Jittery businessmen in Catalonia, spooked by signs the recent tumult over the region's latest bid to secede from Spain is hurting the local economy, have put their investment plans on ice as they brace for the Catalan parliamentary election on Thursday, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Catalan retail sales and tourist arrivals are falling and unemployment is edging higher, recent figures show.

One of the world's most famous hat makers, Borsalino, whose stylish fedoras and straw panamas are popular with movie stars and celebrities, faces liquidation after a rescue plan was rejected by an Italian court on Monday, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A judge in the northern town of Alessandria, where the luxury hat maker was founded 160 years ago, refused a request for court protection from creditors, who are owed some 18 million euros ($21 million), a local trade union leader told Reuters. "It's dramatic if a solution is not found.

British bank Barclays Plc has submitted an alternative proposal to restructure Seadrill, the oil rig company said in a U.S. court filing. Seadrill, which filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in a U.S. court on Sept. 12, has already received two restructuring proposals, Reuters reported. The Norwegian company, once the largest drilling rig operator by market value, filed for bankruptcy protection after being hit hard by oil company investment cutbacks following the fall in oil prices.

Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister, warned against efforts to tighten eurozone banking rules as he fended off criticism that the centre-left government had mishandled the country’s financial difficulties, the Financial Times reported. Speaking at a testy parliamentary hearing on Monday, Mr Padoan said Italy had benefited from “flexibility” in the EU banking regime that had allowed Rome to plough billions of euros into the rescue of its ailing banks, including Monte dei Paschi di Siena as well as two regional banks in Veneto.

The City of London likes nothing better than a dust-up between two alpha male financiers over large sums of money. Hence the excitement that surrounds the ugly stand-off between Guy Hands and Spencer Haber, whose US hedge fund is a big investor in one of the British private equity veteran’s most troubled punts. Last week, after months of macho posturing about the ownership of some disputed assets, Mr Hands finally backed away from a showdown with Mr Haber’s H/2 fund over the future of Four Seasons, one of Britain’s largest nursing home groups.

Ever since the financial crisis, the European Union has grappled with how to solve the so-called sovereign bank doom loop -- the phenomenon whereby weak banks can destabilize governments that support them and over-indebted governments can push banks holding their bonds over the precipice. The widely touted solution is the European Banking Union, which the European Commission wants completed by 2018, a Bloomberg View reported.

Ryanair may bid for assets of Niki, Europe’s biggest budget carrier said on Friday, as administrators scramble to find a buyer for the insolvent Austrian airline before it loses its valuable runway slots, Reuters reported. Niki, a unit of Air Berlin, filed for insolvency on Wednesday after Germany’s Lufthansa scrapped plans to buy its business, grounding the airline’s fleet and stranding thousands of passengers. “Ryanair confirmed today ...

The financial industries of Sweden and Denmark were quick to criticize the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s completed framework on Thursday, arguing it will hit Scandinavian lenders too hard, Bloomberg News reported. “The Basel standards will, if they are fully implemented in the EU and Sweden, have large negative effects for Swedish banks, their clients and the Swedish economy,” Hans Lindberg, the head of the Swedish Bankers’ Association, said in a statement on Thursday.

With the eurozone economy on a tear, European leaders have voiced renewed ambition for reforms to reinforce the foundations of monetary union, the Financial Times reported. The rationale is clear: to give the eurozone’s governance more legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens; and to make the bloc better equipped to withstand adversity next time a crisis hits. But there is no consensus on what reforms should look like. All attempts to articulate a plan run up against fundamental political differences that have dogged the single currency since its inception.

Year-end demand by European banks for dollar funding has been flagged as one reason for the euro’s weakness in recent days, the Financial Times reported. The euro has fallen from a high of $1.1960 on November 27 to $1.1785 yesterday — a fall of 1.5 per cent. The dip has pushed the year-to-date advance to 12.2 per cent, according to Reuters data. Ulrich Leuchtmann, strategist at Commerzbank, chalks up at least part of the fall to a disruption in the interbank currency lending market — a familiar annual pattern that has occurred over the past few years.