Britain’s biggest labour union on Monday called for a criminal investigation into key individuals involved in the collapse of construction and outsourcing company Carillion. Carillion, which provided services in defence, education, health and transport, collapsed in January, becoming the largest construction bankruptcy in British history, Reuters reported. It left creditors and the firm’s pensioners facing steep losses and put thousands of jobs at risk. The Unite union launched legal action against Carillion in July on behalf of workers who were made redundant.

Europe’s biggest debt collector says an increase in volumes in Sweden and Norway could be an early indication that households are starting to struggle paying off their consumer loans after debt burdens swelled to records, Bloomberg News reported. Volumes under Intrum AB’s existing credit-management services contracts in the two countries, in which it collects money from non-paying clients of financial institutions, grew by more than 15 percent in the first half of the year.

Second-round bids put in by Russia's VTB Group-backed Numetal Ltd, ArcelorMittal and Vedanta will be opened on Monday, people with direct knowledge of the development said. The Resolution Professional, overseeing the auction of Essar Steel to recover over Rs 49,000 crore of unpaid loans, sent emails to all the three bidders to be present on Monday for the opening of the second round of bids, they said. This follows an NCLAT judgement last week on the eligibility of bids.

Deutsche Bank is set to lose as much as €200m in revenue a year unless chief executive Christian Sewing can reverse a recent surge in funding costs, the Financial Times reported. Executives have made reducing the cost of issuing debt a top priority after a chastening summer for the German lender, people familiar with their thinking said. The push comes after its credit rating was downgraded, its shares continued to tumble and the price of insuring its debt doubled on fears of contagion from political crises in Italy and Turkey.

As a growing number of emerging markets teeter on the brink of crisis, we’re hearing more and more about “original sin.” No, this isn’t about Adam and Eve’s transgressions. The concept, coined by economists Barry Eichengreen and Ricardo Hausmann, refers to the inability of most nations — and their corporations — to borrow abroad in their own currency, a Bloomberg View reported. Instead, they necessarily borrow in other currencies. Turkey, for example, has accumulated significant debts denominated in dollars.

Brussels said it has received assurances from the Italian government that it will work to bring down the country’s high level of public debt, in the latest step by Rome to ease EU concerns about its spending plans, the Financial Times reported.

Germany’s trade surplus narrowed in July to its smallest level in more than four years, as exports slipped while imports jumped during a period of escalating trade tensions that has seen the EU targeted by US tariffs. The data from the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis), which showed the foreign trade balance dropped by €3.2bn to a €15.8bn surplus in calendar and seasonally-adjusted terms, is the latest indication of weakness in the export-driven economy of the eurozone’s powerhouse, the Financial Times reported. Germany has not run a smaller surplus since March 2014.

U.K. retailer Debenhams Plc, which has issued three profit warnings this year, recruited restructuring experts from KPMG LLP as an insurance provider again raised the cost to cover suppliers’ shipments to the company, British newspapers reported. The KPMG team has been instructed to draw up an emergency turnaround plan, including the possible filing of a company voluntary arrangement, a form of bankruptcy protection, the Sunday Telegraph reported, without saying where it got the information, Bloomberg News reported.

In 2013, Slovenia rescued its failing banks by wiping out stock investors and holders of about 600 million euros ($700 million) of debt. Now some of those investors want their money back, Bloomberg News reported. While their appeals have had limited success so far, a shake-up at the central bank and a ruling from the nation’s Constitutional Court suggest the matter is far from closed. The investors are pushing for a law that would enable them to recoup losses, while putting the tiny Balkan state on a collision course with the European Union and European Central Bank.

The UK insolvency service is investigating scandal-hit public relations firm Bell Pottinger, including its influential co-founder Lord Tim Bell, for work in South Africa that led to the company’s collapse last year, the Financial Times reported. According to letters seen by the Financial Times, two senior partners have been told the UK government agency is examining potential “breaches of duties or other misconduct” relating to their controversial work for the Gupta family’s Oakbay investment vehicle.