Europe

Automotive supplier Tedrive has filed for insolvency for two German units, citing a recent slump in orders, according to the company's insolvency administrator, The Guardian reported. Tedrive was the second industry player to file for insolvency in the region within a week, after German brake pad maker TMD Friction did the same for four German plants. The administrator said Tedrive aimed to restructure its business at the two units. The units make driveshafts and steering systems, and have a total of 1,500 workers.

The collapse of a US bailout of the three American car giants sparked a new global share battering Friday, Agence France-Presse reported. With Russia officially entering recession, Bank of America and other international companies making more mass layoffs and European production falling faster than expected, the grim data built up around the world. Talks among US senators on salvaging a $14 billion deal fund for Ford Motor Co, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler collapsed late Thursday. GM has hired lawyers for a potential bankruptcy filing.

Ukrainian lawmakers on Thursday backed severe restrictions on public spending and a government-wide hiring freeze to help the economy survive the global financial turmoil, the Associated Press reported. As the Ukrainian currency hit a new low, parliament gave tentative approval to legislation that would limit spending on renovating government buildings, purchases of automobiles and other public expenses. The law would be the latest in a series of measures to battle the crisis.

German brake pads maker TMD Friction, which has filed for insolvency for four German plants, has attracted the interest of possible buyers, a spokesman for the company's insolvency administrator said. Among the possible buyers are both industry-related companies and financial investors, Reuters reported. A spokesman said the company aims to keep the group intact in a possible sale. The Leverkusen-based group employs around 4,500 staff in 11 countries and generated 2007 sales of 690 million euros ($892.4 million). It has 2,000 staff in Germany alone.

A Latvian government proposal to radically restructure the country's ailing economy is credible and ambitious, the Swedish government said Wednesday on behalf of a group of Nordic and Baltic countries, Agence France-Presse reported. "The fiscal restructuring programme is...one of the most credible restructuring programmes we've seen. It's very ambitious," Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told reporters in Stockholm, speaking for the eight-nation constituency.

Landsbanki Islands hf sought bankruptcy protection from its U.S. creditors on Tuesday, the last of Iceland's three largest banks to do so in the last two weeks, Reuters reported. The Reykjavik-based lender filed a Chapter 15 bankruptcy petition with the U.S. bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York. It said it had more than $1 billion of both assets and liabilities. Iceland's banks had taken on billions of dollars of debt in recent years to fund aggressive overseas expansion.

British sofa retailer Land of Leather Holding PLC's share price plummeted 32 percent on Tuesday after it said that talks regarding a possible bid for the company had ended, the Associated Press reported. Land of Leather, which has 109 stores across Britain and Ireland and around 950 employees, said it had stopped discussions with "a number" of potential bidders after those early negotiations suggested any resulting offer would represent "insufficient value" for shareholders.

Wagon, one of Britain’s largest car parts makers, has gone into administration, the company announced on Monday. The news puts up to 500 jobs at risk in the company’s two plants in Coventry and Walsall, and its head office in Birmingham, the Financial Times reported. Trading in Wagon’s shares was halted in October, when the company entered into refinancing talks with Royal Bank of Scotland and its majority shareholder, the billionaire investor Wilbur Ross.

The European Commission plans to propose that “fundamentally sound” banks can repay government aid at rates as low as 7 percent, laying the groundwork for approval of plans by France and Austria to recapitalize lenders, Bloomberg reported. European governments are seeking to shore up the financial system after the credit crisis froze inter-bank lending over the past two months. European Union finance ministers asked European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes to impose less stringent repayment conditions on fundamentally sound banks.

Central banks world-wide delivered sweeping interest rate cuts Thursday, even as the continuing turmoil in credit markets means cuts in rates are losing their power to curtail an accelerating global slowdown, The Wall Street Journal reported. Major European central banks, including the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and Sweden's Riksbank joined the central banks of New Zealand and Indonesia in making deep rate cuts. The goal: to stave off deep and painful slowdowns in the wake of financial market turmoil that has squeezed lending globally.