A debt-ridden independent oil explorer has pulled its shares from London’s junior AIM market after restructuring talks with its lender fell apart, The Telegraph reported. Trinidad-focused Trinity Exploration suspended its shares this morning after Citibank called in repayments on its $13m debt pile. The bank had offered the embattled explorer numerous waivers while negotiating a wider financial restructuring of the business, but has now scrapped the repayment moratorium and frozen the explorer’s accounts.

The slowdown in world trade has been much worse than previously reported, with global trade volumes plateauing over the past 18 months amid a rise in protectionism, according to a new report, the Financial Times reported. The analysis illustrates why business leaders such as GE’s Jeff Immelt are anxious about trade and the world economy as politicians such as US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rail against “globalism” and promise to erect new barriers to commerce. Policymakers and economists have grown increasingly concerned about a slowdown in global trade growth.

When it comes to bond yields in Europe, it seems there is no such thing as too low. Germany on Wednesday became the first country in the eurozone to sell 10-year debt with a negative yield at an auction, effectively ensuring that investors lose money over the life of the bond, the International New York Times reported. It is the latest twist in the upside-down world of bonds, in which global investors are increasingly willing to pay governments for the privilege of holding their debt.

Just under €180 million was spent in costs on the liquidation of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation from February 2013 up to the end of last year, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has confirmed, the Irish Times reported. The Minister told Mr Doherty it was not possible to quantify the final costs of the liquidation at this time due to the amount of work that remains outstanding.

The pension deficit of UK companies grew by £89bn in just one month, hitting a record level following Britain’s vote to leave the EU, the Financial Times reported. Figures from the Pension Protection Fund showed the total private sector pension shortfall rose to £383.6bn at the end of June, from £294bn a month earlier, as financial markets reacted to the Brexit vote. The plunge in equities, sterling and bond yields put more strain on schemes that are already under pressure from a prolonged period of low interest rates.

Angela Merkel dismissed concerns of an escalating crisis surrounding Italian banks and expressed confidence that talks between Rome and Brussels allowing a rescue of struggling financial institutions could be “resolved well”, giving a boost to Italian banking shares, the Financial Times reported.

The private sector in Spain is set to shoulder most of the burden as the government moves to bring its wayward deficit into line, after the economy minister unveiled plans to raise an extra €6bn in corporate taxes next year, the Financial Times reported. Madrid is under intense pressure to find new ways to cut its yawning budget shortfall after EU finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to formally open sanctions procedures against Spain and Portugal.

Brexit could push Northern Ireland into recession given it’s relaince on the UK, an economist has said, the Irish Times reported. Business activity increased in Northern Ireland in the weeks before the EU referendum. The Ulster Bank purchasing managers’ index said June was the 14th month in a row in which companies recorded an increase in new orders. The latest report signalled that growth was maintained at the end of the second quarter, with sharper expansions of output, new orders and employment recorded.

As Irish shares threaten to enter a bear market for the first time since 2011, the outlook may Britain’s vote to leave the European Union could complicate the European Central Bank’s efforts to bolster the eurozone’s economy and drive up ultralow inflation, a top ECB official warned. The Brexit vote “certainly doesn’t help,” Ardo Hansson, the governor of Estonia’s central bank, said in an interview Friday with The Wall Street Journal in his office in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. “It’s one more factor creating uncertainty,” given that the U.K.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed on Monday (Jul 11) to officially declare Spain and Portugal in breach of the EU public spending rules, a key step to possibly imposing unprecedented penalties against members of the currency bloc, Channel News Asia reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The ministers took the rare step despite fears that too much austerity by Brussels will further stoke anti-EU populism after the Brexit vote.