A court in the Netherlands on Thursday decided that two subsidiaries of debt-laden Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA would not start bankruptcy proceedings, the company said in a securities filing. The filing confirmed a Reuters report that Oi Brasil Holdings Coöperatief UA and Portugal Telecom International Finance BV, would remain operating under "suspension of payments" legal status.

Europe’s biggest banks can be shut down in line with the bloc’s new bank failure rules without losses snowballing and causing wider mayhem, according to a European Central Bank study, Bloomberg News reported. Based on confidential bank-by-bank data, the study shows that resolving any one of the euro area’s 26 largest banks by applying the tools of the new European Union’s new rule set -- imposing losses on shareholders and creditors instead of resorting to state aid -- wouldn’t bring down another lender.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi heaped praise on Germany on Thursday for demonstrating how countries can succeed within the currency union, and urged other eurozone governments to follow Berlin’s example, The Wall Street Journal reported. “When countries do pursue the right policies, the euro is no hindrance to success,” Mr. Draghi said Thursday at an event in Slovenia’s capital city, Ljubljana, to mark the 10th anniversary of that country’s adoption of the euro.

Economists this week have noted that European growth is getting back on track, but that “political risks” could derail that progress over the course of this year, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. Think about that for a minute. The political risk is that voters could turn to fringe euroskeptic parties in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany. Voters don’t often oust their politicians when things are going well in an economy. So either the European Union’s economic performance is overstated, or the political threats it faces are.

Investors are dumping Greek bonds, fearing that Athens will be unable to pay debt that comes due this summer, The Wall Street Journal reported. The selloff comes as the Greek government is again at a standstill in negotiations with its creditors in the eurozone and at the International Monetary Fund. Athens needs to break the deadlock and secure more aid before about €6 billion ($6.5 billion) in debt has to be repaid in July.

The drop in French government bonds has accelerated this morning, pushing the premium investors demand to hold its bonds over Germany’s to the highest in three years, as the favourite for the country’s presidency is hit by a swirl of allegations over payments made to his family, the Financial Times reported.

Italian banks are speeding up the sale of distressed loans backed by real estate, in an effort to mend balance sheets weakened by enormous piles of debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the banks still have a long way to go. For many loans, they are assigning a higher value than what buyers are willing to pay, meaning that the process of unloading bad loans is likely to remain drawn out. Bolstering the outlook are signs that Italy is coming out of a property slump, which would make it easier to sell more distressed loans. Italy is lagging the U.S.

The eurozone economy kept pace with that of the U.S. for the first time since 2008 last year and its jobless rate fell to a seven-year low, putting the currency area on a steadier footing at the start of a year clouded by political uncertainty, The Wall Street Journal reported. A fourth-quarter pickup allowed the eurozone economy to expand by 1.7% compared with 1.6% for the U.S.

Deteriorating credit outlooks for two U.K. retailers serving different ends of the wealth spectrum show that investors may drive a hard bargain when those companies next tap the debt market, Bloomberg News reported. First S&P Global Ratings downgraded value clothing chain Matalan one notch further into high-yield territory to CCC, citing a proposal to buy back some debt in the secondary market. This could amount to a "selective default," if it purchases debt at a market price that’s below par, S&P said.

Fewer French businesses failed last year than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis, the latest sign that the euro area’s second-largest economy is strengthening, a report published Tuesday showed. A total of 57,844 French companies filed for protection for creditors, entered receivership or went bankrupt in 2016, according to Altares, which analysis corporate data, Bloomberg News reported. That’s down 8.3 percent from 2015. The number of jobs threatened by insolvencies fell 15 percent to 200,000.