Bitcoin is being artificially propped up and should not be legitimised by regulators or financial companies as it heads for "irrelevance", the European Central Bank said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been variously presented as an alternative form of money and a shield from the inflationary policies pursued by major central banks such as the ECB in recent years.

As French President Emmanuel Macron makes the rounds in Washington starting Wednesday for the first state visit of the Biden administration, high on his agenda are his plans for a nuclear energy “renaissance.” His entourage includes the major players from France’s nuclear energy industry, who will be looking to the French leader to help boost the development and export of their technology, including smaller and more versatile reactors, the Washington Post reported. But there could hardly be a more awkward time to promote French nuclear know-how.

Germany followed Spain and Belgium in reporting slower inflation, offering ammunition to those who want the European Central Bank to ease the pace of interest-rate increases, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices in Europe’s largest economy rose 11.3% from a year earlier in November, down from October’s 11.6% jump, the statistics office said Tuesday, citing factors including energy costs for the deceleration. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected an advance of 11.3%.

UK mortgage approvals fell by 10% last month, from 66,000 in September to just under 59,000, after Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget sparked chaos, Bloomberg News reported. According to the latest data from the Bank of England (BoE), this was the lowest number of approved mortgages by UK lenders since June 2020, when the property sector was hit by COVID-19 restrictions. It was also down on the 69,489 seen in October of last year. A handful of British banks pulled their mortgage deals after the mini-budget in September, while others hiked the interest rate on their offers.

Risks are piling on for Sweden’s commercial real estate sector as rising interest rates erode profitability and raise debt refinancing problems, the country’s financial supervisory authority said, Bloomberg News reported. As the Swedish central bank has responded to soaring inflation by rapidly raising interest rates, commercial property companies are facing rising costs and challenges in refinancing maturing debt.

Big Four firm KPMG LLP missed multiple red flags when it audited the financial statements of Carillion PLC, the liquidators of the defunct construction and outsourcing firm said, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.K. government officials sued KPMG seeking in January £1.3 billion—equivalent to around $1.55 billion—and claiming the audit firm failed to spot misstatements that would have led the company’s management to take different actions.

Adler Group SA shares jumped as much as 64% after the landlord agreed an expensive deal with creditors to extend debt maturities and postpone publication of audited accounts, Bloomberg News reported. Despite Monday’s record gain, the company’s shares have still lost almost three quarters of their value this year after a damning short report published by Viceroy Research in October 2021 accused the company of being run for the benefit of tycoon Cevdet Caner.

German car supplier Ruester GmbH said that it has filed for restructuring in self-administration, a special form of insolvency proceedings that give the owners bigger say, citing liquidity problems partly caused by higher energy costs, Reuters reported. As part of the proceedings, Ruester, which makes annual sales of around 120 million euros ($125 million) and made two acquisitions in 2022, will look for a buyer as a way to keep the company afloat, it said.

Euro zone inflation has not peaked and the risk is that it will turn out even higher than currently expected, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Monday, Reuters reported. "We do not see the components or the direction that would lead me to believe that we've reached peak inflation and that it's going to decline in short order," Lagarde told the European Parliament. "Whenever I ask my top-notch economists at the ECB ...

Pemberton Asset Management is fast-tracking plans to triple the size of its private debt funds and plug a European lending gap being created by increasingly skittish banks, Bloomberg News reported. The $17 billion investment firm is in the process of raising capital for five credit strategies, which include lending on mid-market buyouts, Founder and Managing Partner Symon Drake-Brockman said in an interview. “We are aiming to become a $50 billion manager in the European marketplace over the next five years,” Drake-Brockman said.