regulating intangible assets that originate overseas.