When Credit Suisse Group AG announced a $4.7 billion hit from the Archegos Capital Management meltdown, there was a silver lining: The rest of its investment bank did so well in the quarter, the overall pretax loss would only be $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The situation exposes the bank’s dilemma. Its investment bank, which takes on more risk, has been its profit engine, making up for its larger, slower-growing wealth-management business.

A significant part of the French aluminum businesses belonging to embattled British metals mogul Sanjeev Gupta has sought protection from creditors, the company said on Sunday, Bloomberg News reported. Alvance Aluminium Group entered voluntarily into “conciliation proceedings” supervised by a court-appointed agent for its three downstream businesses, its spokesman said in a statement. The mediator will try to stave off insolvency by working out arrangements between the French units and their creditor, a process that could last as long as 10 months.

The head of Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA questioned Credit Suisse over risks in its dealings with now-insolvent finance firm Greensill Capital “months” before the bank was forced to close $10 billion of funds liked to Greensill, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported Sunday, according to Reuters.

Auditors and finance chiefs of some of Germany’s biggest businesses are worried that a new regulatory proposal intended to improve audit quality in the wake of the Wirecard AG scandal will lead to higher costs and less competition, the Wall Street Journal reported. German lawmakers currently are debating draft legislation for the so-called Act to Strengthen Financial Market Integrity. The law is expected to pass over the next few months, ahead of the country’s national elections in the fall.

Bond sales by two of Europe’s most indebted nations have been inundated by demand as an economic recovery begins to lift yields from historically low levels, Bloomberg News reported. Italy received more than 64 billion euros ($76 billion) of bids for its first new 50-year bond in almost five years via banks on Wednesday. That’s more than three times the previous record. The nation is also selling debt maturing in 2028. Meanwhile, Portugal is bringing to market a 10-year security, racking up more than 30 billion euros of orders from investors.

Credit Suisse Group AG’s double-barreled financial crisis shares a common theme: a bank that looked the other way when warning signs argued for pulling back on lucrative corners of its business, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Swiss bank with a big Wall Street presence was caught off guard starting in late February when $10 billion in complicated investment funds it ran with financing firm Greensill Capital unraveled, despite years of internal warnings about the relationship.

A German lawyer handling the insolvency of Greensill Capital’s bank unit won a request to freeze the collapsed lender’s Australian assets, as part of an effort to cooperate with counterparts to recover as much as possible for the supply-chain finance firm’s creditors. Michael Frege had submitted an application to the Federal Court of Australia on March 31 asking for the court to hand over insolvency proceedings on the business to the German unit, where the entity has its “main interest,” according to court documents.

Russia is looking at introducing measures to cool a rally in steel prices to the highest in more than a decade and support the construction industry, Bloomberg News reported. One option may include a mechanism that could be used to tax sales over a certain price to provide funds to aid the construction sector, according to two people familiar with government discussions. Such a move has been proposed by the Industry Ministry.

Two former Societe Generale SA bankers are challenging Swiss fines issued for failing to report suspicious deposits worth more than $700 million made by a one-time ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bloomberg News reported. The former head of SocGen’s Swiss private bank and the ex-head of compliance, who can only be named as L. and K. under Swiss reporting restrictions, are appealing fines totaling 90,000 swiss francs ($96,000) at a trial starting Wednesday in Bellinzona.