France and Italy are set to extend virus restrictions as Europe struggles to contain a sharp increase in infections due to new variants, Bloomberg News reported. The resurgence in the outbreak is a setback for governments, whose plans to get life back to normal and revive their economies have already been stymied by a slow vaccine rollout across the European Union. The French virus spike has been particularly bad, and Germany and Spain last week imposed border restrictions to travelers coming from the country. French President Emmanuel Macron is due to address the nation at 8 p.m.

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 introduced a number of temporary changes to UK insolvency laws last year, according to a commentary in the National Law Review. Those changes, together with other measures such as the moratorium on forfeiture proceedings have recently been extended, we assume, to avoid the perceived cliff edge of insolvencies that might follow if such measures are brought to an end abruptly.

A $40 million potential fraud that threatens to wipe out a chunk of OSB Group Plc’s profits is linked to a client with a niche business line: piano leasing, Bloomberg News reported. The British lender has filed to place Duet Capital (Holdings) Ltd. into administration, a form of U.K. bankruptcy, and contacted the Financial Conduct Authority about the suspected fraud, according to a corporate filing and people familiar with the matter.

At a hearing that began at 5 p.m. on March 1, lawyers for Greensill Capital desperately argued before a judge in Sydney, Australia, that the firm’s insurers should be ordered to extend policies set to expire at midnight. Greensill Capital needed the insurance to back $4.6 billion it was owed by businesses around the world, and without it 50,000 jobs would be in jeopardy, they said. The judge said no; the company had waited too long to bring the matter to court. A week later, Greensill Capital — valued at $3.5 billion less than two years ago — filed for bankruptcy in London.