Europe

Britain's financial watchdog said on Friday a four-year prison sentence has been issued in the UK's first case involving unregistered cryptoasset activity, Reuters reported. London-based Olumide Osunkoya was found guilty of operating unregistered crypto ATMs for transactions worth 2.5 million pounds ($3.2 million) across several locations within the UK between December 2021 and March 2022, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in a statement. Osunkoya was also convicted and sentenced for forgery, using false identity documents, and possessing criminal property at the court hearing.

German inflation unexpectedly remained unchanged in February, highlighting the challenges for the European Central Bank in deciding how quickly and how far to cut interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices increased 2.8% from a year ago, the statistics office said Friday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had expected a slight slowdown to 2.7%. The report follows earlier figures showing French inflation retreated to its lowest level in four years, while price gains in Italy surprisingly held steady.

Almost half of councils in England risk falling into bankruptcy without action to address a £4.6bn deficit amassed under a Conservative-era policy, the government’s spending watchdog has warned, The Guardian reported. In a damning report, the National Audit Office said that rising pressure on public services and repeated delays to reform the funding of local government meant town halls were in an “unsustainable” financial position.

The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System booked a loss on its $325 million investment in Northvolt AB, the Swedish electric vehicle battery maker that filed for bankruptcy protection last year, Bloomberg News reported. “At the time we made the investments, Northvolt represented an attractive growth opportunity supported by several other of the world’s most respected investors,” a spokesperson for the pension manager said by email.

Germany’s jobless rate held steady in February, a sign that recent workforce reductions announced at some major companies hasn’t yet significantly dented employment, the Wall Street Journal reported. The adjusted unemployment rate in Europe’s largest economy was 6.2% this month, the same as in January, according to data from Germany’s Federal Employment Agency published on Friday. Meanwhile, jobless claims ticked up by 5,000 in February, albeit slowing from the 11,000 of January. Registered job vacancies stood at 639,000, some 67,000 fewer than the same point last year.

The latest study conducted by Coface Romania revealed that 7,274 new insolvency proceedings were opened in 2024, compared to 6,650 in 2023, marking a 9.38% increase. Among companies with a turnover above EUR 5 million, there was a 75% rise in insolvencies last year, Romania-Insider.com reported. Denied payment instruments have increased both in value (+30%) and number (+17%) compared to 2023 but continue to remain below the levels recorded in 2019, Coface said.

The founder of a cryptocurrency financial services firm has been extradited from Portugal to face U.S. charges that he participated in a wide-ranging scheme to manipulate the market for digital tokens on behalf of client companies, Reuters reported. Aleksei Andriunin, the CEO of cryptocurrency "market maker" Gotbit, was ordered detained following an appearance in Boston federal court on Wednesday, one day after his extradition. Andriunin was indicted in October on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud.