Athens’ hope that it could alleviate a mounting cash crisis by seeking the return of €1.2bn in disputed funds from its bank rescue were dashed when the government was informed it had no legal claim on the money, the Financial Times reported. The funds were part of an original €48.2bn in bonds injected by eurozone creditors into a fund to recapitalise Greece’s stricken banks in 2012. Some €10.9bn was left unused, of which €1.2bn was in cash.

With the fight to keep Greece in the euro now in its sixth year, everyone is running out of patience. More importantly, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government in Athens is running out of money, Bloomberg News reported. While bond yields suggest investors expect Greece to stay in the euro, economists such as UniCredit Bank AG’s Erik Nielsen say it may be just a matter of time before he’s forced to print a new currency. Adopting the euro was always supposed to be a one-way ticket, so there is no legal precedent or political roadmap for an exit.

The Hypo Alpe Adria saga ripples on. It claimed its first victim last week, the tiny mortgage lender Duesseldorfer Hypothekenbank, Forbes reported. A number of German banks and insurance companies have admitted that they stand to lose significant amounts on Heta bonds: most recently, the German insurer Talanx said that losses on Heta holdings estimated to be “in the high tens of millions” would cost it “less than 10m EUR”, and the Landesbank Helaba confirmed exposure of 85m EUR, writedown of which would cost an estimated 25m EUR. Both of these estimates look too low to me.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has decided to cease regulating solicitors who act as insolvency practitioners despite opposition from the profession, Accountancy Age reported. A consultation was held on SRA regulation of solicitor insolvency practitioners in November last year in which IPs were opposed to the plans. There are currently 129 solicitors operating as insolvency practitioners.

The European Central Bank has instructed Greece’s biggest banks to refrain from increasing their exposure to Greek government debt, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move raises pressure on the cash-strapped government in Athens to find an agreement with its international creditors to unlock billions of euros in bailout funds. The new restriction from the ECB’s bank supervisors, which was approved by the central bank’s governing council, was conveyed to the Greek banks in a letter on Tuesday.

Europe's banks are likely to sell a record 100 billion euros (73 billion pounds) of loans this year that are no longer part of their main businesses, according to consultants PwC, chipping away at a pile of 1.9 trillion euros of unwanted assets, Reuters reported. European banks last year sold 91 billion euros of so-called 'non-core' loans, and that number is likely to rise by another 10 percent this year, PwC said in a report released on Tuesday.

Austria's application of new European Union rules in its handling of failed bank Hypo Alpe Adria was justified, the bloc's financial services chief Jonathan Hill said on Tuesday. Hypo Alpe Adria, now defunct, was nationalised in 2009 and has already cost Austrian taxpayers about 5.5 billion euros ($6 billion), with the bailout triggering new banking legislation and a complex web of litigation.

It does not get much simpler than this: the Greek government is rapidly running out of money and the EU authorities who could provide the cash to bail them out are refusing to do so, the Financial Times reported. That is at the heart of the two-month stand-off between Athens and its eurozone creditors, and the main complaint contained in a five-page letter sent a week ago by Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, to his German counterpart, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who he was due to meet in Berlin on Monday evening.

The European Central Bank will purchase large amounts of public and private debt for at least 18 months and until it is convinced that inflation will stabilize near annual rates of 2%, the bank’s president Mario Draghi said on Monday, underscoring the ECB’s willingness to flood the eurozone with freshly minted money far into the future, The Wall Street Journal reported. In testimony to European parliament, Mr. Draghi also urged Greece to commit to fully honoring its debt obligations.

Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has obtained €9.3 million judgment orders on consent at the Commercial Court against Galway businessmen Tom and John Nestor. The bank also secured orders allowing it to enforce the judgment across the EU, the Irish Times reported. The orders, granted to the bank’s counsel Kelly Smith by Mr Justice Brian Cregan, arises from various facilities advanced by the bank in 2012. Judgment was granted jointly and severally against Tom Nestor, Averard East, Taylor’s Hill, Galway and John Nestor, Gleann na Trá, Sandy Road, Galway.