France and the European Union are close to a deal on a bailout for Air France, which like other carriers has been hammered by the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday, Reuters reported. “We are nearing a deal...It is a matter days,” Le Maire said, adding there could be concessions to ensure fair competition. “It’s not about closing lines or cutting jobs. Concessions are being asked to ensure fair competition between Air France and other carriers,” Le Maire said without providing further details.
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Three months after Britain exited the EU, London on Friday reached a cooperation agreement on financial services with Brussels but despite this first step rivalries between the two sides remain, AFP reported. The memorandum of understanding, which is still to be signed, will "create the framework for voluntary regulatory cooperation" and establish a regulatory forum which will "serve as a platform to facilitate dialogue on financial services issues", Britain's finance ministry said.
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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.
Tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel UK plans to restart steelmaking next week and continues to seek new funding after its main financial backer Greensill Capital went into insolvency, it said on Monday, Reuters reported. Gupta’s conglomerate GFG Alliance said earlier this month it was in talks with administrators of Greensill over a standstill agreement. On Monday GFG said those negotiations were ongoing and also said that Liberty Steel was still seeking support from the UK government.
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British ministers have rejected a request from mining magnate Sanjeev Gupta for a 170 million pound ($234.36 million) emergency loan to prevent his group, GFG Alliance, from collapsing, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. GFG, a holding company for Gupta’s assets, was the biggest recipient of financing from Greensill, a British financing company, which filed for insolvency earlier in March. The British government wrote back to Gupta formally rejecting the request last week due to multiple concerns.
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Airbus SE said its core banks have stepped in to provide vital financing to suppliers following the collapse of Greensill Capital, Bloomberg News reported. Lenders including Societe Generale SA are ensuring that prompt payments continue after the insolvency of the London-based firm, which Airbus says had acted as a broker for short term supply-chain financing. “This platform is now up and running and no suppliers have been disrupted,” Justin Dubon, a spokesman for the planemaker, said on Thursday.
High Street photographic equipment chain Jessops has filed a notice to appoint administrators, BBC.com reported. The camera retailer, which employs 120 staff and has 17 stores, is owned by Dragons' Den star Peter Jones. Jessops said it had hired advisors FRP to help it restructure the business, severely impacted by the pandemic. The notice of intent provides the business with protection for 10 days from existing or pending creditor claims. The retailer said it planned to continue to trade when lockdown restrictions lift in April.
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Germany’s Finance Ministry gave explicit backing in 2019 to financial regulator BaFin’s controversial approach to fraud accusations at Wirecard AG, raising questions about its role in one of the biggest corporate scandals in recent history, Bloomberg News reported. In a March 2019 phone call, Deputy Finance Minister Joerg Kukies gave the head of BaFin, Felix Hufeld, broad support for his efforts to investigate the allegations, according to briefing documents for a parliamentary hearing on Wirecard seen by Bloomberg.
The European Central Bank cut interest rates to below zero years ago to reignite the continent’s frail economy in the midst of a sovereign-debt crisis. The negative rates helped everyone get cheap financing, from governments to small companies. It gave an incentive to households to borrow and spend. And it broke the basic rule of credit, allowing banks to owe money to borrowers, the Wall Street Journal reported. After the ECB cut interest rates to below zero in 2014, economies in the eurozone improved and expectations were that rates would rise in a few years.
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On the first day of a two-day hearing at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), a Mastercard lawyer said that common law did not assume that interest would accrue on a compound basis on such claims, Reuters reported. “The law is not the same as economic theory,” he said. “In most cases, simple interest is going to be perfectly adequate as a means of compensation.” Former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks, who is leading the claim, alleges that Mastercard overcharged almost 60 million people in Britain - including about 14 million people now deceased - over nearly 16 years.
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