Greece’s conservative government has drafted a bill which overhauls its insolvency code, seeking to help over-indebted households and businesses make a fresh start after a crippling decade-long debt crisis, Reuters reported. More than 1 million individuals and 300,000 businesses owe money to banks and the state, legacy of a decade-long financial crisis that shrank the country’s economy by a quarter.

Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc’s biggest-ever loss presents Chief Executive Officer Warren East with some difficult choices to fortify the British manufacturer against the damage done by the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The shares fell as much as 10% after the jet engine-maker said Thursday that it’s planning to raise at least 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) from disposals and is considering other options to raise cash.

Germany extended another crisis tool to prevent corporate bankruptcies, a move that critics say will store up bigger problems later for Europe’s largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. The longer suspension on insolvency filings has raised alarm bells that it’s masking a growing credit risk that could explode into a wave of bankruptcies when the moratorium ends. It may also be creating a cohort of zombie companies that hold back investment and innovation and act as a drain on the economy.

British doorstep lender Provident Financial (PFG.L) sank to a first-half loss and suspended dividend payments, as it put aside 240 million pounds ($316 million) for an expected surge in bad loans in the coronavirus-driven economic slump, Reuters reported. However, shares in the company - already down about 50% this year - jumped as much as 14% as some analysts said the numbers were better than feared and hailed what they described as prudent planning.

Croydon council has become the first to seek emergency financial assistance from the government in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown, ahead of what is expected to be a flurry of local authorities requesting bailouts, the Financial Times reoprted. The UK’s cash-strapped local authorities are among the most stretched in Europe, according to a new report by Moody's Investors Service, leaving them vulnerable to the economic contraction caused by the pandemic.

Norway’s gross domestic product contracted in the second quarter at the fastest pace ever recorded as efforts to contain the coronavirus plunged the economy into a deep recession, data from the national statistics office (SSB) showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The mainland economy, which excludes oil and gas production, shrank by 6.3% in the April-June period from the preceding three months, lagging a forecast of minus 6.1% in a Reuters poll of economists. “The decline in the Norwegian economy in the second quarter was the deepest ever recorded,” SSB said in a statement.

The German economy contracted by a record 9.7% in the second quarter as consumer spending, company investments and exports all collapsed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the statistics office said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The economic slump was much stronger than during the financial crisis more than a decade ago, and it represented the sharpest decline since Germany began to record quarterly GDP calculations in 1970, the office said.

The collapsed payments company Wirecard has let go more than half of its remaining staff in Germany and terminated the contracts of its management board members, its insolvency administrator said, Reuters reported. News of the layoffs came as Wirecard’s demise amid an accounting scandal entered a new phase, with the official opening of insolvency proceedings on Tuesday. Michael Jaffe, the insolvency administrator, said “far-reaching” cuts were needed to keep Wirecard’s core business operational.

European investor and asset manager Arrow Global on Tuesday posted a loss for the first half of the year, mainly due to a non-cash charge of 133.6 million pounds as it revalued its balance sheet in the face of the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reported. The company, which buys defaulted customer accounts from retail banks and credit card companies, posted an after-tax loss of 110.4 million pounds ($144.51 million) for the six months ended June 30, compared with a profit of 24.3 million pounds a year earlier.

Standard Chartered is suing South Africa’s Land Bank to recover debts, Land Bank said on Tuesday, after the state-owned agricultural lender defaulted on repayments for debt worth 50 billion rand (2.26 billion pounds) in April, Reuters reported. South Africa’s Treasury said in June it would inject 3 billion rand into The Land and Agricultural Bank of South Africa, the country’s largest agricultural focused-lender, which had been in talks with creditors on a restructuring plan following the default.