Greece’s international creditors narrowed their differences over the economic overhauls that Athens should implement in exchange for fresh loans, paving the way for a new round of negotiations which could lead to a much-anticipated deal on debt relief, The Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s bailout monitors agreed to send their teams back to Athens as soon as Tuesday, in a sign they were moving closer to each other’s positions on the type and scale of budget cuts and economic overhauls that Athens must undertake to meet the targets set out in its rescue program.

Portugal faces potential liabilities of more than €1.5bn after losing a British court battle over derivatives that Lisbon has challenged as “toxic”, the Financial Times reported. State-owned transport companies have for more than two years withheld payments due to Santander on interest-rate swaps described by Portugal as “highly speculative”. But in a case brought by the Spanish bank, the High Court has ruled that English, not Portuguese law should apply to the nine contracts, effectively overturning Portugal’s bid to invalidate them.

Troubled oil and gas explorer Petroceltic on Monday applied for its shares to be temporarily suspended from trading in Dublin and London until the wrangling over its future is resolved, the Irish Times reported. The move follows a petition to appoint an examiner to Petroceltic by dissident shareholder Worldview, which has a 29 per cent stake in the explorer. Worldview on Friday brought the High Court petition aimed at securing court protection for Petroceltic, which owes about $230 million to its banks and is currently unable to make its repayments.

Banks’ demands that small business owners personally guarantee their companies’ loans are hindering the supply of credit, a survey published today says, the Irish Times reported. The Irish Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (Isme) association’s quarterly Bank Watch Survey shows that 43 per cent of businesses that sought credit during the first three months of the year were refused. The number is lower than in the previous quarter, when the banks refused close to half the small businesses that applied to them for loans.

The Bank of England is preparing to protect British banks from running out of funds in the event of a Brexit vote by flooding them with a wall of money in the latest sign of the authorities’ nervousness surrounding the EU referendum, the Financial Times reported. The central bank has announced it will give commercial banks three exceptional opportunities just before and after the June 23 poll on Britain’s membership of the EU to borrow as much money as they like to offset any threat of a run on banks and prevent a repeat of the chaos of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008.

For three hours on a recent Thursday, Norway’s state-owned oil-and-gas company Statoil ASA transformed these offshore rigs into a marketing platform for a special guest: the European Union’s energy czar, Maros Sefcovic, The Wall Street Journal reported. Natural-gas fields like Sleipner have helped cook meals and heat homes in Europe for several decades, but their output will gradually fade away. To replace those aging North Sea fields, Norway is considering plowing billions of dollars into similar installations 1,000 miles to the north, in the Barents Sea.

Petroceltic International says it is taking legal advice in relation to a surprise attempt by Worldview Capital, a dissident shareholder with a 29 per cent stake, to appoint an examiner to the exploration company, the Irish Times reported. Worldview on Friday brought a High Court petition aimed at securing court protection for Petroceltic, which owes about $230 million to its banks and is currently unable to make its repayments. Worldview is seeking the appointment of of high-profile Grant Thornton accountant Michael McAteer as an examiner to the exploration company.

Ulster Bank is embarking on a fresh clampdown on businesses seriously behind on loan repayments in a bid to clean up its balance sheet, the Irish Times reported. The Irish lender sold thousands of property bubble-era loans to investors such as US company Cerberus Capital Management in a programme that started in 2013 and ended late last year. Ulster has begun contacting businesses with long-term loan arrears, telling them they should either repay or refinance their debts, or risk having them sold to a third party.

Norwegian shipping firm Bulk Invest said on Thursday it had filed for bankruptcy after failing to win backing for a financial restructuring needed to survive in difficult market conditions, Reuters reported. Spot rates in the dry bulk shipping market are close to all-time-lows and far below breakeven rates after years of lower demand growth and a wave of new dry bulk vessels entering the market. Bulk Invest is the first European dry bulk shipping firm to go bankrupt this year.

Abengoa's majority shareholder is ready to have its stake diluted to around 5 percent in a bid to receive new emergency cash and facilitate a debt restructuring deal, four sources close to the talks between the firm and its creditors said. The sources said creditor banks and bondholders had set two conditions prior to discussing a debt-for-equity swap, a potential haircut and the injection of new liquidity to save the energy firm from becoming Spain's biggest ever bankruptcy.