British film and computer game rental chain Blockbuster said it is to close 62 stores and lay off 427 employees and warned its remaining 91 stores and 808 staff could face the same fate, Reuters reported. Private equity firm Gordon Brothers Europe, which purchased Blockbuster for an undisclosed sum in March, put it into administration on Nov. 11, when it was trading from 264 stores, employing 2,000. Administrator Moorfields Corporate Recovery said on Thursday it had not received any acceptable offers for the business.

Bank of Ireland successfully raised €580 million of equity today as part of a deal to repay €1.8 billion of its State bailout, the Irish Times reported. Under its original €4.8 billion bailout back in 2009, Bank of Ireland had been entitled to purchase the 1.8 million preference shares back from the Government at €1 each before March 31st, 2014. After that date, the price would have risen to €1.25 a share, which would increase the total cost to the bank to €2.25 billion. Today’s issuance will redeem €537 million of the Government’s shares.

EU antitrust regulators vowed to keep investigating rate-rigging on Wednesday as they slapped a record 1.7 billion euro (1.4 billion pounds) penalty on six financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, RBS and JPMorgan. The fines by the Commission, which along with authorities around the globe has been examining the manipulation of London interbank offered rate (Libor) and its euro equivalent Euribor, takes the tally of penalties related to the scandal to almost $6 billion (3 billion pounds).

The age of austerity may be nearing an end as governments ease the fiscal cuts that restrained economic recoveries, Bloomberg reported. After three years of slashing budgets bloated by recession and the stimulus deployed to fight it, U.S. and euro-area officials are finding less need to retrench as their previous efforts and improving economic growth help narrow deficits. This will allow them to tighten policy next year by the least since they began in 2011, according to estimates by the International Monetary Fund.

Millions of young workers will be unable to retire until they reach 70 under new government rules, The Telegraph reported. An overhaul of the state retirement system announced on Thursday will mean that people now under 50 will have to work even longer than they had previously thought. George Osborne, the Chancellor, will announce the new rules and argue that they are one of the “difficult decisions” required to put the public finances on a secure footing in the long term.

Changes to legislation reducing the State’s bankruptcy term from 12 years to three were announced today by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, the Irish Times reported. Announcing the package of measures, the Minister said they “complete the reform of our personal insolvency and bankruptcy legislation”. Mr Shatter said the measures “will address the circumstances of insolvent debtors”. “Critically, there will now be automatic discharge from bankruptcy after three years from the date of adjudication – a significant reduction from the current 12 years,” he said.

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska's Central European Aluminum Company (CEAC) is suing Montenegro for 100 million euros ($140 million) over the failure of its aluminum plant there, Reuters reported. A statement issued in Cyprus, where the Russian company has its headquarters, CEAC said the case will heard in Vienna. The statement said Montenegro violated a 2010 settlement agreement, leading to the plant going bankrupt. In a separate statement, Montenegro's government denied any wrongdoing.

Ukrainian bond yields soared and the price of insuring against a default on government debt surged yesterday as tens of thousands of demonstrators continued to protest in the country’s biggest political crisis in nearly a decade, the Financial Times reported. Extended political uncertainty, with disruption to government work and the threat of strikes, could damage Ukraine’s already fragile economy and public finances, analysts warned, increasing the risks of a currency crisis.

Pietro Fattorini, owner of a marble company in the eastern Italian region of Marche, recently filed for bankruptcy protection. But it isn't for lack of demand. The 23-year-old company he founded has plenty of orders from overseas clients, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Fattorini's problem is much closer to home. His longtime bank, Banca Marche, lost more than €750 million ($1.01 billion) in 2012 and the first half of this year. As a result, the bank cut his credit lines last year, choking off the funds he needs to survive.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and two other banks rejected a European Union deal to end an antitrust probe into the rigging of Euribor lending rates, risking higher fines and challenging the future of the EU’s settlement process, Bloomberg reported. The EU is seeking to announce two sets of settlements as soon as today with banks accused of colluding to rig the London interbank offered rate and Euribor, according to a person familiar with the EU’s probe who asked not to be identified because the process is private.