A High Court judge has directed Gayle Dunne, wife of property developer Seán Dunne, must hand over certain documents related to alleged transfers by her husband to her of assets valued at about €100 million. The documents include Ms Dunne’s tax returns from 2005-2014, insofar as they relate to those assets. Chris Lehane, the official administering Mr Dunne’s Irish bankruptcy, sought the documents for his proceedings against Ms Dunne, disputing two alleged asset transfer agreements between Mr Dunne and his wife in 2005 and 2008.

Administrators for failed Icelandic bank Kaupthing are looking to sell off British high street retailers including Coast, Oasis and Warehouse which employ thousands of people, four sources familiar with the matter said. The bank was nationalised during Iceland's 2008-2011 financial crisis, with its domestic operations spun into a new bank known as Arion Banki, while all non-Icelandic assets remained with the now defunct Kaupthing. Kaupthing acquired the brands in 2009 from Mosaic Fashions, which went into administration after shareholder Baugur collapsed in the wake of the crisis.

Up to eight of Italy’s troubled banks risk failing if prime minister Matteo Renzi loses a constitutional referendum next weekend and ensuing market turbulence deters investors from recapitalising them, officials and senior bankers say, the Irish Times reported. Mr Renzi, who says he will quit if he loses the referendum, had championed a market solution to solve the problems of Italy’s €4 trillion banking system and avoid a vote-losing “resolution” of Italian banks under new EU rules.

Governments need to get over the fixation with debt levels and ramp up spending on growth-friendly policies while cutting tax burdens where possible, the OECD said on Thursday, the Irish Times reported. The message in the OECD’s Economic Outlook to be published on Monday could offer support to a growing number of governments, starting with the upcoming Donald Trump-led US administration, looking to fire up growth with tax cuts. However, OECD chief economist Catherine Mann insisted that it was a not call for blind deficit spending and across the board corporate tax cuts.

Financial stability risk is rising in the euro zone and concerns may re-emerge about some countries’ ability to sustain their debt, potentially raising pressure on weak sovereigns, the European Central Bank has said. In an unusually downbeat message, the ECB warned that global political shifts, including the new US administration, may trigger sudden asset price volatility and flow reversals, compounding existing vulnerabilities to rising interest rates and yields.

British workers are facing the longest period of wage stagnation in at least 70 years as faster inflation and lower productivity eat into pay packets, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said, Bloomberg News reported. Real earnings in 2021 are on course to be below their level in the 2008 financial crisis, the London-based research group said. It said Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts published Wednesday suggest real earnings will be 3.7 percent lower by 2021 than estimated in March.

Small companies in Europe will find it easier to bounce back under new rules proposed by the European Commission as it takes the first step toward harmonizing the bloc’s disparate insolvency framework to boost entrepreneurship and growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The plan, launched by the European Union’s executive arm Tuesday, stipulates that small businesses are given greater legal flexibility to restructure rather than go bust when struggling—similar to U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws.

The European Central Bank began buying billions of euros worth of corporate bonds earlier this year in a high-profile experiment aimed at spurring private investment. So far, the spending hasn’t materialized, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since June, the ECB has bought €44.3 billion (around $46.9 billion) in corporate debt. Borrowing costs have tumbled, and debt issuance is up. But the very reason the ECB started buying the bonds—a weak economy—is crimping the program’s success. The ECB buys bonds to stimulate tame growth with corporate spending.

The liquidator of Rush Credit Union is expected to market its loan book for sale this week after the High Court ordered the winding up of the community lender in north Co Dublin, the Irish Times reported. McStay Luby will seek to find a buyer for the loan book, which is understood to have a face value of about €9 million and comprises about 1,500 loans. The liquidators will also seek to sell the credit union’s offices in the villages of Rush and Lusk. These were valued last year at €900,000.

Britain has cut its stake in Lloyds Banking Group to just below 8 per cent in a renewed attempt to return the lender to full private ownership over the next year, the Irish Times reported. Lloyds said in a statement on Tuesday the government had reduced its stake in the bank by about 1 percentage point to 7.99 per cent. UK Financial Investments Limited, which manages the government’s stake in the bailed-out bank, last month resumed share sales that were shelved almost a year ago because of market turbulence.