The last Belgian locations of the international cash-and-carry store Makro will close their doors forever on Friday, RTL Info reports, the Brussels Times reported. In total, 1,300 employees will lose their jobs. The Makro group has been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy for many months. Following the legal reorganization in June, all of the company’s real estate assets were transferred to German rival Metro. Metro was recently bought out by Dutch retail group Sligro, saving nine out of eleven of the Makro locations and 500 jobs.

The rouble dived around 3% against the dollar on Tuesday, failing to consolidate a recovery from last week's slide as the market comes to terms with the prospect of lower export revenue in the wake of restrictions on Russian oil, Reuters reported. The rouble lost about 8% against the dollar last week and is on course for a hefty monthly decline after an oil embargo and price cap came into force. The finance ministry has said the recent slump was related to recovering imports.

Genesis Global, a gaming operator that has had difficulty in several jurisdictions, has filed for bankruptcy and is shutting down its headquarters in Malta, casino.org reported. Genesis had to battle a $4-million fine in the U.K., a $5-million fine in Belgium, and a $418K fine in Sweden. All were due to the operator’s inability to properly comply with anti-money laundering (AML) rules and other violations. The company shut off 14 sites from the U.K. market, the largest gaming market in Europe, and parted ways with CEO Ariel Reem earlier this month.

The German government sees plans to pay Lufthansa executive board members a bonus for 2021 and 2022, despite the German airline receiving state aid at the time, as in breach of their agreement, said a German government spokesperson last Wednesday, Reuters reported. The bonus cannot be accrued and paid out at a later date, said the spokesperson, who added the government is in talks with Lufthansa.

Johnny Ronan’s property group this month sold its Paris property for €24.5 million to help pay down the group’s debt, the Irish Times reported. Consolidated accounts filed by Ronan’s Ardquade Ltd. also reveal that this year Ronan also advanced a loan to the group that was used to repay “a substantial part” of the group’s junior debt. Nearly a year ago, the group’s senior and junior debt amounted to a combined €194.88 million.

Britain's accounting watchdog said on Thursday it had fined Deloitte LLP more than 900,000 pounds ($1.09 million) over its audits of building materials supplier SIG plc (SHI.L) for the 2015 and 2016 financial years, Reuters reported. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said it had imposed a penalty of 1.25 million pounds on Deloitte LLP, reduced to 906,250 pounds after it admitted breaches over its work on SIG's financial statements. The FRC reprimanded Deloitte, ordering it to take action to prevent the breaches from happening again.

Portugal provided São Tomé and Príncipe with €15 million in direct support towards the country’s budget in order to “meet immediate needs,” announced minister of foreign affairs João Gomes Cravinho last Friday, the Portugal Resident reported. The funding was done through the Camões cooperation and language institute. “This amount of €15 million is to meet immediate cash-flow needs.

On December 21, the Commercial Court of the Zaporizhzhia Region started proceedings on the bankruptcy of the metallurgical plant Azovstal (Mariupol, Donetsk Region), Ukrainian News reported. The court decided to open proceedings on the bankruptcy of the combine at the request of the Zaporizhvohnetryv plant (Zaporizhzhia), which is also part of the Metinvest group.