Euro zone manufacturing activity shrank further in December but Asia's factory powerhouses closed 2025 on a firmer footing backed by a rebound in export orders and growing demand for artificial intelligence, private surveys showed, Reuters reported. Factory activity in the common currency bloc slid into deeper contraction last month as production decreased for the first time in 10 months on further declines in new orders. The HCOB Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), compiled by S&P Global, fell to 48.8 in December from 49.6 in November.

2025 was a difficult year for businesses in Belgium with bankruptcies reaching their highest level since 2013, VRT.be reported. A total of 11,697 insolvency rulings were recorded last year, an increase of 5.9% compared with 2024. The figures come from the financial services company Graydon. The rise in the number of bankruptcies in Belgium was driven entirely by sharp increases in the number of companies filing for insolvency in Flanders and Brussels. In Wallonia there were slightly fewer bankruptcies in 2025 than there were in 2024.

A domestic supplier of electronic components, Quantum, intends to file a bankruptcy petition against Angstrom Research and Production Association, www1.ru reported. The company underpaid more than 20 million rubles for the supply of components. The announcement of Quantum's plans appeared in the register of legally significant information at the end of November 2025. Preliminary, Angstrom Research and Production Association underpaid for the supply of electronic components. In this regard, a lawsuit was filed against the enterprise.

Italy's foreign ministry said on Thursday the United States had sharply lowered proposed duties ​on several Italian pasta makers following a reassessment of ‌their U.S. activities, Reuters reported. In October, the United States said that 13 Italian pasta companies ‌would face an extra 92% duty - on top of the regular 15% rate on most EU imports - from January 2026, accusing two producers in particular, La Molisana and Garofalo, of selling pasta ⁠at unfairly low prices. However, ‌after a review, the U.S.

According to a new Morgan Stanley analysis reported by the Financial Times, more than 200,000 European banking jobs could vanish by 2030 as lenders lean into AI and shutter physical branches. That’s roughly 10% of the workforce at 35 major banks, TechCrunch.com reported. The bloodletting will hit hardest in back-office operations, risk management, and compliance, the unglamorous guts of banking where algorithms are believed capable of tearing through spreadsheets faster and more effectively than humans.

The German subsidiaries of the Belgian chemical company DOMO Chemicals - DOMO Chemicals, DOMO Caproleuna and DOMO Engineering Plastics - have filed for insolvency, CHEManager-Online.com reported. The three German companies concerned belong to DOMO Chemicals, a family-run group of companies headquartered in Ghent, Belgium. The group manufactures and markets polymers, engineering plastics and high-performance fibers worldwide for customers in the automotive industry, for consumer and industrial goods as well as electrical engineering and electronics.

The upmarket fashion brand LK Bennett appears to be heading for collapse for the second time in six years, The Guardian reported. The company filed an application with the high court on Tuesday to appoint an administrator to the business, which employs about 280 staff. The move suggests that the clothing chain, which was founded by Linda Bennett in 1990 and is now owned by China-based backers, appears to have failed in its widely publicised efforts to unearth a saviour. In 2019 the business collapsed into administration after its owners failed to find a new financial backer.

A struggling U.K. pharmacy chain accused of owing its locums £670,000 in unpaid fees has been hit with an application to place the business into insolvency proceedings, The Guardian reported. Jhoots Chemist, which trades under the name of Jhoots Pharmacy, was named in a high court application to appoint an administrator, submitted on Monday by Lloyds Bank. The move comes after the company – which has run more than 100 outlets – was criticised in the autumn by MPs for not paying locum pharmacists who had worked at the company’s branches on a freelance basis.

Sberbank, Russia’s second-largest bank, issued the country's first bitcoin-backed loan to one of its largest bitcoin miners, calling the transaction a pilot and suggesting it was keen to issue more in the future, CoinDesk.com reported. “We believe this product will be relevant not only for cryptocurrency miners, but also for companies that own cryptocurrencies,” the bank said in a statement. It did not disclose the loan amount. The bank said it used its own crypto custody product, Rutoken, to hold the bitcoin used as collateral for the crypto loan.

Bankrupt Irish property developer Sean Dunne has filed a fresh objection to the distribution of $3.8 million (€3.24 million) of the remaining assets in his dozen-year-old U.S. bankruptcy case, the Irish Times reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Julie A Manning, sitting in Bridgeport, Conn. last week ordered payment of $2.8 million to his two ex-wives and about another $1 million in legal fees to the US bankruptcy trustee and his lawyers.