The Irish High Court has approved a personal insolvency arrangement (PIA) allowing a woman to write off approximately €4.2m in debt owed to financial institutions, the Independent reported. Mr. Justice Mark Sanfey approved the PIA for 54-year-old Assumpta Gaffney, an accounts administrator with a construction firm, who is married with two dependent children. Under the terms of the PIA, Mrs. Gaffney will retain her family home at Mountain Lodge, Ballyleigh, Waterfall, Co Cork, for which she will continue to make mortgage repayments.

Covid support measures from the U.K. government were so speedily introduced that they created a fertile breeding ground for wrongdoing. Now, with schemes closed and reports last week indicating that a third of small businesses are “highly indebted”, we may begin to see much crime exposed as a result of insolvency, according to a commentary in The Times. Dealing with the fallout of this effectively and fairly is an immense and multifaceted task. In some cases, the solution is clear-cut; in others, the courts may be asked to stretch existing principles of law.

The Bank of England’s decision Thursday not to raise interest rates sent bond markets into a tizzy, leading to the biggest moves in U.K. bond yields in years, the Wall Street Journal reported. The bank has said that it expects to raise borrowing costs soon, moving ahead of the Federal Reserve and other major central banks in withdrawing stimulus to tame inflation. But the bank held fire Thursday, surprising investors who had become convinced an increase was coming.

The Czech Republic’s central bank has again sharply increased its key interest rate by a point and a quarter to 2.75%, to tackle soaring inflation amid the economy’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the Associated Press reported. Thursday’s surprising move was the biggest single hike of the rate since 1997 and the fourth straight increase since June. Inflation jumped to 4.9% in September, well above the bank’s 2% target. The last time the bank changed its rates was Sept 30, when it increased the key interest rate by three quarters of a point to 1.5% in an effort to tame inflation.

Airline Avianca Holdings will move its domicile to the United Kingdom and its stock will no longer be traded on the Colombian stock exchange, the company said on Wednesday, a day after a U.S. court's approval of the company's restructuring plan, Reuters reported. Colombia's flag carrier had filed for chapter 11 protection at a U.S. court in New York in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. It now expects to exit the measure by the end 2021, after receiving around $2 billion in new financing under a debt-for-equity deal.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is very unlikely to raise interest rates next year as inflation remains too low, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday, pushing back on market bets for a move as soon as next October, the Irish Times reported. “In our forward guidance on interest rates, we have clearly articulated the three conditions that need to be satisfied before rates will start to rise,” she told an event in Lisbon.

Poland’s central bank on Wednesday made its second interest rate hike in as many months as consumer prices surge, the Associated Press reported. The National Bank of Poland raised the rate to 1.25%, indicating that it intends to move more forcefully against rising prices after facing criticism for not acting soon enough. The move “suggests to us that it is taking the fight against inflation much more seriously than we had thought,” Capital Economics said in a note.

Euro zone unemployment eased to 7.4% of the workforce in September as expected, the EU's statistics office said on Wednesday, as the economy continues to recover from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. The statistics office said 12.079 million people were without jobs in the 19 countries sharing the euro in September, compared to 12.334 million, or 7.5% of the workforce, in August.

Inmarsat’s private equity owners are considering an exit from their investment in the U.K. satellite communications group, Bloomberg News reported. Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus have held early discussions about a possible sale of the business after receiving approaches from potential suitors, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. An exit from Inmarsat would mark a quick turnaround for its owners, which took the company private in 2019.

Germany’s future government plans to let the country’s pension system invest in the capital markets for the first time in what would be a small revolution in how Europe’s largest economy manages money for its growing ranks of retirees, Bloomberg News reported. Negotiators for the Social Democrats, Greens and the market-oriented Free Democrats are seeking to hammer out details that would allow the $400 billion pension system to start investing some of its reserves into stocks and bonds, which would bring it more in line with other advanced economies.