Italian carrier Alitalia is in for some "painful and arduous" restructuring but should see a deal with Etihad Airways in a matter of weeks, the airline's chief executive officer said Monday, Gazzetta del Sud reported. Gabriele Del Torchio said that changes were necessary to attract essential investment from Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, which he said is prepared to invest 560 million euros in the cash-strapped Alitalia.

The court-appointed trustee overseeing the US bankruptcy of property developer Sean Dunne intends to ask the American court’s permission to seek access to family law documents in Ireland, the Irish Times reported. Timothy Miltenberger, lawyer for Mr Dunne’s trustee Rich Coan, told the Connecticut bankruptcy court yesterday that he intended to apply under US bankruptcy law to obtain information about the Co Carlow developer’s finances under confidentiality conditions.

Anglo Irish Bank, the institution that brought Ireland’s financial sector crashing down in 2008, has been “finally consigned to history” as liquidators prepare to sell the last of its assets and repay its outstanding debt, according to the country’s finance minister, the Financial Times reported. Michael Noonan’s comment came as Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency, on Friday raised its long-term rating on Ireland to A minus from BBB plus, citing “brightening prospects” for the Irish economy.

The IBRC liquidation has proved a highly lucrative process for some of the best known financial and law firms in the State, the Irish Times reported. KPMG, the firm overseeing the process, racked up fees of €52 million across its Irish and UK offices but knocked €5 million off the bill at the request of the Government. The firm appears to have accrued a total of 242,000 man hours on the liquidation, which works out at €194 per hour per person. A&L Goodbody, a blue-chip Dublin law firm, was the next best earner.

European Union (EU) Justice Ministers Friday reached a agreement on new rules to deal with cross-border insolvency issue, aiming at helping businesses overcome financial difficulties, Philstar.com reported on a Xinhua story. The new rules will allow the procedure of restructuring a business in a cross-border context to become easier, meaning more businesses will be saved from liquidation.

Deutsche Bank warned investors on Thursday that continuing investigations by financial regulators into potential manipulation of the $5-trillion-a-day currency markets could have a “material” financial effect on the bank, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Investigations begun last year by regulators in Germany, Britain, the United States and elsewhere have not resulted in any criminal charges, but more than two dozen traders have been suspended or terminated as a result of internal inquires at some of the world’s largest banks.

Credit unions could provide billions more in loans to small- and medium-sized businesses if they were allowed to centralise funds within a new structure that was guaranteed by the State, an Oireachtas committee heard this morning, the Irish Times reported. The Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation also heard however that many loan applications received from SMEs by credit unions are “unrealistic” and based on belief that “optimism will triumph over reality”.

Greece’s senior tax collection official left his job on Thursday in a development that prompted the European Commission to express “deep concern”, the Financial Times reported. Haris Theoharis, secretary-general for public revenue, said he was stepping down for “personal reasons”, but made clear he had come under pressure for failing to crack down sufficiently on wealthy tax evaders. “I leave with my head high,” he said, announcing his resignation.

The European Central Bank took extraordinary steps Thursday to stave off the threat of dangerously low inflation in Europe, including cutting a key interest rate below zero for the first time in a bid to get banks to lend more to credit-starved customers, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the bank stopped short of more drastic measures it has considered, such as the kind of asset purchases deployed in recent years in the U.S. and U.K.—both of which are now doing better than the euro zone.

AIB and KBC Bank have agreed a deal with the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (IMHO) which will allow people to be debt free within three months, therefore providing for one of the shortest effective bankruptcy terms in the world, the Irish Times reported. Under the new structure, clients of the IMHO who have an unsustainable mortgage, and who choose to voluntarily surrender their property, will be processed through an accelerated Personal Insolvency Arrangement (PIA) which will include any unsecured debt that might exist. This would include credit card debt.