Lex Greensill told lawmakers that investors in loans packaged by his firm were aware of the risks and denied being a “fraudster” in his first public appearance since Greensill Capital collapsed into insolvency in March, Bloomberg News reported. The former Morgan Stanley banker, who founded the eponymous firm in 2011, faced questions from the U.K.’s Treasury Select Committee, which is examining what lessons should be learned from the demise of the lender.

A judge in London ruled that gym chain Virgin Active can wipe out the rent arrears on most of its venues and avoid future steep payments, despite the opposition of a majority of its creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The decision represents a victory for tenants and a blow for landlords, with other companies now likely to seek a reduction in their debt pile using the same tool. Rent arrears have been building since March last year when non-essential businesses were forced to close or operate with restrictions due to the pandemic.

Germany loosened travel rules to allow people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to enter the country without needing to get tested or go into quarantine, Bloomberg News reported. The rules, which also apply to those who have recovered from the virus, were approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday. One-third of German residents have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, and nearly 10% have been fully inoculated. As the pace ramps up, Germany has granted more privileges to people immune from the disease, including easing trips to hairdressers.

Corporate insolvencies in Germany fell by 21.8% on the year in February, the Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday, continuing a downtrend that saw them hit their lowest level since 1999 last year thanks to a waiver during the pandemic, Reuters reported. Germany introduced the waiver last March, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, part of a package of measures aimed at supporting businesses but which gave rise to the charge that the government was simply propping up “zombie companies” with no future. Insolvencies duly fell. But since October, Berlin has phased out the waiver.

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron repeatedly contacted senior ministers over a four-month period in 2020 to lobby for the now-failed, supply-chain finance firm Greensill Capital, according to documents published on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Cameron’s involvement in efforts to secure access for Greensill Capital to the government’s pandemic funding schemes have fueled wider questions about lobbyists’ influence over British government decision-making.

A ramp-up in debt sales in Europe, led by Germany’s sale of its first 30-year green bonds, sent yields jumping across the region, Bloomberg News reported. The country racked up record orders of more than 38.9 billion euros ($47 billion) for its 6 billion-euro offering. The sale comes alongside placements from the Netherlands and the U.K., helping push conventional German 30-year yields to their highest since 2019. Benchmark Italian yields headed toward 1% for the first time since September as traders bet an economic recovery will spur inflation.

Bickering in the European Union’s most politically volatile member state is threatening to delay the approval of the bloc’s 800 billion-euro ($973 billion) pandemic-relief package, Bloomberg News reported. Romania’s ruling coalition and opposition are far from a consensus on ratifying the Recovery Fund this month in parliament, where a two-thirds majority is required. The country is one of seven EU states yet to sign off on the financing and allow disbursements to coronavirus-battered economies to start. The bloc wants all national parliaments to ratify the decision by June.

European governments are acting to limit hedge funds’ participation in the market for new sovereign-bond issuance, following a surge in demand from the firms, the Wall Street Journal reported. The pushback was prompted by unusually large orders placed by hedge funds for new bonds, which can then potentially be sold—sometimes within hours—to the European Central Bank for a profit, bankers, investors and a government official said. Order books, which track demand for new bonds and help determine the prices, have ballooned since hedge funds began to pile into this trade.

Landlords have lost a legal challenge against the restructuring at high street fashion chain New Look, in a major setback to their efforts to curb what they regard as misuse of insolvency laws, the Financial Times reported. A group of four landlords, including Land Securities and British Land plus the new owners of Manchester’s giant Trafford Centre, had challenged New Look’s use of a company voluntary arrangement to reset its rents for the second time in three years and to write off rent arrears.