French President Francois Hollande received approval from the country’s constitutional court to proceed with his plan to tax salaries above 1 million euros at 75 percent for this year and next, Bloomberg News reported. Under Hollande’s proposal, companies will have to pay a 50 percent duty on wages above 1 million euros ($1.4 million). In combination with other taxes and social charges, the rate will amount to 75 percent of salaries above the threshold, the court wrote in a decision published today.

The U.K. government is considering rule changes that would make it easier for new banks and alternative finance providers to provide funding to small and medium-sized companies, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The proposed regulations would help new entrants to the funding market check the creditworthiness of smaller companies, the Treasury said on Dec. 24. Interested parties have been asked to submit their views during a consultation period that runs until Feb. 17, with the government aiming to submit legislation in the next session of Parliament.

The number of Irish people adjudicated bankrupts in Ireland and the UK almost doubled this year, the Independent reported today. The number of insolvencies are expected to surge this year despite the introduction of personal insolvency laws that allow borrowers to have debts written down subject to strict income guidelines. A total of 157 Irish citizens were bankrupted in Britain this year compared to 106 last year, an increase of 48 percent.

Russia has made its first payment of $3 billion for Ukraine's newly issued eurobonds, as part of Moscow's bailout package for its struggling neighbor, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday, Interfax reported yesterday. The payment was first announced by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on Monday. Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych last month unexpectedly refused to sign a landmark association agreement with the European Union that would have removed significant trade barriers.

Segro Plc. announced that on Monday that it completed the disposal of the Neckermann site in Frankfurt for 46 million euros, RTTNews.com reported on Tuesday. In July, Segro had said that it exchanged contracts for the Neckermann site sale in Frankfurt for 46.0 million euros in cash to a consortium of private investors. The site was a 309,000 sq m bespoke office and distribution facility formerly occupied by Neckermann, the mail order company, which filed for insolvency in July 2012 and fully vacated the site in January 2013.

Reports of suspected market manipulation soared by 43 percent this year as the U.K. financial regulator investigated the rigging of multiple benchmark rates, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) received 117 reports of suspected “distortion and manipulation” of markets in the 12 months to August, compared with 82 in 2012, according to Bovill Ltd, a financial services consultant in London.

UniCredit SpA said today that it has reached an agreement to sell almost €1 billion ($1.37 billion) in nonperforming loans to Cerberus European Investment LLC, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Italian bank said that the sale was part of its continuing effort to bolster its credit profile by disposing of noncore assets and that it expected to close the deal by February 28. The sale relates to consumer and personal loans with a total gross value of €950 million. The Italian bank said it had a coverage ratio for eventual potential losses on the loans of more than 90 percent.

Central bankers from around the world will meet next month to discuss whether to scale back their plans for a debt limit that banks say will force them to rein in lending, Bloomberg News reported today. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said that central bank and regulatory chiefs will meet in Basel in January “to come to an agreement, an international agreement, on the definition” of the debt-limit rule, known as a leverage ratio. The meeting will take place on Jan. 12.

Portugal's Constitutional Court on Thursday struck down planned cuts in retirement benefits for public employees, its fifth ruling this year against government measures to satisfy international bailout lenders and regain full access to financial markets, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The court's repeated rebuffs have become the biggest obstacle to government efforts to narrow a budget deficit and prove to creditors and investors that its accounts are sustainable.

The Government has explored pooling loss-making tracker mortgages in state-guaranteed asset-backed security structures “for repurchase with various counterparties”, the IMF said in its final review under the bailout, issued yesterday, the Irish Times reported. The review calls for greater progress in addressing problems in the banking sector, particularly in relation to mortgage arrears and new lending. “Banks . . . need to rebuild their profitability, although in the context of low ECB policy rates, they face challenges from the structure of their assets,” the IMF said.