The Dutch government plans tax cuts and extra investment next year, setting aside some of its usual fiscal prudence in a response to the threat of a regional economic slowdown, the Financial Times reported. Wopke Hoekstra, the Netherlands’ finance minister, announced €3bn of tax cuts for households and outlined plans for an investment fund as part of annual budget proposals. However, cuts in corporate tax rates will be halted. Mr Hoekstra said the plans were designed to protect the country’s “robust” economic growth.

The European Central Bank's chief supervisor expressed concern on Tuesday that European banks were not taking full advantage of favourable markets to issue more debt, especially the type that can be used to soak up losses, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Speaking at the Analysis forum in Milan, Andrea Enria warned that banks may be caught unprepared when the ECB starts unwinding its ultra-loose monetary policy. "Market conditions are now very favourable ... banks are not paying sufficient attention to this," Enria said.

The French government is hoping for improved offers for insolvent airline Aigle Azur and that any offer from Air France will save as many Aigle Azur jobs as possible, junior transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said on Tuesday, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "I am hoping that the offers will be improved," Djebbari told FranceInfo radio. Privately held Aigle Azur was put under bankruptcy protection on Sept.

The contentious debate over whether or not to use fiscal stimulus to bolster the eurozone’s growth usually ends in a stalemate between hawkish northern countries inclined to prudence and those like Italy which want to loosen the public purse strings, the Financial Times reported. But this time, the doves seem to be in the ascendant. Even in Germany “the debate has shifted a bit”, according to Isabel Schnabel, an economics professor and member of the German Council of Economic Experts.

UBS Group AG could face a lawsuit from bond investors over its role arranging a 2017 sale of Swiss franc-denominated debt for retailer Folli Follie Group that has since defaulted, Bloomberg News reported. Alcimos, a services company, has hired law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to pursue a potential compensation case in Swiss courts on behalf of investors. Folli Follie has been struggling to survive since a short seller questioned the accuracy of its financial statements last year, triggering a bond and share price collapse.

Businessman Dermot Desmond has moved to formally wind up his QED Equity financial business, which provided advice to international banks, The Irish Times reported. Restructuring expert Declan de Lacy, a partner in PKF O’Connor, Leddy & Holmes accountants, has been appointed as liquidator of QED Equity in a solvent liquidation initiated by the company’s shareholders, which include an Isle of Man entity controlled by Mr Desmond. The directors of QED Equity include Mr Desmond and also Michael Walsh, who was formerly chairman of Irish Nationwide Building Society.

Thomas Cook Group Plc has filed for Chapter 15 court protection in the U.S. as part of a broader debt restructuring for the U.K. travel agent, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s Chapter 15 petition was filed in the Southern District of New York, court papers dated Sept. 16 show. Law firm Latham & Watkins is representing the company, according to the documents. Chapter 15 of U.S. bankruptcy law shields foreign companies from lawsuits by U.S. creditors while they reorganize in another country. The filing may also trigger the payout of default insurance on Thomas Cook debt.

Some of the UK’s largest banks are in a stand-off with the government over whether they should hand over millions of pounds in compensation to the creditors of people who bought payment protection insurance and later went bankrupt, the Financial Times reported. The Official Receiver, part of the government’s Insolvency Service, submitted tens of thousands of complaints about PPI before a deadline for compensation claims last month.

Thomas Cook’s management team is facing a new challenge in its battle to save the 178-year-old travel group: credit default swaps, the Financial Times reported. The UK-based tour operator agreed the main terms of a £900m rescue deal with its biggest shareholders and lenders last month, after failing to adjust to a big shift by customers from the high street to the internet. But now the company is looking to push back a crucial meeting with its bondholders, originally set for Wednesday this week, partly out of fear that a group of hedge funds will block the deal.

Ronan Ryan and his former Miss Ireland wife, Pamela Flood, had never heard of the personal insolvency regime when they both signed a consent agreement to give back their Dublin home to so-called vulture fund Tanager, the High Court heard today, BreakingNews.ie reported. Ryan had appealed against Judge Jacqueline Linnane’s Circuit court order allowing Tanager re-possess 136 Mount Prospect Avenue, Clontarf, even when he had insolvency court protection from every one of his creditors.