Cyprus

Primorsk International Shipping Ltd., which operates a fleet of ice-class oil tankers in the Arctic, has filed for bankruptcy protection after reaching the terms of a debt-for-equity swap with bondholders, The Wall Street Journal reported. The oil shipper, registered in Cyprus, has been in talks with a group of Norwegian bondholders on the terms of a debt restructuring for more than a year, said Holly Etlin, the company’s chief restructuring officer, in an affidavit filed Sunday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

The Swiss banker Josef Ackermann played a role in the events that nearly destroyed the Cyprus banking system in 2013. Now he was back in this sleepy capital, toiling to fix one of the very banks he helped undermine, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Redemption, said Mr. Ackermann, the former Deutsche Bank chief, would be too strong a word to describe why he, once one of the most powerful bankers in the world, agreed to be chairman of the Bank of Cyprus — the Mediterranean island’s largest lender, but puny in global terms.

Lawmakers in Cyprus on Saturday passed key insolvency laws designed to open the taps for more international bailout cash, WTVQ reported on an Associated Press story. The vote makes it possible to operate foreclosure laws that international creditors have demanded as a condition for extending more loans to Cyprus. Recession, high unemployment and declining incomes have produced defaults on more than half of all private loans. The new laws should make it easier for banks to demand payment or seize assets, thereby reducing the banks' own liabilities.

Cyprus's international lenders have yet to decide if recent changes to the island's insolvency law are enough to allow an outstanding review of its aid programme to be concluded, the European Central Bank said on Monday, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, lawmakers in Cyprus approved legislation governing foreclosures, paving the way for the island to join the ECB's sovereign bond-buying programme. But the ECB said no final decision had been taken as to whether the Cypriot action was enough to meet the terms of its aid-for-reform programme.

The enactment of the hotly-debated insolvency framework into law last Saturday was credit positive for Cypriot banks because it lays the groundwork for large-scale loan restructuring and improves the banks’ recovery prospects, Moody’s ratings agency said on Thursday.

Lawmakers in Cyprus passed key insolvency laws designed to open the taps for more international bailout cash, The Wall Street Journal reported. The vote makes it possible to operate foreclosure laws that international creditors have demanded as a condition for extending more loans to Cyprus. Recession, high unemployment and declining incomes have produced defaults on more than half of all private loans. The new laws should make it easier for banks to demand payment or seize assets, thereby reducing the banks’ own liabilities.

Cyprus freed capital flows on Monday, ending two years of controls that set an unwanted precedent for the euro zone at the height of the bloc's debt crisis, Reuters reported. The Mediterranean nation became the first and, to date, the only euro zone member to impose controls, acting to stem a flight of capital from its banks in March 2013. But with an incremental relaxation over the past 18 months, banks reported no unusual activity on Monday.

MPs on Monday wrapped up discussion of the fifth bill comprising the insolvency framework – a set of laws governing personal and corporate bankruptcy – hoping to put the whole package to a vote this Thursday. The fifth bill deals with the protection of primary homes, business premises and guarantors’ obligations to the principal debtor. The House aims to table the insolvency framework to the plenary for a vote by April 2, the last plenum before the Easter break. April 2 is also the date on which the foreclosures law – which the opposition has repeatedly blocked – comes into force.

The five bills that make up the insolvency framework will not be heading to the plenum on Thursday as more time is needed to process them but an effort will be made to get them there before Easter, lawmakers said on Tuesday, Cyprus Mail reported. The decision was taken unanimously by the House Finance and Interior Committees. “At least as far as DIKO is concerned, an effort will be made to complete the examination of all the bills, all five, before Easter,” DIKO and House Finance Committee chairman Nicolas Papadopoulos said. The bills were now expected to reach the plenum on April 2.

The financial world has pretty much moved on since Cyprus was briefly the epicenter of market anxiety. Two years ago this month, the country's banks failed en masse, A.T.M.s were rationing cash, and the integrity of the eurozone hung in the balance, the International New York Times reported. But after a contentious, internationally brokered “bail-in,’’ in which for the first time many bank depositors were forced to help pay for a eurozone rescue, Europe’s policy makers soon found other things to focus on.