The German government agreed Tuesday to provide 58 billion euros ($68 billion) to help rebuild regions hit by devastating floods last month, the Associated Press reported. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of Germany’s 16 states approved the state flood aid package, which still needs parliament’s endorsement. “This is significantly more than we had for previous floods,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin. More than 180 people died in Germany and hundreds more were injured in the July 14-15 floods, which also claimed lives in neighboring Belgium.

Bayer lost a third appeal against U.S. court verdicts that awarded damages to customers blaming their cancers on use of its glyphosate-based weedkillers, leaving the German drugs and pesticides group to pin hopes for legal relief on the U.S. Supreme Court, Reuters reported. A California appeals court yesterday upheld an $86 million verdict that found Bayer responsible for a couple's cancer after using Bayer's glyphosate-based Roundup against weeds.

French economic activity almost reached pre-pandemic levels in July as businesses largely shrugged off some renewed restrictions while supply difficulties increasingly constrained production, Bloomberg News reported. Activity was between 1% and 1.5% below normal in July, the highest it’s been since the pandemic struck, according to the Bank of France’s monthly survey of 8,500 firms. While business leaders expect a similar performance in August, the share of companies reporting supply difficulties rose for the third consecutive month to 49% in July.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) obtained a bankruptcy order against Mohammed Fuaath Haja Maideen Maricar on Monday, who is accused of unlawful forex trading promotion, Finance Magnates reported. According to the announcement, the UK High Court issued an order against the individual to pay £530,000 to the FCA. This amount will be distributed among the victims of 24HR Trading Academy Ltd. Moreover, the FCA says that Maricar has failed to make any payment concerning the court’s restitution order.

The battle for Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc looks set to drag on for at least a few more weeks after Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC secured an extended deadline to bid for Britain’s fourth-largest grocer, Bloomberg News reported. Britain’s Takeover Panel confirmed a new deadline of Aug. 20 for the buyout firm to “put up or shut up” in a statement on Monday. CD&R asked to push back the date from Aug. 9 after rival Fortress Investment Group pre-emptively raised its offer for Morrison to 6.7 billion pounds ($9.3 billion) on Friday.

France took a big step on Monday into a post-pandemic future by requiring people to show a QR code proving they have a special virus pass before they can enjoy restaurants and cafes or travel by plane, train or bus across the country, the Associated Press reported. The measure is part of a government plan to encourage more people to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot and slow down a surge in infections, as the highly contagious delta variant now accounts for most cases in France. Over 36 million people in France, or more than 54% of the population, are fully vaccinated.

The State’s Covid-adjusted unemployment rate fell to a pandemic low of 13.5 per cent in July, down from 16.2 per cent the previous month, as restrictions on hospitality continue to be loosened, the Irish Times reported. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) had published figures last week, putting the jobless rate at 14.4 per cent but later pulled the release, saying the figures had been compiled incorrectly. The agency said the results for July published today replace the estimates which had been published on August 5th.

Italy's Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) has further reduced its legal claims to 4.9 billion euros ($5.8 billion), a slide on the Tuscan bank's website showed, marking another step in Rome's efforts to reprivatise the ailing lender, Reuters reported. MPS initially faced some 10 billion euros in legal risks, seen as one of the main hurdles to Italian Treasury's plans to cut its 64% stake in the bank by mid-2022, as agreed as part of a 2017 state bailout.

The European Union’s banking regulator has proposed guidance for financial-sector compliance officers, another step in the bloc’s effort to revamp its anti-money-laundering system, the Wall Street Journal reported. The proposal from the Paris-based European Banking Authority is the latest move by the EU to harmonize anti-money-laundering rules across member states and shift implementation away from national authorities.

Credit Suisse has repaid another $400 million to investors in its Greensill-linked supply chain finance funds, the Swiss bank said on Friday, Reuters reported. The collapse of the funds in March kicked off a tumultuous period for the bank, culminating with a multi-billion dollar loss related to investment fund Archegos, a raft of executive oustings and an impending strategic overhaul. The payout, originally announced with the bank's second-quarter earnings last week, is the fourth distribution so far and takes the total amount returned to the investors to roughly $5.9 billion.