A U.S. judge said Germany's Allianz SE must face investor claims it wrongly "abandoned" the investment strategies it promised to use on hedge funds that suffered massive losses as the COVID-19 pandemic shook markets early last year, Reuters reported. In an 81-page decision, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan said that investors could try to show Allianz was negligent and lacked good faith in managing its Structured Alpha funds. She also dismissed some state law-based claims.
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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
Insurers operating in the Irish market have paid out €130 million to date on business interruption claims stemming from the Covid-19 crisis, fuelled by a landmark court rulings and pressure from the Central Bank, according to the regulator, the Irish Times reported. The Central Bank wrote to a number of insurers in February pressing them to pay out on valid business interruption claims, following landmark court judgments in Britain and Ireland in favour of companies affected by the economic shock caused by Covid-19.
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Europe’s current burst of inflation is temporary and won’t lead the European Central Bank to “overreact” by withdrawing stimulus or raising interest rates, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. “What we are seeing now is mostly a phase of temporary inflation linked to reopening,” Lagarde said in a speech in Frankfurt, Germany opening the ECB’s annual forum on central banking.
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Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is following through on his view that the European Union’s fiscal rules are “obsolete” with a budget that projects deficits well above the bloc’s suspended ceiling for the foreseeable future, Bloomberg News reported. The first annual fiscal plan of his technocratic government unveiled on Wednesday shows that even though officials reckon the shortfall could drop to 2.1% by 2024, they plan to keep exceeding the 3% level that used to trigger EU admonishments before the crisis. “Our budget is fundamentally expansive,” the prime minister told reporters in Rome.
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The Irish High Court has granted a temporary injunction restraining a landowner from interfering with efforts by the official in charge of his bankruptcy from selling the properties, the Irish Times reported. The injunction was obtained against John Gaynor from Ballinlug, Rathconrath, Mullingar, Co Westmeath following an application by the Official Assignee (OA) Mr Michael Ian Larkin, who is the official in charge of Mr Gaynor’s bankruptcy.
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The yield on U.K. 10-year notes rose past 1% for the first time since March 2020, while the pound plummeted, as U.K. assets confronted a mix of accelerating inflation expectations accompanied by curtailed growth from an expected tightening cycle, Bloomberg News reported. The rate on benchmark gilts rose as much as 11 basis points to 1.06% on Tuesday, the highest level since the market turmoil in March 2020. They haven’t closed above 1% since May 2019. The move comes after some U.S. Treasury yields hit similar pandemic-era milestones.
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More than a million British workers face an uncertain future this week as the UK becomes the world's first big economy to wind up its COVID-19 jobs support scheme, Reuters reported. The programme, which at its peak paid a third of employees to stay at home, cost more than 68 billion pounds ($93 billion) - the most expensive single piece of UK economic support during the pandemic. It also marked a sharp shift in policy in Britain where unemployment benefits are low by European standards. "I think it's been an absolute lifesaver ...
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German financial regulator BaFin ordered online bank N26 to pay 4.25 million euros ($4.98 million) for delayed reports of suspicious activity in 2019 and 2020 in the area of anti-money laundering, Reuters reported. N26 said that the fine was paid in full on July 14, adding all related proceedings have been closed. The bank said the case related to fewer than 50 activity reports, adding that BaFin would make the fine public shortly.
German industrial inspector TÜV Süd was on Tuesday accused of evading its responsibilities over its alleged role in the 2019 deadly collapse of a dam in Brazil, as Brazilian claimants kicked off the first civil lawsuit in Germany over the disaster, Reuters reported. The municipality of Brumadinho and the family of an engineer killed in the accident allege the company negligently certified the Brumadinho dam in southeastern Brazil, although it did not meet international safety standards.
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A leading economist has warned of a “tsunami effect of corporate bankruptcies” when the Irish government rows back on COVID-19 support for businesses, the Independent.ie reported. Chief Economist at the Institute of International and European Affairs Dan O’Brien said pandemic supports have created a situation where bankruptcies have dropped while the economy suffered, but added that this is not sustainable.