The Belfast Clinic, an upmarket private medical clinic in south Belfast, has been placed into administration, InsolvencyJournal.ie reported. The clinic, which opened just two years ago and was the newest independent private hospital in the North, offers a range of services, including cosmetic surgery, gynaecology and urology. It also boasts state-of-the-art facilities and has 15 private rooms in its premises on the fashionable Lisburn Road in Belfast. The firm experienced financial difficulties, however, following the suspension of the NHS waiting list initiative.

Cuts to the Czech fiscal budget are welcomed by investors, and rating agencies have raised the country’s outlook as the newly-elected government follows its promises of fiscal austerity with actions, The Wall Street Journal New Europe blog reported. But the country’s national police and firefighters oppose 10% cuts to pay and steeper cuts to expenditure for investment and operations, and on Wednesday they announced plans for mass demonstrations on September 21 in Prague.

The High Court yesterday gave troubled builder McInerney Homes protection from its creditors in the first case of its kind to involve a business with debts destined for State bad bank, Nama, The Irish Times reported. McInerney has been wrestling with €236 million in debt owed to Irish and British banks since last year, but was close to selling a stake to US-based private equity house, Oaktree Capital, for €40 million, a deal that would have recapitalised the business.

A major property mogul is contesting a principal lender’s decision to write down his property portfolio by £30 million to £35 million, Bridging & Commercial reported. RT Properties was taken into receivership by the Royal Bank of Scotland on Tuesday, after the bank took over all but two of property baron Roy Thomas’ assets. The company ran into trouble after it was charged a fixed rate loan breakage of £14.8 million by RBS. Mr Thomas owned Swansea Airport and Swansea’s Dragon Hotel and Marks and Spencer store.

Net mortgage lending by U.K. banks grew at a similar pace in July from a month earlier, while nonfinancial firms paid down debt at the fastest pace since March, data from the British Bankers Association showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The increased rate of debt repayment by nonfinancial companies was due to still sluggish demand for finance, the BBA said. However, it comes at a time when smaller and medium-sized firms are stepping up their criticism of bank-lending practices. U.K.

Ireland’s long-term sovereign credit rating was cut one step to AA- from AA by Standard & Poor’s, which cited the projected cost of supporting the nation’s financial sector, Bloomberg reported. “The negative outlook reflects our view that a further downgrade is possible if the fiscal cost of supporting the banking sector rises further, or if other adverse economic developments weaken the government’s ability to meet its medium- term fiscal objectives,” S&P said today in a statement.

A primary goal of Europe's recent "stress" tests of its banks was to illuminate their holdings of potentially risky government-issued debt. But that clarity has been fleeting, The Wall Street Journal reported. Regulators across the European Union conducted the stress tests of 91 banks last month, hoping to dispel investor anxiety about the health of the continent's banking system.

LyondellBasell Industries NV, one of the world's biggest plastics and chemical producers, has decided to end all business operations in Iran, a move designed to shield itself against possible penalties the U.S. could soon impose on firms for violating sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The Dutch company's board approved the decision early this month after months of deliberation, according to a LyondellBasell spokesman.

Germany is at odds with the UK over plans to make banks meet part of the costs of solving any future financial crisis because of differing views about how to implement the charge, the Financial Times reported. The government of Angela Merkel, the chancellor, will on Tuesday press ahead with plans to implement an annual levy on all banks that have headquarters in Germany. Britain’s proposal is that the levy should apply to both domestic and overseas banks that do business in the UK.

The German government has dropped plans to introduce a privilege for state creditors in insolvency cases, the justice ministry said Monday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The government had planned to reintroduce such a privilege for fiscal authorities as part of its EUR80 billion austerity drive, but the justice ministry had concerns and called for an alternative model and convinced the finance ministry in talks last week. "On Friday, we agreed that tax authorities' privilege will be replaced by a different compensation," the spokesman said.