Google moved €10.7 billion through the Netherlands to Bermuda in 2014, as part of a structure which allows it to earn most of its foreign income tax free, the Irish Times reported. Accounts for Google Netherlands Holdings published on Thursday show the unit transferred almost all its revenue, mainly royalties from an Irish affiliate through which most non-US. revenue is channelled, to a Bermuda-based, Irish-registered affiliate called Google Ireland Holdings. The tax strategy is known to accountants as the “double Irish, Dutch Sandwich’.

Moody’s has given troubled Spanish renewable energy group Abengoa a small but much needed vote of confidence at a crucial stage in its fight for survival, saying its underlying operating business is still “viable” although the ratings agency also acknowledges that the company could still end up insolvent, fastFT reported. Abengoa spelled out earlier this week that it needs €826m of cash this year to stay on its feet, plus a further €304m in 2017. These sums don’t include contributions from sales of assets.

The new insolvency law, which entered into force in mid-2014, has reduced the number of businesses that entered insolvency, Romania-Insider reported. Just over 9,100 companies became insolvent last year, compared to over 19,000 in 2014, and 23,000 in 2013. In the first half of 2014, when the old insolvency law still applied, over 17,000 companies entered insolvency. The number dropped to 2,200 insolvency procedures in the second part of 2014 after the new law was introduced, reports local Profit.ro. The law limits the possibility to declare insolvency under any conditions.

The European Central Bank is expected to take further action to stimulate the eurozone economy at its next meeting in March, The Guardian reported. Minutes of the ECB governing council’s last get-together show that without an improvement in the outlook for growth for the rest of the year and 2017, policymakers are ready to cut credit costs further to boost bank lending. A risk that emerging market growth prospects will slow further and volatile markets refuse to recover from their recent lows will send already low inflation across the eurozone tumbling again, it said.

Rabobank, the Dutch co-operative banking group which operates in Ireland, reported a 20 per cent rise in 2015 net profit on Thursday to €2.21 billion in a rebounding Dutch economy, the Irish Times reported. The dominating factor was a fall in loan provisions of more than €1 billion, to €343 million, though Rabobank said that low level would probably not be maintained in 2016. Rabobank in December announced plans to shed 9,000 jobs, a fifth of its workforce, and sell as much as €150 billion worth of assets on its balance sheet by 2020 to make itself more resilient to financial shocks.

Concerns about the financial health of the commodities company Glencore have receded after its banks queued up to take part in a multi-billion-dollar debt restructuring, The Guardian reported. Glencore said its 37 main lenders offered up to $8.4bn (£5.9bn) of loans, some $3bn more than they had previously made available to the company. The offering was scaled back to $7.7bn and the refinancing process will be opened up to a further 30 banks in the second quarter of the year, potentially taking the total above $8bn.

More than one-third of oil and natural-gas producers around the world are at risk of declaring bankruptcy this year, according to a new report from Deloitte, The Wall Street Journal MoneyBeat blog reported. Oil prices have plunged from more than $100 a barrel in mid-2014 to about $30 a barrel today. Yet just 35 so-called exploration and production companies filed for bankruptcy between July 2014 and the end of last year, Deloitte says. Most producers managed to stay afloat by raising cash through capital markets, asset sales and spending cuts. Those options are running out.

Indebted Spanish energy group Abengoa needs 826 million euros ($922 million) of fresh cash to make it until the end of the year and a further 304 million euros in 2017, the company said. The engineering and renewable energy company could become the country's biggest-ever bankruptcy if it fails to agree on a wide-ranging debt restructuring with creditor banks and bondholders by March 28, Reuters reported.

The head of Russia's ailing state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) could be replaced soon by a senior banker from Sberbank, four sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday. Three of the sources said the decision to replace VEB's Vladimir Dmitriev with Sberbank Deputy Chairman Sergei Gorkov could be announced as soon as Thursday. Government officials have been discussing for months how to rescue VEB, which finds itself saddled with toxic assets totalling over $12.6 billion and is at risk of failing to meet its debt repayments.

Two brothers have brought a legal action to stop a company that acquired their multi-million euro property investment loans from Ulster Bank from enforcing repayment by selling off their secured assets, the Irish Times reported. Anthony and Gregory Alken, who owned and operated the Febvre wine importing business until they lost control in 2014, got loans from Ulster Bank totalling around €21 million.