Czech developer ECM Real Estate Investments filed for insolvency on Tuesday and proposed reorganisation, Reuters reported. The firm, building mainly in the Czech capital Prague, has suffered heavy losses in the global economic crisis over the past two years. ECM said the proposal was in line with the results so far of talks with unsecured creditors. "This step should allow for a faster implementation of some intended transactions and better coordination of negotiations with creditors," the company said.

Parmalat SpA's board said Tuesday it considered the price of EUR2.60 that France's Groupe Lactalis SA is offering for every share it does not already own in the Italian dairy group as inadequate, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The board, which met in Milan to review the EUR3.4 billion takeover bid for the remaining 71% of Parmalat, said its members voted unanimously against it.

Irish Life and Permanent today announced its residential mortgage arrears continue to increase while demand for new mortgages "has been very subdued" so far this year, the Irish Times reported. The company had €13.1 billion of drawings from the European Central Bank at the end of April, down from €13.8 billion at end-December.

Confronting the looming prospect of a second bailout for Greece, European finance ministers insisted Tuesday on further deficit-cutting efforts from the government in Athens and acknowledged for the first time that the private sector could be included in a restructuring of Greek loans, the International Herald Tribune reported. Two days of talks in Brussels ended with public concessions that the idea of “reprofiling” Greek debt, or voluntarily extending maturities without changing interest rates or the amount of the loan, was being contemplated, at least as a last resort.

The IMF stuck to business on Monday despite the sexual assault arrest of managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, approving €1.58 billion ($NZ 2.8 billion) in new assistance to debt-laden Ireland, The New Zealand Herald reported. The International Monetary Fund said it had completed its latest review of the country's progress under the €85-billion European Union bailout package for the country, and was ready to release the newest tranche of its rescue loan.

The Ernst & Young ITEM Club says in a report to be published later Monday that UK retailers face a decade of austerity with consumer spending remaining below its pre-recession peaks until at least 2013, and growth in spending constrained for another seven years, Finfacts reported. The economists using the Treasury's own economic model for the UK economy, say that consumer spending will expand by just 0.6% this year and 1.3% in 2012 as depressed wage growth and rising inflation stretch incomes.

Saab Automobile owner Spyker Cars NV Monday said it has found a new partner in China that will provide fresh funds for the troubled Swedish car maker, giving investors hope the company can survive after a previous deal collapsed last week, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, with Pang Da Automobile Trade Co., will give Saab enough money to restart production and survive for about a year, according to Spyker Chief Executive Victor Muller, but Spyker still needs to find other investors to give it a long-term future.

Shareholders in Irish Life & Permanent meet on Wednesday for what is more than likely the last ever annual general meeting of the company in its current form, the Irish Times reported. Under the Government’s plans for the banking sector, IL&P will have disposed of or floated its life assurance business by this time next year. The remaining banking business, Permanent TSB, will have received a dollop of taxpayers’ money – about €4 billion – and will in effect be nationalised if it has not been merged or sold.

Eastern Europe’s economic recovery may be scuttled by any Greek debt restructuring, which would curb lending by western banks and undermine investor bets that have propelled the region’s stocks, bonds and currencies, Bloomberg reported. While the region has three of this year’s 10 best- performing currencies and five of the 10 equity indexes that rose the most, 76 percent of its banking market is controlled by western European lenders still threatened by the euro’s debt crisis.

Changes in the bankruptcy laws to help people in difficulty with their mortgages will be published as soon as possible, the Department of Justice said last week, the Irish Times reported. A spokeswoman for the department said interim measures to reform the law on bankruptcy were being drafted with a view to publication this year. “The Bankruptcy Act 1988, as it stands, does not meet the needs of modern social and economic conditions,” said the spokeswoman.