Investors hope that for policymakers, 2021 will be the year of speaking carefully. Central banks and governments rode to the rescue of markets in 2020, blasting the financial system with cheap cash, liquidity and promises of long-term support on a huge scale, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Fund managers were not always the direct target of that support, of course, but the effect is the same. The global financial system peered over the brink in March, and swiftly retreated.

An easyJet board member has resigned following scrutiny over her role at Wirecard, the collapsed German payments company. Anastassia Lauterbach quit on Monday as a non-executive director of the low-cost carrier with immediate effect after less than two years’ service, the Financial Times reported. Her exit came days after influential shareholder advisory group ISS questioned her place on the board, given that she had been a member of the supervisory board of Wirecard, the scandal-hit German company that filed for insolvency in June after revealing a multiyear frau

Indian stocks fell, taking a sudden plunge about one hour ahead of the close as investors assessed the latest coronavirus outbreaks as well as a new lockdown in the U.K, Bloomberg News reported. The S&P BSE Sensex closed down 3% to 45,553.96, the biggest decline since May, with all stocks in the red. Reliance Industries and utilities were the biggest contributor to the losses with the oil refiner down 2.6%. Meanwhile, a broader gauge of about 200 stocks that includes mid caps tumbled 3.4%, the most since May.

The High Court has made formal orders winding up four companies employing 487 people here that are part of the UK fashion group Arcadia, The Irish Times reported. The companies will continue to trade under the liquidators into the new year pending any disposal of the Arcadia group. Mr Justice Brian O’Moore, when making the winding-up orders on Monday and appointing joint liquidators, said this was “another sad milestone in the decline of bricks and mortar retailing in Ireland”.

Germany has been accused of providing unfair state aid to Europe’s largest railway company Deutsche Bahn in a complaint to the EU Commission, the Financial Times reported. Transport provider FlixMobility has filed the complaint, saying Berlin has delayed a request to Brussels to allow a €5bn capital increase to Deutsche Bahn because of fears it will be rejected for breaking state aid rules.

OneWeb, the satellite internet group recently rescued from bankruptcy, is expecting to clinch a $400m fundraising next month, its executive chairman said as the company marked a return to business with the launch of 36 satellites, the Financial Times reported. Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Indian telecoms tycoon who with the British government has taken control of OneWeb for $1bn, said two satellite operators and a financial group were in late stage discussions about investing. “We are very close . . . maybe a couple of weeks,” Mr Mittal said.

Stephen Bogan, a prestige car dealer, could be forgiven for the confusion. While checking on a loan being used to buy a £41,000 Porsche from his showroom in Airdrie, Scotland, Mr Bogan was alarmed to discover that his company was listed as the buyer…“It was the perfect crime because we would not have been aware until next year when the bank would have started asking us for interest on the loan,” says the car seller, the Financial Times reported. Mr Bogan was the target of fraudsters seeking to exploit weaknesses in the UK government's £43.5bn coronavirus Bounce Back Loans Scheme.

A bill on the resolution of insolvency is now available for public hearings on the Legal Forum of Belarus, BelTA has learned. The bill is designed to encourage commercial entities to voluntarily and timely declare their financial insolvency, BelTa reported. The bill has revised the existing practice of court rulings on insolvency (bankruptcy) cases.

KBC Bank Ireland is set to refund up to €12.9 million of legal fees and interest to borrowers who have been in arrears across 4,500 mortgages, The Irish Times reported. Most would see the balance of their mortgage loan accounts lowered, though a limited number would receive a direct payment. It comes after the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) ruled in November last year that mortgage lenders cannot impose legal fees on customers in arrears if they are co-operating and engaging with their lenders.

Global institutions, creditors and lobby groups are scrambling to come up with ways of tackling what many fear will be a wave of sovereign debt crises in emerging economies in the coming year, the Financial Times reported.