Property developer Seán Dunne would be allowed to “further manipulate assets” and frustrate the efforts of his creditors if he is allowed to withdraw his US bankruptcy case, Ulster Bank has told a US court, the Irish Times reported. Objecting to Mr Dunne’s application to dismiss his case before Connecticut’s bankruptcy court, Ulster Bank, one of the US-based developer’s biggest creditors, said in a new legal filing that the investigation into his finances would be “substantially hampered” if the court granted his motion to dismiss.

The Central Bank of Ireland is considering imposing limits on the income multiples financial institutions here use when giving residential mortgages, the Irish Times reported. It is understood that the regulator will issue a consultation paper this month on the imposition of limits as it seeks to gather views from the banking sector and other interested parties. This move comes as property prices begin to soar again, with Dublin prices up 25 per cent in the year to August.

Banks should consider paying bonuses in the form of debt and giving their creditors a greater voice in boardrooms in an effort to keep risk-taking under control, the International Monetary Fund has said, the Financial Times reported. The findings, which are part of the IMF’s twice yearly Global Financial Stability Report, come after several countries, including the US, the EU and the UK, have passed reforms aimed at reducing the incentives for banks to gamble recklessly in the hope of driving up profits and payouts.

Factories in Britain and Germany suffered a sharp slowdown in September, raising fears that economic recovery is losing momentum against a backdrop of global political turmoil and the flagging eurozone economy, The Guardian reported. In the UK growth in manufacturing activity was the slowest in 17 months as demand for British goods waned at home and abroad. In Germany, long the powerhouse of the eurozone, the sector shrank for the first time in 15 months, hit by Russian sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and general malaise across the economies of the currency bloc.

Finnish nickel miner Talvivaara lacks the long-term financing it needs to avoid bankruptcy, it said on Tuesday after an administrator proposed an eight-year restructuring plan that includes slashing its debts by up to 99 percent, Reuters reported. Talvivaara listed to great fanfare in London in 2007 when nickel peaked at around $51,000 per tonne. But nickel prices have more than halved, and hurt by repeated production disruptions and environmental damage, the company last year suspended its mining operations and started a court-led debt restructuring process to avoid bankruptcy.

The focus of the coming European bank stress test shouldn't be on the number of banks that fail it, but rather the changes that banks have already undertaken to make themselves stronger, said the head of Europe's banking watchdog Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The European Central Bank is considering whether to enact rules that would allow asset-backed securities issued by Greek and Cypriot banks that carry a junk rating to be purchased by the ECB under its new purchase plan, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ECB is due to release full details of its ABS plan, which was first disclosed on Sept. 4 as part of a package of measures aimed at boosting growth and inflation in the eurozone, at its monthly meeting Thursday.

The Royal Bank of Scotland said Tuesday that its outlook continues to improve as the British lender benefits from further declines in charges for bad loans, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The bank, which is 81 percent owned by the British government, said that it expected to “significantly outperform” its prior guidance for the 2014 fiscal year. The bank had expected to record about 1 billion pounds, or about $1.6 billion, in charges for bad loans this year. It did not provide an updated figure.

After a two-week pilots' strike that inconvenienced nearly a million passengers and caused Air France to lose an estimated 280 million euros, the airline was slowly returning to the skies on Monday, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. It was unclear what the pilots had achieved from the strike, other than to delay severely the return to profitability for the French-Dutch parent company, Air France-KLM, and to curb the company’s ambitions for growth in Europe’s fiercely competitive regional market.

FlyRomania (X5, Bucharest Otopeni) has filed for insolvency with a Bucharest court. A filing seen by ch-aviation has now called for all creditors to lodge claims with the airline's interim trustee, Dinu Urse Associates, with the deadline for submissions set for October 30. Doubts about the Ten Airways (X5, Bucharest Baneasa) subsidiary's long-term viability first surfaced in June when poor load-factors forced it to dramatically scale down its flights, just one month after it launched operations.