The number of individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) – an alternative to bankruptcy – are on the rise, Insolvency Service data shows, Peer2Peer Finance News reported. The Insolvency Service said the number of company and individual insolvencies remained low in November 2020, in part due to government emergency support and payment breaks during the pandemic. However, on a rolling three-month basis, IVAs are up three per cent to 7,057 as of November 2020 compared with the same period last year.

Italy is working to extend by 12 months a state guarantee scheme designed to help banks shed problem loans, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, as the industry braces for a surge in pandemic-driven defaults, Reuters reported. Authorities are focusing on how best to help banks deal with the fallout from the coronavirus crisis, once governments unwind extraordinary measures they deployed to support businesses.

Shareholders of baking goods maker Aryzta have elected a chairman who has previously spoken out against a takeover, after a deadline on an 800 million Swiss franc ($902.53 million) approach from Elliott Advisors expired last week, Reuters reported. Urs Jordi was elected as chairman of the struggling company, which produces McDonald’s burger buns, at its remotely held annual general meeting. Jordi has said now is not the time for Aryzta to consider selling up, instead favouring a restructuring of the company, whereas some previous board members favoured a takeover.

The Swiss economy will shrink this quarter and recover less quickly than previously expected in 2021 as renewed restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19 in Europe and elsewhere weigh on global momentum, Bloomberg News reported. Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs sees gross domestic product expanding 3.2% next year, slower than the 4.2% previously forecast.

An EY anti-fraud team warned in 2018 that “red-flag indicators” at Wirecard pointed to potential accounting manipulation and required further investigation, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. Just weeks later, the separate EY team in charge of Wirecard’s annual audit decided against investigating the matter further and subsequently issued an unqualified audit, the Financial Times reported. Wirecard, a once high-flying German payments group, this summer collapsed into insolvency in one of Europe’s biggest postwar accounting frauds.

Germany is heading for a double-dip recession this winter after Berlin imposed a hard lockdown, economists have predicted, denting hopes that Europe’s largest economy will rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the start of 2022, the Financial Times reported. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government announced at the weekend that schools and most shops would be closed from Wednesday until January 10 in an effort to contain a surge in coronavirus infections. “Germany must brace itself for a second recession,” said Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank.

The world’s policy makers must act urgently if they are to head off a looming solvency crisis that could cripple economies after the pandemic, according to a report led by two top former central bankers, Bloomberg News reported. Mario Draghi, previously president of the European Central Bank, and Raghuram Rajan, the ex-governor of the Reserve Bank of India, headed a Group of 30 study that looked at the response to the crisis.

Struggling Finnish retailer Stockmann plans to sell and lease back its flagship department store properties located in Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga in order to save itself from bankruptcy, it said on Monday, Reuters reported. In April, Stockmann filed for corporate restructuring, a form of administration in which a court appointee is charged with restructuring the company to avoid bankruptcy.

The parties in Germany’s ruling coalition have agreed to extend a freeze on insolvency rules put in place to avoid a wave of corporate bankruptcies due to the coronavirus crisis, officials said on Monday, Reuters reported. In March, the government offered respite to companies that find themselves in financial trouble due to the pandemic by allowing them to delay filing for bankruptcy until the end of September. The coalition parties later agreed to extend the insolvency waiver until the end of this year for indebted but still solvent companies.

Germany has promised to investigate after the head of the body that regulates auditors told lawmakers he had traded in Wirecard shares weeks before the payment services company collapsed amid massive fraud allegations, Reuters reported. As head of audit regulator APAS, Ralf Bose was responsible for regulating EY, which audited Wirecard’s accounts for years until the company collapsed following the discovery of a 1.9 billion euro ($2.3 billion) hole in its accounts.