Germany will give financial assistance to customers hit by the insolvency of Thomas Cook because the tour operator’s insurance cover has proved insufficient, Reuters reported today. “Damages that are not compensated by other parties will be settled by the federal government,” it said in a statement, confirming a report by broadcaster ARD. Insurer Zurich’s liability is capped at 110 million euros ($121 million) but it has already registered claims worth 250 million and experts estimate total claims will reach 300 million to 500 million euros, ARD said.
Resources Per Country
- Albania
- Austria
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guernsey
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Italy
- Jersey
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
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A Switzerland-based subsidiary of HSBC Holdings PLC on Tuesday admitted helping Americans evade taxes over a decade and agreed to pay $192 million to settle criminal charges, the Wall Street Journal reported. The penalty includes $60 million that represents the value of unpaid taxes resulting from HSBC Private Bank’s role in the conspiracy, U.S. authorities said. The total fine also includes $71.8 million in revenue that must be forfeited, stemming from fees earned from handling the undeclared accounts, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
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Debt ratings agency Moody’s has lowered its outlook on the Irish banking system to stable from positive as lenders’ profits are set to decline amid ongoing ultra-low central bank interest rates, the Irish Times reported. While Irish lenders’ levels of non-performing loans (NPLs) have come down significantly in recent years, they remain “sizeable”, it said.
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France’s markets watchdog AMF said on Tuesday it had fined U.S bank Morgan Stanley 20 million euros ($22 million) for manipulation of sovereign bonds, Reuters reported. AMF said the fine related to manipulating the price of 14 French government bonds (OAT) and 8 Belgian bonds (OLO) on June 16, 2015, and also of an OAT futures contract. AMF had noted a large sale of government bonds on June 16, 2015 disrupted the French MTS Global Market bond trading system, causing transactions to be suspended for four minutes and liquidity levels to drop for about an hour.
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Cboe Global Markets said today that it would take full control of EuroCCP, Europe’s largest clearing house for stock trades, to bolster its post-Brexit base in Amsterdam and diversify into derivatives, Reuters reported. It is the latest deal in a rapidly consolidating market where the Swiss Exchange has bid for its Madrid counterpart and the London Stock Exchange (LSE.L) is buying financial market data company Refinitiv. Cboe, the biggest pan-European share trading platform, already owns 20 percent of EuroCCP.
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About 47,000 firms across the UK financial sector will be subject to tough accountability rules designed to clean up the City of London’s reputation after a string of scandals, the Irish Times reported. The Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR), which holds financial companies’ top brass liable for failings on their watch, is being extended to the rest of the sector, three years after its initial rollout for banks and insurers.
The International Monetary Fund gave tentative approval to a $5.5 billion lending program for Ukraine, after months of prodding Ukraine’s new president to clean up corruption and straighten out the banking sector, the Wall Street Journal reported. A new lending program for Ukraine would be a signal for investors who have worried about Ukraine’s direction under its new president, a former television actor with scant political experience who was elected in April on an anticorruption platform.
A stalemate between the U.S. and other members of the World Trade Organization, including the European Union and China, stands to cripple the organization’s top court, threatening the global body’s survival, the Wall Street Journal reported. On Wednesday the court, called the Appellate Body, will no longer have enough judges to rule on big trade disputes between countries. At stake are international rules negotiated over five decades by the U.S. and Europe to boost global trade.
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The owners of Fishshack and Ouzos restaurants will sell some of its properties as part of a rescue deal, the Irish Times reported. The chain’s owner, PBR Restaurants, sought High Court protection from its creditors in August after running into financial difficulty. PBR owed €700,000 to suppliers and other unsecured creditors. As part of a rescued deal that the court approved on Monday, the company will sell restaurants in Blackrock and Dalkey in Dublin and focus on the Fishshack business.The plan also involves a new investor providing cash for the chain.
The two-year recession in German industry is showing few signs of ending after orders in the country’s manufacturing sector fell more than expected in October with a further shrinkage expected in November, the Financial Times reported. Provisional figures published on Thursday showed that new manufacturing orders fell by 0.4 per cent in October, compared with the previous month, according to the Federal Statistics Office. Economists polled by Reuters had expected an increase of 0.3 per cent.