A leveraged trade that’s worrying regulators worldwide has caught the attention of the European Central Bank, which pointed to signs the strategy is gaining traction in the region, Bloomberg News reported. The ECB noted a group of offshore hedge funds has become increasingly present in Europe’s government bond repo market, suggesting growing use of the so-called basis trade. The strategy, which looks to exploit price differences between futures and bonds, has come under scrutiny in the US after it contributed to market turmoil at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

The UK government is continuing to resist stepping in to help Thames Water, despite its rapidly deteriorating financial situation, Bloomberg News reported. The utility needs to find new equity to stabilize its finances. Shareholders say they won’t put in more money and it’s difficult to see why a new investor would want to take on the burden of Thames’s £18 billion ($22.9 billion) debt pile. On Friday, Thames’s biggest shareholder wrote off the entire value of its stake in the latest sign of trouble for the utility.

A Belgian court ruled Thursday that all assets in the country belonging to American investment group 777 Partners can be seized, in the latest legal setback for the embattled company that owns Standard Liège and several other soccer clubs, the Associated Press reported. The decision by a court in Liege came after Standard's former owner Bruno Venanzi and shareholders of the company holding the club’s stadium requested the move, saying 777 had defaulted on a payment.

Nine people have been charged in Britain for promoting unauthorised foreign exchange trading schemes on Instagram in the first crackdown on "finfluencers", the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Thursday. Emmanuel Nwanze, 30, and 33-year-old Holly Thompson offered advice on buying and selling high-risk contracts for difference (CFDs) over the social media platform between May 2018 and April 2021, although they were not authorised to do so, the regulator alleged.

Esprit Europe GmbH and six other German companies of the fashion group will file for insolvency under self-administration on Wednesday, the company said, as Hong Kong-listed apparel group Esprit Holdings' seeks to restructure its European business, Reuters reported. This is the second insolvency procedure within four years for Esprit, which had laid off around a third of its workforce and closed 100 branches during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company had already filed for bankruptcy in Belgium and Switzerland in March.

The director of an online cryptocurrency academy has forced to close his business after misleading investors and failing to file up to date accounts with no record of a £5m transfer, Accountancy Daily reported. Amey Finance Academy has been wound up at the High Court following investigations into the company’s trading by the Insolvency Service. The academy was set up by sole director Desmond Amey in December 2018 to offer financial education and advice on cryptocurrency.

The German Council of Economic Experts cut on Wednesday its forecasts for economic growth this year, postponing the expected recovery of the euro zone's largest economy, Reuters reported. The panel expects 0.2% gross domestic product growth this year, cutting its autumn forecast of 0.7% growth, their forecast showed on Wednesday, as reported by Reuters on Tuesday. The German economy is expected to gain some momentum over the course of the year, with inflation expected to fall and nominal wages forecast to rise. For 2025, the economic experts forecast 0.9% growth, the report showed.

The economies of central Europe are set for stronger growth this year and next as inflation cools, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue to cast a shadow over their prospects in the form of higher borrowing costs, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The London-based development bank also noted a surge in Chinese investment in parts of Europe and North Africa last year as businesses sought to avoid barriers to their exports.

A Black Country engineering group has commenced a liquidation process which could threaten around 160 jobs, BusinessLive reported. Walsall, U.K.-based specialist castings and machining group Chamberlain said the move had come following a winding-up notice being issued by the company's main power supplier. In a statement to the stock exchange, the listed company said discussions had been ongoing with its creditors and major shareholders about its plight.

The U.K. labor market loosened a little more, in a fresh indication that the Bank of England could start cutting rates as early as next month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Unemployment ticked higher in the three months to March, at 4.3%, according to figures set out Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics. This was in line with the expectations of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal and continues a trend of rising joblessness, taking the rate to the highest since the middle of last year.