German prosecutors have widened their investigation at automotive supplier Continental AG to include former Chief Executive Elmar Degenhart and finance chief Wolfgang Schaefer, whose surprise departure was announced late on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The car parts maker is one of the manufacturers under investigation on suspicion of hiding illegal levels of pollution following a regulatory clampdown on toxic fumes triggered by Volkswagen's 2015 admission that it had cheated emissions tests.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has proposed a ban on debt packager referral fees in a bid to protect consumers, YahooFinance reported. The UK watchdog said on Wednesday that debt packagers – who are regulated providers of debt advice and refer customers on to other providers of debt solutions – should not be allowed to be paid a commission. Under the current setup, they rely on 90% of their income from referral fees paid by these other firms.

Inflation in Britain rose to its highest level in nearly a decade in October after soaring energy prices hit household bills, the New York Times reported. The Consumer Price Index rose to 4.2 percent from a year earlier, the highest since November 2011, and up from 3.1 percent in September, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The price increases were more than twice the central bank’s target of 2 percent, increasing the likelihood that policymakers will go ahead with the interest rate increases they have signaled are coming.

Italian prosecutors have asked a judge to drop a case against Vivendi's owner and CEO for alleged market manipulation and obstruction of regulators in the French group's stakebuilding in Italy's Mediaset, one judicial and one legal source said, Reuters reported. Prosecutors had investigated allegations that Vivendi's billionaire owner Vincent Bollore and CEO Arnaud De Puyfontaine used the prospect - and then collapse - of a deal to buy Mediaset's pay TV arm to drive down the Italian firm's shares and buy them on the cheap in 2016.

The Irish High Court has refused to approve a Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) for a businessman with over €3m in debts, the Irish Examiner reported. Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said that he could not approve the PIA for Daniel Drew. In his judgement, the judge said the court had no jurisdiction to entertain an application to approve the PIA, which had been rejected at a meeting of Mr Drew's creditors in 2019. In his judgement, the judge said that Mr Drew operates a petrol and convenience store in Turner's Cross, Cork.

Ireland could face a sharp rise in company insolvencies as government pandemic supports are wound down, and a higher rate of company failure could persist for some time, according to a new paper from the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC), the Irish Times reported. It says that the Government faces a difficult balancing act as the pandemic supports are wound down, with the risk that moving too quickly could push some viable companies to the wall.

OneWeb to $ 49.3 million to bankers, lawyers and other advisors acting on behalf of former shareholders as part of a $ 1 billion transaction between the U.K, government and India’s Bharti Global rescued a satellite internet company from bankruptcy last year, CaliforniaNewsTimes.com reported. The disclosure was made on an audited account published on Tuesday. The sale agreement “required the company to bear the cost of selling the former shareholder of One Web Communications,” the account said.

Europe's third largest harbour, the German Port of Hamburg, reported a 2.9% hike in sea cargo in the first nine months of 2021 on Tuesday but warned that global transport chains would remain volatile for the rest of the year, Reuters reported. Global trade has been marred by logjams in container ports caused by disruptions from unexpected demand spurts, labour shortages and traffic snarl-ups amid the coronavirus pandemic. The crisis has weighed particularly heavily on Germany, which is Europe's largest economy and a keystone of international trade where one in four jobs depend on exports.

Britain continues to face severe labor market shortages despite the end of the furlough program because 465,000 people have disappeared from the workforce since the start of the pandemic, according to Bank of America, Bloomberg News reported. Ending the benefit on Sept. 30 for those out of work during lockdowns was expected to bring people who had given up on job hunting back into employment. “That has not happened yet,” Bank of America economist Rob Wood said in a note on Tuesday. U.K.

Germany's inflation rate will drop noticeably at the start of next year when the effects of one-off factors peter out, the economy ministry said on Monday, Reuters reported. A base effect resulting from last year's cut in value-added tax, part of the government's COVID-19 relief measures, has contributed to the current inflation rate of 4.5% - the highest since 1993. Its impact has been compounded by a sharp rise in prices for raw materials and a rise in energy prices.