McInerney Homes, and a sister Company, McInerney Contracting, has been placed in receivership after the Supreme Court rejected the appeal to a previous High Court decision, InsolvencyJournal.ie reported. The High Court had previously refused to approve a proposed rescue plan, which the Court believed was unfairly skewed against the bank. McInerney Homes was placed into examinership and under High Court protection from their creditors last September. A syndicate of three banks, Anglo Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, and KBC, are owed €113m by the Company.

Standard & Poor's said Thursday that as many as 15 Danish banks could default due to loans made to the property and agricultural sectors from 2005 to 2007, hitting the country's ailing banking sector with another potential blow. "Denmark's banking crisis is not yet over," the credit rating institute said, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Read more. (Subscription required.)

A lackluster Italian government-bond auction on Thursday underscored persistent concerns of a new escalation in the European sovereign-debt crisis as borrowing costs spiral higher, The Wall Street Journal reported. Italian funding costs soared when the country sold €7.97 billion ($11.45 billion) in bonds, near the maximum amount targeted, as bond investors kept up the pressure on the highly indebted country. The yield on the 2021 Italian government bond, or BTP, surged to 5.77% from 4.94% at the previous auction June 28.

Portugal's five-week-old government took its first major proposal for labor reform to Parliament on Thursday, seeking approval for a reduction in compensation entitlements for laid-off workers, the Associated Press reported. The proposal is part of a long list of measures Portugal pledged to adopt in return for a euro78 billion ($112 billion) bailout that spared it from bankruptcy and was part of European efforts to contain the continent's debt crisis.

Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov is working on a plan for Saab to pay back a loan from the European Investment Bank, the lender which he says has vetoed his proposal to buy into the ailing carmaker, Reuters reported. Antonov has been waiting in the wings to take a stake in Swedish Automobile , the listed entity that owns Saab, but his spokesman said on Thursday that the EIB had decided not to approve the Russian as a shareholder. "We are working on a way to be rid of the EIB loan," Lars Carlstrom said.

More European companies are warning that the business outlook is worsening amid growing economic head winds, underscoring how the sovereign-debt crisis and slowing world demand are hitting Europe Inc.'s bottom line, The Wall Street Journal reported. German industrial giant Siemens AG, after a reporting a sharp decline in net profit in its most recent quarter, Thursday warned that the economic upswing in general was losing momentum, echoing a message from the world's biggest chemicals company, BASF SE.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) set aside almost €1.5 billion last year to cover further write-downs on €71 billion of loans it had acquired from five banks, according to its annual report published today, the Irish Times reported. The agency made an operating profit of €305 million for the year, but impairment losses were €1.485 billion for the 12-month period. In the first quarter of 2011, Nama made an operating profit of €91 million.

Britain's Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed an appeal by units of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon, a win for investors in a high-stakes legal dispute involving complex derivatives transactions that has divided courts on both sides of the Atlantic, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The U.K.'s Supreme Court, the nation's highest, unanimously ruled in favor of investors represented by Australia's Belmont Park Investments PTY Ltd.

Superquinn’s proposed sale to Musgrave Group is set to proceed after a petition seeking to have the company put in examinership was withdrawn, the Irish Times reported. This morning, the High Court was informed the application by Superquinn for examinership was being withdrawn as a result of Musgrave, which intends to acquire the chain, announcing a €10 million fund is to be established to reimburse certain creditors of the company. The scheme is dependant on the sale of Superquinn to fellow retailers Musgrave going ahead.

Swedish car maker Saab Automobile AB must pay its workers within 14 days to avoid bankruptcy, the general counsel at labor union Unionen said Wednesday after the cash-starved company failed to pay employees on time. The union, which represents 1,000 of Saab Automobile's approximately 1,600 white-collar employees, has started gathering members' pay slips that haven't been honored to prepare requests for payment that will be sent to Saab Automobile. When Saab Automobile receives the requests, likely sometime next week, it will have seven days to pay the claims.