Poland will increase its budget gap for this year by nearly half, the government said yesterday, acknowledging the severity of the current slowdown in the economy so far among the most resilient to Europe's financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said that the government would increase its budget deficit by some 1 percent of gross domestic product, an equivalent of some $15.6 billion. The increase will be a strongly stimulating impulse "that will help the economy get back on track in coming years," Rostowski said.

Terry J. Farr, a former broker who was charged on Monday as part of an investigation into manipulation of global benchmark interest rates, was “a minnow in a very large pond,” his lawyer said yesterday, the New York Times DealBook blog reported yesterday. Katie Wheatley, a partner at the law firm Bindmans, which represents Farr, said that it was “regrettable” that the Serious Fraud Office had decided to charge Farr in the continuing investigation into the rigging of the London interbank offered rate (Libor).

Portugal’s ruling coalition and main opposition party will attempt this week to hammer out a “national salvation” pact aimed at overcoming a political crisis that could bring down the government and derail the country’s €78bn bailout programme, the Financial Times reported. In response to a call from President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, the three parties have set themselves a deadline of July 21 for reaching an agreement that will commit future governments to the tough fiscal discipline required to keep the programme on track.

The financial crisis was brutal on Europe, but its bankers didn't do too badly, The Wall Street Journal reported. The European Banking Authority published data Monday showing that 3,175 European finance-sector workers each earned at least €1 million ($1.3 million) in 2011, the vast majority of them based in the U.K. Although the total amount paid out was lower than in 2010 and doesn't reach the levels seen in the U.S, the report shows how European banks kept handing out generous paychecks even as the euro-zone crisis flared up and the EU introduced more stringent rules on pay.

A company said to have “crucial” documents relating to contract for difference positions built up by businessman Seán Quinn in Anglo Irish Bank is to provide those documents to Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, the Irish Times reported. The special liquidators of IBRC had sought the documents from Gortmullan Holdings for its defence of the Commercial Court action brought by Patricia Quinn and her five children, alleging they are not liable for some €2.34 billion loans made by Anglo after September 2007 to various Quinn companies.

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading nations plan to launch a new phase of the international crackdown on corporate tax avoidance this week even as UK business leaders are warning their government to resist “radical new solutions” to profit shifting by multinationals, the Financial Times reported. Britain has taken a lead in pressing for reform of the international tax rules after a wave of public anger over the low tax bills paid by some large multinationals.

A leading shareholder of insolvent German home improvement retailer Praktiker is considering buying out banks in a move to save the company, Germany's leading tabloid newspaper reported on Saturday. "An insolvency is not the end. Together with other investors we are considering buying the loans held by banks," Isabella de Krassny told Bild. She and her husband Alain de Krassny together own about 15 percent of Germany's No. 3 DIY chain, according to Thomson Reuters data. Praktiker could return to profitability if costs were cut substantially, de Krassny told the paper.

The average asking price for residential property in the U.K. rose to a fresh all-time high in the early weeks of July, with further price increases expected in the coming year, fueling concerns that the government's Help to Buy program could be creating a fresh housing market bubble, The Wall Street Journal reported. Alongside robust housing data, a separate survey Monday showed that small and medium-size U.K. businesses were increasingly upbeat about their prospects in the second half of the year.

The number of companies close to insolvency dropped sharply in the second quarter, underpinning hopes of a sustainable recovery in the UK’s economy, the Financial Times reported. This is the third quarter in a row that the number of companies on the verge of insolvency has fallen, according to Begbies Traynor, the restructuring specialists whose red flag alert monitors early signs of distress in small and medium-sized companies across the UK. The number of companies showing critical signs of financial distress fell 39 per cent from June 2012 to June this year, Begbies said.

Indebted Spanish media company Promotora de Informaciones SA has weighed filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., according to several people familiar with the matter, the latest indication of the troubled financial state of Spain's largest media company, The Wall Street Journal reported. The possible move by Prisa, as the company is known, comes as it seeks to refinance about $3 billion of debt, the people said. The discussions of different restructuring options are still fluid and nothing has yet been decided, they added.