Stakeholders in the UK’s biggest pub operator are gearing up for talks on how to address its more than £2 billion ($2.5 billion) in debt coming due next year, Bloomberg News reported. Stonegate Pub Co., its owner TDR Capital and its senior and junior creditors will discuss how to tackle the upcoming debt maturities. The company and its sponsor have brought in bankers at Evercore Inc and lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis LLP to advise on their options. Stonegate could slash a part of its debt and then address the remainder, creditors say.

The German and Dutch central banks on Friday posted multi-billion euro losses for 2023 and predicted more financial pain ahead, suggesting that they are unlikely to pay dividends into state coffers for years to come, Reuters reported. The European Central Bank and some of its largest national affiliates are generating large losses, depleting provisions and much of their equity, as sharply higher interest rates force them to pay out billion in interest to commercial banks.

France is entering an era of belt-tightening, as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, economic slowdowns in Germany and China and record-high interest rates take a bigger-than-expected toll on growth, the New York Times reported. The French will find themselves faced with cuts of 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) in government spending, on items including environmental subsidies and education, the government announced Thursday, on top of €16 billion in cuts announced a few months ago.

A U.S. judge said that Barclays must face part of a proposed class action by shareholders over the British bank's sale of $17.7 billion more debt than regulators had allowed, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan said that shareholders adequately alleged that Barclays' failure to disclose the absence of internal controls to catch the error was a material omission of fact.

Argentina must pay a large deposit in a case brought by hedge funds seeking $1.5 billion in compensation for losses in the nation’s growth-linked securities, London’s Court of Appeal ruled, Bloomberg News reported. The South American nation must pay down €310 million ($337 million) before a full appeal is heard. Hedge funds, including Palladian Partners LP, won the case for compensation in a lower court last year. Argentina has until April 5 to deposit the cash in a trustee account, a judge ruled Thursday.

Disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Do Kwon should be extradited to the U.S. to face trial on fraud charges, rather than to his native South Korea, a court in the tiny Balkan country of Montenegro has ruled, the Wall Street Journal reported. Kwon’s lawyers have three days to appeal the ruling by the High Court in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, a spokeswoman for the court said Wednesday. The appeals court will have the final word in the case, she added. A local lawyer for Kwon, Goran Rodić, called the ruling illegal and pledged to appeal.

The European Central Bank on Thursday reported a record annual loss for 2023 and said further losses were likely as its aggressive interest rate hikes force it to pay out billions of euros to banks, Reuters reported. The ECB, which has raised rates at an unprecedented pace over the past two years, has a bloated balance sheet after a decade of financial stimulus and commercial banks now earn hefty interest on the trillions of euros it printed during the era of anaemic inflation. "The loss...

The German government said Europe's largest economy was in “troubled waters” and slashed its growth forecast for this year as it struggles with a lack of skilled labor, excessive bureaucracy, high interest rates and lagging investment in new projects — while a relatively modest set of tax breaks for business remains blocked in the legislature, the Associated Press reported. The growth forecast was lowered to 0.2% from the previous forecast from last fall of 1.3%. That would follow a shrinking of the economy by 0.3% for all of last year.

A city council has warned it is being forced into “tough” decisions to avoid following others into effective bankruptcy, BBC.com reported. Although Newcastle City is not at imminent risk of going under, proposals to cut spending by another £15m over the next year have been signed off by the Labour-run authority's cabinet.

Russia failed to overturn a ruling in the Netherlands that ordered Moscow to pay around $50 billion in the bankruptcy case of Yukos Oil Co., once the largest Russian oil and gas company, Bloomberg News reported. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal dismissed Russia’s latest legal challenge in a saga that has dragged on for nearly two decades. The latest verdict is unlikely to result in an immediate payment to the former shareholders of Yukos. Russia has previously said it isn’t bound to pay the largest arbitration payout ever.