Disgruntled investors have filed 51 lawsuits against European Union regulators for shutting Spain’s Banco Popular, marking one of the largest legal challenges yet to the EU and a fresh attack on the bloc’s rules on bank rescues, Reuters reported. The deluge of cases, filed with the European Union’s General Court, are the first legal test of how the EU applies new bank rules aimed at forcing investors to bear the costs of rescuing a failing lender before taxpayer money is used.

The nationalization of Russia's biggest private bank sounds anachronistic: There's no global or regional financial crisis, and the latest World Bank report on the Russian economy described the country's financial sector as "largely stabilized," with about 10 percent non-performing loans, a lower level than in Portugal, Italy or Ireland, a Bloomberg View reported. But the fate of the Otkritie financial group is not really about traditional banking problems. It's about the state's oversized and still growing role in the Russian economy. One could tell Otkritie's story as a purely financial one.

As any builder or keen DIYer will tell you, there is a right time — and a wrong time — to attempt certain jobs. Fixing the roof is best attempted when the sun is shining, as one frequent sporter of the high vis was wont to remind us. Concrete is best mixed and poured in cooler conditions, as this columnist’s predecessor can attest (who knew?). And it seems HSS Hire — equipment supplier of choice to the latter, if not the former — is being reminded of this truism as it attempts to fix its own business model, the Financial Times reported.

German airline Lufthansa aims to take on around a dozen of Air Berlin’s 17 long-haul aircraft and their transatlantic routes in a carve-up of the insolvent carrier, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, filed for bankruptcy protection this month after shareholder Etihad Airways withdrew funding following years of losses, Reuters reported.

The European Central Bank’s supervisory arm has imposed its first fine on a eurozone lender, imposing a €2.5m penalty on Permanent TSB, an Irish bank, for breaching liquidity rules, the Financial Times reported. While small, the fine is significant because it is the first time the Single Supervisory Mechanism has bared its teeth and fined a lender since it began operating in late 2014 as the watchdog of the single currency area’s largest and most important banks.

We are barely a fortnight away from the 10th anniversary of Northern Rock’s dramatic collapse. At the beginning of 2007, the Newcastle-based lender was a darling — loved by investors for its aggressive expansion and by customers for its generous mortgages for 125 per cent of property value. But by mid-September, with funding running out and panicked queues outside branches, it was clear that Britain’s fastest-growing bank had fallen victim to a hubristic faith in the stability of the financial markets, the Financial Times reported.

The buyers of insolvent Air Berlin’s assets will likely be picked by mid-September, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the race for the carrier’s coveted take-off and landing slots in Germany heats up. Suitors have until Sept. 13 to make bids and present their business plans to the airline’s administrator and lenders, two sources told Reuters. A committee of creditors overlooking the liquidation aim to come to an agreement who will buy what shortly thereafter, the sources said, with one of them saying the decision could come as early as Sept. 15, Reuters reported.

As Russia’s second-biggest private bank implodes, its billionaire owners have been conspicuous by their absence, Bloomberg News reported. By leaving Bank Otkritie FC to fend for itself, the four shareholders controlling more than a third of the company -- their combined fortune valued at over $20 billion -- may be giving the authorities little choice but to swoop in with a rescue. Now the central bank could be left holding the bag as it reportedly considers taking control of the troubled lender amid a run on its deposits.

Louisa Bell, a 75-year-old grandmother from one of Newcastle’s poorer areas, is a typical customer of Provident Financial: several thousand pounds in debt, she is confused by recent turmoil at the company and struggling to make ends meet. But since a profit warning from the UK’s biggest subprime lender sent its share price plummeting this week, the tables have turned and it is now the FTSE 100 group itself that faces worries about running out of money, the Financial Times reported. The crisis has been largely self-inflicted.

BHS creditors will receive £30m after Sir Philip Green’s retail empire Arcadia relinquished a claim on the assets of the department store chain whose collapse culminated in thousands of job losses and the billionaire paying £363m to cover the pensions of former workers, the Financial Times reported. The deal with BHS liquidators FRP Advisory ends the prospect of a legal battle surrounding a secured loan that the collapsed chain owed to Sir Phillip’s Arcadia Group, people briefed on the situation said.