Shareholders in Steinhoff on Wednesday sued Deloitte for damages in a Dutch court, accusing the auditor of failures in the accounting scandal that brought the South Africa-based global retailer to the brink of collapse, the Financial Times reported. VEB, the Dutch investor rights group, said it brought the lawsuit in the Rotterdam district court as Deloitte had “seriously failed in its statutory task as auditor” by giving an unqualified audit to Steinhoff before the owner of the UK’s Poundland and Mattress Firm in the US revealed a black hole of more than €5bn in its accounts.

A major global central bank is set to wind up its massive bond-buying program. The last time that happened—the Federal Reserve’s 2013 taper—global markets convulsed for months, The Wall Street Journal reported. This time, in the case of the European Central Bank, markets are digesting the news just fine—for now. But the backdrop implies a tricky road ahead. ECB president Mario Draghi is expected to signal further trims to the central bank’s bond-buying program as soon as Thursday. His job of communicating the withdrawal of stimulus comes at a delicate moment.

As minister for financial services and insurance, Michael D’Arcy has been responsible for leading Ireland’s fintech charge for the past twelve months and two weeks, the Financial Times reported. “Not once” has he been asked about the financial crisis that pushed the country’s biggest banks, and the country itself, into a bailout less than a decade ago.

A partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), who audited the accounts of collapsed department store chain BHS, has been fined 500,000 pounds ($668,000) and banned from audit work for 15 years and PwC has been fined 10 million pounds after a two-year inquiry in which they admitted misconduct, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said on Tuesday. The fines would be reduced by 35 percent to 6.5 million pounds for the auditing firm and 325,000 pounds for Steve Denison for agreeing to an early settlement, the FRC said.

The gyrations in the Italian government bond market have revealed how Europe’s liquidity-starved sovereign debt markets are being heavily tested by even short bouts of political instability, the Financial Times reported. The rapid rise and fall in yields in the eurozone’s largest debt market in recent weeks has been exacerbated by thin sovereign debt liquidity.

Bowing to pressure from the European Central Bank and the European Union, Bulgaria will seek to join the bloc’s banking union and the precursor for euro-area membership simultaneously within the next year, its finance minister said. The government in the EU’s poorest member appeared to yield to recommendations from the European Central Bank and the European Commission, which have said Sofia needs to improve governance, the economy and banks, Bloomberg News reported. Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov had insisted earlier this month on joining the bank union only after accession to ERM-2.

Shareholders in Steinhoff on Wednesday sued Deloitte for damages in a Dutch court, accusing the auditor of failures in the accounting scandal that brought the South Africa-based global retailer to the brink of collapse, the Financial Times reported. VEB, the Dutch investor rights group, said it brought the lawsuit in the Rotterdam district court as Deloitte had “seriously failed in its statutory task as auditor” by giving an unqualified audit to Steinhoff before the owner of the UK’s Poundland and Mattress Firm in the US revealed a black hole of more than €5bn in its accounts.

Europe needs to create the conditions for banking consolidation before the continent can form true European banking champions, Deutsche Bank's chief said on Tuesday. Christian Sewing, the new CEO of Germany's largest bank, said that the German and European markets were too fragmented, with disparate rules on insolvency, consumer protection, and mortgage securities, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "We don't have a single market," Sewing told politicians in Berlin.

At least 42 Irish construction companies have gone into liquidation or examinership since the start of this year, prompting a trade body to warn parliamentarians of an insolvency crisis that could hit public projects, Global Construction Review reported. The Construction Industry Federation, and other sources blamed the crisis on the price inflexibility of government contracts colliding with rising costs. Industry figures claim this collision has depressed profit margins to well below the European average.

British discount retailer Poundworld has gone into administration, putting 5,100 jobs at risk and becoming the latest victim of brutal trading conditions in the UK retail sector, Reuters reported. Business services firm Deloitte said on Monday it had been appointed as Poundworld’s administrator. Private equity group TPG Capital, Poundworld’s majority owner, put the discount retailer up for sale last month but has failed to find a buyer.