Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways on Wednesday said it has begun legal proceedings in London, disputing a claim by the administrators of Air Berlin for damages of up to 2 billion euros ($2.26 billion), Reuters reported. State-owned Etihad filed its case in the High Court in London on Wednesday, a company spokesman told Reuters, and believes that the case initiated in December by the German airline in Berlin should be determined by the English court. The insolvency administrator’s lawsuit said that Etihad had not complied with its financial obligations to Air Berlin.

South African retailer International Holdings N.V. said on Tuesday a former partner firm of its European operations claims it is owed about 291 million euros (£256.62 million or $331 million) by the company, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Steinhoff is in the middle of a clean-up of its balance sheet after discovering multi-billion euro holes in its balance sheet more than a year ago. LWS GmbH, a company linked to Austrian businessman Andreas Seifert, claims to be a creditor of Steinhoff Europe AG (SEAG), the parent company said.

Representatives of Greece's bailout creditors are in Athens to review progress on measures demanded in return for relief on the country's massive national debt, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. The inspectors started meetings Tuesday with senior government officials to review issues including delayed privatization projects, a plan to help banks reduce a high amount of non-performing loans, and measures to protect low-income families from property foreclosures.

An indicator assessing the state of the German economy fell to a four-year low, while analysts in January revealed a slightly less negative sentiment for their outlook, according to a key survey. The Zew survey’s assessment of the current economic situation in Germany dropped 17.7 points to 27.6 points, the lowest reading since January 2015, the research group revealed on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported.

Italian banks became more cautious about lending in the last quarter of 2018, tightening credit standards as well as terms and conditions on their loans, according to the European Central Bank’s latest bank lending survey. This is the second successive quarter of tightening in the Italian banking sector, “partly because they are charging higher interest margins on riskier loans”, said Jack Allen, an economist at Capital Economics, the Financial Times reported.

British cafe chain owner Patisserie Holdings Plc on Tuesday appointed audit firm KPMG as administrators after it was unable to renew its bank facilities in the aftermath of an accounting scandal, Reuters reported. The troubled company said it did not have sufficient funding and that its Chairman Luke Johnson extended an unsecured, interest-free loan to ensure that the staff was paid wages for January. Patisserie, which floated four years ago, plunged into turmoil last October after discovering accounting irregularities that led to the suspension of its top management.

Nyrstar, the debt-laden metals and mining group, has announced management changes, appointing an executive chairman and an interim chief financial officer. The Belgian-listed company, which is working on a deal to restructure its debts, said Martyn Konig had agreed to take up the role of executive chairman, while Roman Matej had been appointed CFO, replacing Michel Abaza who has left the group, the Financial Times reported.

Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra lashed out at the European Commission’s truce with Italy over Rome’s spending plans, in comments highlighting continuing discomfort within the euro area about Rome’s budget, Bloomberg News reported. “It’s a missed opportunity to do the right thing for the long run,” Hoekstra said in an interview from Brussels on Monday. He made the comments after a meeting with his counterparts from the currency bloc in which he asked the commission to explain “in writing” how numbers add up in the compromise which was reached last month.

If you’re looking for one of the worst ideas in contemporary banking, look no further than Germany. The mooted merger between Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG would make a mockery of any notion that EU governments are serious about ending the “too big to fail” problem, a Bloomberg View reported. It would also turn back the clock on a guiding principle of European regulation over the past decade: The promotion of a “banking union,” where risks are shared widely across the continent on the basis of jointly decided rules.

The 2007 takeover of the Dutch parts of Yukos Oil by Russian state oil company Rosneft’s former subsidiary Promneftstroy was illegal, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday, upholding an earlier lower appeals court ruling. Yukos Oil went bankrupt in 2006 after its former chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, fell out with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Russian government began demanding billions in back taxes, Reuters reported. Most of Yukos’ assets were absorbed by the Kremlin’s flagship oil producer Rosneft, and its former owners have for years been trying to recover their possessions.