The U.K.’s markets watchdog warned it will come down hard on struggling firms that leave customers out of pocket when they resort to legal procedures to manage their liabilities, Bloomberg News reported. The Financial Conduct Authority has seen an increase in the number of firms developing plans that deploy company or insolvency law, such as schemes of arrangement, to manage how much they owe in claims to their clients, the regulator said in a statement on Tuesday. The FCA said it would take action against companies if their proposals unfairly benefit them at the expense of clients.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte further eased the Netherlands’ coronavirus lockdown, allowing bars, restaurants, museums, theaters and other venues to reopen from Wednesday for the first time this year, the Associated Press reported. But Rutte warned that the move wasn’t without risks. “We are taking a big step today to unlock the Netherlands while the infections numbers are really going through the roof,” Rutte said Tuesday.

A council gave almost £2m in 2021 to a firm it set up to cut the cost of running leisure services to stop it "becoming insolvent," BBC.com reported. Volair, which was launched in 2015 to cut Knowsley Council's annual £2m leisure spend, runs clubs in Halewood, Huyton, Kirkby and Stockbridge Village and a Prescot football centre. The firm said it had seen "significant shortfalls" due to Covid-19's impact. The council has not commented on the bailout.

A U.K. minister in the ruling Conservative Party resigned after accusing Boris Johnson’s government of failing to properly root out fraud in a loan program introduced to help businesses though the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported.

Germany on Monday extended its current pandemic measures as the experts panel appointed by the government has warned the fast spreading Omicron coronavirus variant could bring critical infrastructure in Europe's biggest economy to a breaking point, Reuters reported. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he had agreed with the heads of the federal states to extend restrictions such as limiting private gatherings to 10 ten people and requiring proof of booster vaccination or a negative test at restaurants. "Now it's time to stay on course," said Scholz after a meeting on Monday.

Germany's flagship carrier Lufthansa is in talks to buy a 40% stake in state-owned Alitalia's successor ITA Airways, two people familiar with the negotiations said on Sunday, following a newspaper report that a deal could be unveiled next week, Reuters reported. The talks about a tie-up between Germany's partly state-owned Lufthansa and ITA Airways are still ongoing with all outcomes possible, one of the sources said on condition of anonymity, adding the stake price was still under negotiation.

NATO allies are bolstering the alliance’s eastern flank in response to Russia’s military buildup around Ukraine, as the European Union set out plans for loans and grants for Kyiv worth more than $1.3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The moves are part of sharpening efforts by the U.S. and its allies to gird for what they believe could be an imminent military invasion of Ukraine, which Russia denies it is planning.

British retail sales slumped in December after consumers did much of their Christmas shopping earlier than usual in November and many people stayed at home due to the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Reuters reported. Economists said that the scale of the hit bolstered their expectations that the world's fifth-biggest economy shrank last month under the strain of Omicron and new government restrictions to slow its spread.

Ukraine's central bank raised its main interest rate to 10% from 9% on Thursday, crossing into double digits for the first time since April 2020, to try to tackle persistently high inflation and the economic fallout from a standoff with Russia, Reuters reported. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said it could hike rates again at its next policy meeting in March and signalled that monetary conditions would remain moderately tight. It would also increase banks' reserve requirements next month.

Inflation in the euro zone will decrease gradually over the year as its main drivers, such as surging energy prices and supply bottlenecks, are expected to ease, European Central Bank (ECB) head Christine Lagarde told France Inter radio, Reuters reported. "This will stabilise and ease gradually in the course of 2022," she said. Asked on her policy to counter price pressures, Lagarde reiterated that the ECB did not need to act as boldly as the U.S. Federal Reserve because of a different economic situation. "The cycle of the economic recovery in the U.S. is ahead of that in Europe.