Canada plans to give itself the power to seize the assets of sanctioned Russian individuals and companies and use them to compensate victims of the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. The new measures will be included in the government’s budget legislation, meaning they are almost certain to pass in parliament by summer. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said the law will be the first of its kind in the Group of Seven. Canada has now sanctioned more than 1,100 Russian individuals and companies since President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

British finance minister Rishi Sunak spoke about the importance of government actions not fuelling rising inflation during a meeting of senior ministers on Tuesday, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, Reuters reported. The spokesman said that during a cabinet discussion on the pressure on household budgets due to the rising cost of living, Sunak outlined the package of support already in place, including towards helping people with energy bills.

Restaurateur Jay Bourke has been declared bankrupt by the Irish High Court on the back of an application by the Revenue Commissioners over a tax debt of €558,000, the Irish Times reported. Bourke tried to secure a debt write-off plan, known as a personal insolvency arrangement, to reduce the bulk of his €13.7 million in debts but this was withdrawn earlier this month after one of his creditors, Pepper Finance, which is owed €12.2 million, objected.

Amsterdam Trade Bank (ATB), a subsidiary of Russia's Alfa Bank, has been declared bankrupt, the Dutch central bank (DNB) said on Friday, citing an Amsterdam District Court Ruling, Reuters reported. A statement on the DNB website said ATB depositors would be covered up to 100,000 euros ($108,000) each under the Netherlands' deposit guarantee system. The bank had around 23,000 customers, of whom most are Dutch but 6,000 are German, the DNB said.

The German government is set to hike its inflation forecast for this year to 6.1% due to the impact of the war in Ukraine, up from 3.3% it had forecast in January, according to government document seen by Reuters on Monday. Berlin, which is due to present its spring economic forecasts on Wednesday, sees consumer price growth easing to 2.8% in 2023, the document showed.

German exchange operator Deutsche Boerse raised its full-year targets on Monday as it reported better-than-expected quarterly results thanks to higher trading activity amid Russia's war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. Due to the uncertainty on the market, demand for hedging in almost all asset classes rose and boosted trading volumes especially in index derivatives and commodities including energy and gas products, Deutsche Boerse said. "The first quarter of 2022 was considerably above our expectations," Chief Financial Officer Gregor Pottmeyer said in a statement.

The world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund wants a better explanation and more accountability for recent mishaps at Credit Suisse Group AG, the Wall Street Journal reported. Norges Bank Investment Management, the arm of the Norwegian central bank that operates the nearly $1.3 trillion fund, said Sunday it supports a shareholder proposal for a special audit into the bank’s relationship with Greensill Capital, a financing partner that went bankrupt in March 2021.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday announced the indictment of two Europeans for allegedly conspiring with a recently sentenced American cryptocurrency researcher to help North Korea evade U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported. Alejandro Cao de Benos of Spain, who founded a pro-Pyongyang affinity organization, and Christopher Emms of Britain, a cryptocurrency businessman, were accused of recruiting the researcher Virgil Griffith to illegally provide cryptocurrency and blockchain technology services to North Korea. Both defendants are at large.

Emmanuel Macron defeated far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election on a pro-business, pro-European Union platform, bolstering the bloc in the midst of its worst security crisis in decades, Bloomberg News reported. With counting still under way, projections by France’s five main pollsters put Macron on course to win about 58% of the vote in Sunday’s runoff compared with 42% for Le Pen. The euro rose after the nationalist leader conceded defeat in a speech to her supporters in Paris.

Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner highlighted the risk of stagflation as the country faces up to the economic perils posed by the conflict in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. “The danger of stagflation is real,” he said Saturday in a virtual speech at a party conference of his liberal Free Democrats, referring to the risk of rapidly rising inflation hitting as economic growth drops.