Ireland will increase a tax on the bulk buying of homes, amid growing outrage over investment funds hoovering up real estate and squeezing out first-time buyers, Bloomberg News reported. The government will raise stamp duty to 10% on purchases of 10 or more residential houses, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said late on Tuesday in Dublin. The current levy is 1% on homes of below 1 million euros ($1.2 million) and 2% above that level. The increased tax will apply to bulk purchases as well as the acquisition of 10 or more units over a year, though not to apartment blocks.
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Resources Per Country
- Albania
- Austria
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guernsey
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Italy
- Jersey
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
Lufthansa said on Tuesday that it was seeing a surge in demand for flights to the United States and to European destinations following a loosening of German travel restrictions as coronavirus case numbers decline, Reuters reported. Demand for summer flights to New York, Miami and Los Angeles has increased by up to 300%, the German airline group said, adding it would lay on extra flights from June and has restarted services to Orlando and Atlanta.
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While Norwegian Air is focusing on a massive restructuring process, attempts to raise new capital, and emerge from bankruptcy in Ireland and Norway, the airline’s employees in France, who were left jobless and uncompensated, are taking legal action to push the air carrier’s subsidiary Norwegian Air Resources France into liquidation, AeroTime reported.
Developer Richard Dineen has lost an appeal related to the order of the Irish High Court to adjudicate him bankrupt 18 months ago, the Irish Examiner reported. The Limerick developer had taken issue in the Court of Appeal with the figures used and calculated which grounded the petition resulting in an order for bankruptcy made in November 2019. Mr. Dineen had debts running to millions of euros at the time. Dismissing the appeal, Ms. Justice Baker along with Mr Justice Seamus Noonan and Ms.
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Tullow Oil has raised $1.8bn via a bond offering to repay existing debt, ending a tense refinancing process the company had warned posed a “significant risk” of insolvency proceedings had it ended in failure, the Financial Times reported. The Africa-focused group, which has endured a difficult few years since it slashed its production outlook and parted ways with its former chief executive at the end of 2019, will use the proceeds to repay loans including bonds due this year as well as a lending facility linked to its oil reserves.
The Bank of England said on Friday that it had approved the “bail-in” of $595 million of loans that a British-based financial company made to the major Ukrainian lender PrivatBank before it was nationalised in 2016, Reuters reported. The bank’s nationalisation has been subject to lengthy litigation in Ukraine, and the International Monetary Fund last year made successful resolution of the legal issues a condition for financial aid.
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Tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s commodities empire is being investigated by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office in a probe that encompasses the conglomerate’s links to collapsed lender Greensill Capital, the SFO said on Friday, Reuters reported. The probe piles pressure on Gupta, who has been scrambling to refinance his international web of businesses in steel, aluminium and energy after supply chain finance firm Greensill filed for insolvency in March.
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Dan Barker had barely finished rejoicing that London’s “mad umbrella shop” had survived the pandemic when his wife broke some bad news: The “mad sailor shop” had not, the Wall Street Journal reported. Next month, Arthur Beale Ltd., a nearly 500-year-old business that sells maritime supplies from central London, is set to close a store famed for its elaborate window displays and eccentric interior.
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Russia’s debt chiefs are working on a mechanism that will allow the government to retire costly ruble bonds sold to raise emergency funds during the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. “The goal is to restore the right structure of the portfolio so that in the next crisis, government debt can be used to conduct an active economic policy again,” Deputy Finance Minister Timur Maksimov said in an interview. The ministry is considering possible funding sources for the buybacks, he said, without elaborating on the timing or the amount of money that might be earmarked.
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Ministers will crack down on company directors seeking to dissolve their businesses to avoid repaying creditors in a bid to prevent the loophole being exploited to write off state-backed emergency Covid-19 loans, the Financial Times reported. The Insolvency Service will be given beefed up powers to investigate and sanction directors found to have abused the process. The measures, which are part of bill put before parliament on Wednesday, will also give the government agency retrospective powers.
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