Russia is facing the deepest economic contraction in nearly three decades as pressure from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies mounts, according to an internal forecast by the Finance Ministry, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product is likely to shrink as much as 12% this year, deeper than the 8% decline expected by the Economy Ministry, according to people familiar with the estimates who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The government hasn’t released a public forecast since the invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union is closing in on agreeing a sixth package of sanctions against Russia, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday, Reuters reported. "Talks on the sixth sanctions package are ongoing, they are well advanced and from our point of view they could be concluded soon," the spokesperson told a regular government news conference in Berlin. Read more.

Germany's finance minister warned on Monday that rising wages could further fan inflation, adding that parties involved in collective bargaining had a responsibility to help prevent that from happening and that one-off payments might be needed, Reuters reported. German inflation hit an annual 7.8% in April, the highest in more than four decades, which is expected to fuel wage demands. Wage agreements for some 10 million workers are up for re-negotiation in Germany this year, according to the German federation of trade unions.

Morrisons now looks set to clinch a last ditch deal to buy the convenience store chain McColl's, BBC News reported. The supermarket has been in a two-way battle with EG Group, the Blackburn-based petrol station empire owned by the billionaire Issa brothers. McColl's is poised to go into administration, but in what's known as a pre-pack deal the business will immediately be sold to a new owner. McColl's has more than a thousand small stores and 16,000 workers. No formal announcement has been made but it is understood that Morrisons has secured the winning bid.

The EMEA Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee said on Friday it closed the case looking into whether credit default swaps would be paid to holders of Russian debt after Russia paid its obligations, Reuters reported. Russia last week avoided a default, announcing it had paid nearly $650 million it owed in coupons and principal to holders of two bonds, ahead of a grace period expiry on May 4. The payments had initially been made in rubles, potentially breaching the contract, which triggered the opening of the CDS case.

Russia's top lender Sberbank is developing fully domestic cloud infrastructure, it said on Friday, after reporting issues with some 'smart home' device functionality due to problems with its foreign cloud partner, Reuters reported. The state-owned lender, which fell under Western sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine, has been developing its non-financial businesses, including technology and cloud services, in an attempt to combat the industry-wide trend of shrinking margins.

Convenience retailer McColl’s has announced it has entered into administration after its lenders said it did not want to extend banking agreements that were keeping the business going, Credit Strategy reported. PwC has been appointed as administrators, with the professional services firm intending to sell the business to a third-party purchaser "as soon as possible". Following this announcement, Sky News has reported that Asda’s co-owners the Issa brothers are expected to agree a deal to purchase the firm which would rescue "the bulk of the company".

Former German tennis star Boris Becker could be deported from Britain in the wake of his conviction for violating the Insolvency Act, UPI.com reported. Becker was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for hiding millions of pounds worth of assets during a bankruptcy. He could be deported because British law allows for any foreign national convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence to be considered for deportation. Becker was charged with hiding more than $3 million in assets after filing for bankruptcy in 2017.

The Russian rouble briefly reached its highest level against the dollar since March 2020 on Thursday, supported by capital controls, while stock indexes also climbed as the market watched developments around possible new sanctions against Moscow, Reuters reported. The volatile currency hit a high of 65.31 per dollar in early trading on the Moscow Exchange but by 1339 GMT was at 66.14, which was 0.2% stronger than its Wednesday closing level. The morning peak level had not been seen since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic.

The Bank of England sent a stark warning that Britain risks a double-whammy of a recession and inflation above 10% as it raised interest rates on Thursday to their highest since 2009, hiking by quarter of a percentage point to 1%, Reuters reported. The pound fell by more than a cent against the U.S. dollar to hit its lowest level since mid-2020, below $1.24, as the gloominess of the BoE's new forecasts for the world's fifth-largest economy caught investors by surprise. They also trimmed bets on the central bank hiking rates aggressively this year.