The deficit at troubled Bus Éireann jumped sharply in the first two months of the year, rising 41 per cent to €2.2 million versus €1.5 million for the same period last year, new accounts show. The accounts reveal total revenues rose 3 per cent from €27.6 million to €28.4 million in the first eight weeks of the year due to a 14 per cent rise in the Public Service Obligation (PSO) subvention grant to €6.6 million, the Irish Times reported. Revenues from operations were flat at €21.7 million, with turnover from the company’s Expressway services down 5 per cent.

The European Central Bank’s recent moves mark the first steps in winding down its aggressive monetary stimulus and the bank could soon take fresh steps toward an exit if economic data remain strong, a top ECB official said. Klaas Knot, who sits on the ECB’s rate-setting committee as governor of the Dutch central bank, said policy makers were increasingly optimistic about the strength of the economic recovery under way in the 19-nation eurozone, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A senior European Central Bank official has raised questions about the institution’s major new powers to regulate banks after its legal independence came in for unprecedented criticism from a global anti-corruption watchdog, the Financial Times reported. Yves Mersch, one of six executive board members, said the ECB’s new role as the eurozone’s banking watchdog should be subject to greater democratic scrutiny but defended its role as part of the “troika” of bailout institutions during the sovereign debt crisis.

Aurelius Equity Opportunities shares plunged for a second day after executive rebuttals of Tuesday’s allegations from short seller Gotham City Research failed to soothe wary investors, Bloomberg News reported. Aurelius tumbled a record 35 percent to 35 euros in Frankfurt trading. The plunge follows a 17 percent decline yesterday after Gotham published a 68-page report questioning the company’s accounting. The stock is worth no more than 8.50 euros, the short seller said yesterday.

One of the big fights in the negotiations over the U.K.’s exit from the European Union will be over money: the EU’s so-called “divorce bill.” The idea of having to pay the EU to leave is controversial in the U.K. after a referendum campaign in which the British contribution to the bloc was an important argument used by campaigners for Brexit, The Wall Street Journal Real Time Brussels blog reported. The Leave campaign claimed erroneously that the U.K. sent the EU £350 million ($435 million) a week, money it suggested could be better used to finance Britain’s state-run health service.

The headlines might have been fixated on the formal start of the UK’s exit from the EU but there was perhaps greater interest among market participants in a media report that claimed the European Central Bank’s policy intentions had been misinterpreted, the Financial Times reported. The report, carried by the Reuters newswire and citing ECB sources, said the central bank was now wary of making further changes to its policy message next month.

Russia won an early verdict in a London lawsuit that may force Ukraine to repay part of a defaulted $3 billion bond, in a dispute that extended the battle over Russia’s annexation of Crimea into a U.K courtroom, Bloomberg News reported. Judge William Blair threw out all of Ukraine’s arguments Wednesday, saying he was at pains to distinguish between the law and the "troubling" political background. He ruled the case shouldn’t go to a full trial but gave Ukraine the right to appeal.

Aurelius Equity Opportunities shares plunged for a second day after executive rebuttals of Tuesday’s allegations from short seller Gotham City Research failed to soothe wary investors, Bloomberg News reported. Aurelius tumbled a record 35 percent to 35 euros in Frankfurt trading. The plunge follows a 17 percent decline yesterday after Gotham published a 68-page report questioning the company’s accounting. The stock is worth no more than 8.50 euros, the short seller said yesterday.

Banks are treading carefully, enacting two-stage contingency plans, to avoid losing nervous London-based staff as they work out how many jobs will have to move to continental Europe as Britain exits the European Union, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. British Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger formal EU divorce proceedings on Wednesday, launching two years of negotiations that will shape the future of Britain and Europe as well as London's place as a global financial centre.

The European Central Bank improperly veered into political activity during the eurozone crisis and should withdraw from the “troika” of international bailout monitors, according to anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. In a review of the central bank’s actions, carried out in co-operation with ECB officials, the report called on the ECB to be placed under greater scrutiny by EU institutions, saying its mandate to ensure price stability in the eurozone had been pushed to “breaking point” in tackling the crisis, the Financial Times reported.