Brussels has admitted that its contentious budget rules for member states need an overhaul, with even EU finance ministries struggling to understand how to comply, the Financial Times reported. The rules are part of a “stability and growth pact” supposed to set limits on eurozone member states’ debt burden and budget deficits. But the European Commission on Wednesday acknowledged that the metrics used in its calculations were hard to quantify and open to dispute.

The Finnish government will on Thursday give the green light for Terrafame to start mining and refining uranium at an existing mine in eastern Finland, a government source told Reuters on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The permit will allow Terrafame, which is majority state-owned, to become the first miner to extract uranium on a commercial scale in Finland. Terrafame took over the nickel mine, previously known as Talvivaara, in the Kainuu region back in 2015, after environmental hurdles had led it to file for bankruptcy.

Germany’s government has proposed a clampdown on anti-competitive behaviour by digital platforms, putting Berlin in the vanguard of European efforts to regulate companies including Google and Amazon, the Financial Times reported. The draft “digital law” will strengthen the intervention powers of Germany’s competition watchdog, the Federal Cartel Office. Peter Altmaier, the economy minister, said the measures would “toughen control of abusive practices for big market-dominating digital companies”.

Dublin-based Depfa Bank’s weakness as a “structurally lossmaking” business has been highlighted by two debt-ratings firms as the German government pursues a second attempt to sell the company, The Irish Times reported. “Given that Depfa’s recurring revenue is insufficient to cover its cost base, we believe that – without outside assistance – Depfa has limited scope to engineer a sustainable turnaround and will therefore likely remain lossmaking in the medium to long term, although there may be potential to reduce losses,” Moody’s said in a note published last week.

Developer Sean Dunne’s latest court filing is “a baseless ploy” aimed at sinking settlement of his long-running US bankruptcy case, and he should be sanctioned for it, his bankruptcy trustee says in court papers filed Monday, The Irish Times reported. “Your client is intentionally interfering with the trustee’s attempt to liquidate his judgment, which is based on your client’s actual fraud,” wrote trustee attorney Timothy Miltenberger in an angry letter to Mr Dunne’s lawyer, Luke McGrath. The letter was included as an attachment to the trustee’s motion to intervene in the case.

The European Commission has been forced to grin and bear it for years as member states hurl bricks at its benighted fiscal rules. This week the commission finally has an opportunity to give its own take on the regime it oversees, the Financial Times reported. The occasion is the publication of a review of the so-called Two Pack and Six Pack reforms — legislation that was pushed through during the euro crisis notionally to make the regime more economically coherent. The review will not offer a sparkling verdict.

The French government is set to block the sale of its British Steel factory to Jingye, throwing doubts on the rescue of the failed UK manufacturer. In October, Chinese conglomerate Jingye agreed to buy British Steel in a £50m rescue deal, saving 5,000 jobs and promising £1.2bn investment, the Financial Times reported. For the takeover of all of British Steel’s assets to go ahead, Jingye needs approval from authorities in Paris as the steelmaker’s plant in Hayange, northern France, is deemed a strategic industrial asset.

French retail group Fnac Darty is being sued for £115m by the liquidator to Comet, the UK electrical chain it used to own. Fnac Darty sold Comet for £2 a year before it collapsed but received £115m as part of a controversial financing agreement with the new owners, the Financial Times reported. The failure of Comet in 2012 left UK taxpayers footing a £44m bill and more than 6,000 staff losing their jobs.

Leoni AG, a 450-year-old company that traces its roots to precious-metal threads for embroidery, is seeking salvation through an unusual modern financing tool, Bloomberg News reported. The worst performing stock among major companies in Germany in the last year, Leoni is considering an audacious refinancing package, in part by preparing to sell about 200 million euros ($220 million) worth of receivables. It’s a transaction known as factoring that would let it pay back a 170-million-euro Schuldschein, or promissory note, due in March.

Seán Dunne is seeking a US injunction against his son to prevent him from accessing €14 million the bankrupt developer believes is to be used to help settle the legal liabilities of Mr Dunne’s former wife, Gayle Killilea, The Irish Times reported. Mr Dunne’s lawyer, Luke McGrath, asked a New York court late on Thursday for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction preventing his son John Dunne from accessing funds realised from the 2013 sale of Walford, once Ireland’s most expensive home, to settle the legal case.