Austria became the first European country to use a new law to share losses of a failed bank with senior creditors as it slashed the value of debt owed by Heta Asset Resolution AG, Bloomberg News reported. The Austrian banking regulator cut Heta’s senior liabilities by 54 percent and extended the maturities of all eligible debt to Dec. 31, 2023, it said in a statement published on its website on Sunday, to help cover an 8 billion-euro ($9.1 billion) hole in Heta’s balance sheet.

Italy’s bank chiefs gathered in Rome this week to discuss what could be done to solve the industry’s woes. So far, they have announced precisely nothing. The silence reflects a stalemate that can’t be broken unless there is a major, but unlikely, shift from Italy’s banks or the European authorities, the Irish Times reported. At the root of the problem are Italian lenders’ €360 billion of non-performing loans.

Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jan Mladek offered last week that current owners sell 100 percent stake in the operating unit OKD of troubled miner New World Resources as well as most of the group's debt but majority owners and creditors rejected to name a price for the assets, Mladek said on Twitter, Reuters reported. The miner and its main creditors and owners, acting together under the name of Ad Hoc Group (AHG), have been seeking some form of government aid for NWR to avoid insolvency of the firm employing 13,000 people.

Romanian prospecting company Prospectiuni Bucuresti, controlled by local investor Ovidiu Tender, has entered insolvency, Romania Insider reported. The Bucharest Court approved the company’s insolvency request and appointed local firm Euro Insol as judicial administrator. Euro Insol, founded by Romanian lawyer Remus Borza, is also the legal administrator of state-owned power producer Hidroelectrica. It also manages other big insolvent companies in Romania, such as energy equipment producers UCM Resita, Uztel Ploiesti, and Vulcan Bucuresti. Vulcan is also controlled by Ovidiu Tender.

The debate over Britain’s exit from the European Union, so far, has focused largely on the economic impact on the U.K. itself. That reflects not only the fact that it is British voters who will decide whether the U.K. remains a member of the European Union in the June 23 referendum but also an assumption that it is the U.K. that has most to gain or lose, The Wall Street Journal reported. The impact of Brexit is already being felt. As the polls have narrowed in recent weeks, sterling has weakened relative to the dollar, reflecting market concerns that investment and trade will suffer.

The Swiss commodities and mining company Glencore said on Wednesday that it had agreed to sell a 40 percent stake in its agriculture business to Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for $2.5 billion in cash. The deal is the latest move by Glencore to reduce its debt by selling assets. The company’s stock has been under pressure in recent months as analysts and investors have expressed concern about the company’s debt load and about weakness in commodities pricing.

Even though new insolvency administration legislature has been introduced, there's "a lot to be done" in order to avert its shortcomings, Zlata Elksniņa-Zaščirinska, head of the Foreign Investors Council in Latvia (FICIL), told Latvian Television Wednesday. The FICIL on Wednesday published an insolvency abuse report saying that even though legislature has been pushed through compliant to the requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the overall situation in insolvency administration has not improved.

China is cutting back on mining machinery as its economy slips. The United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries are no longer awash in oil money, putting luxury car brands at risk. Russia, still facing Western sanctions, cannot buy as much high-tech energy equipment, the International New York Times reported. The downshift in the emerging markets is leaving Germany vulnerable — and, by extension, Europe.

Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned Tuesday, becoming the first major casualty of renewed global scrutiny into offshore accounts sparked by millions of documents allegedly leaked from a Panamanian law firm, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Gunnlaugsson left office amid growing popular uproar in his small island nation over his not disclosing links to an offshore company in a Caribbean tax haven. After a meeting with Mr.

The Bank of England will look again at how much capital it requires banks to hold as insurance against swings in the economic cycle after the vote on Britain’s membership of the EU, the Financial Times reported. The decision is the latest sign of authorities’ nervousness about the financial stability risks posed by the vote. In March, the BoE said it was preparing to flood the market with money around the June 23 poll to protect British banks from any chance they could run out of funds.