Gangsters, drug dealers and money launderers appear to be playing their part in helping shore up the financial stability of the euro zone, The Wall Street Journal reported in its Brussels Beat blog. That's thanks to their demand, according to European authorities, for high-denomination euro bank notes, in particular the €200 and €500 bills. The business of issuing euro notes, produced at almost zero cost, is "wildly profitable" for the ECB, wrote Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, in a recent research report.

Sea Launch Co LLC, a provider of commercial satellite launches, received court approval for its reorganization and will emerge from bankruptcy under Russian ownership, according to court documents filed on Friday, Reuters reported. Sea Launch will exit bankruptcy with a $200-million line of credit and $155 million in new equity investment by Energia Overseas, a Russian company. Energia will end up with 95 percent of the company.

Britain announced plans to scrap the fixed retirement age next year, saying it wanted to give people the chance to work beyond 65, but business leaders warned the move would create serious problems, The Washington Post reported on a Reuters story. Currently, employers can force staff to retire at the age of 65 regardless of their circumstances and without having to pay any financial compensation. Under the government's consultation proposals, the default retirement age (DRA) would begin to be phased out from April 2011 and come to an end by October next year.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is set to write off up to £15m in the wake of the break-up and sale of Halliwells, it has emerged, LegalWeek.com reported. RBS, which was owed substantial sums in corporate debt and partner loans from Halliwells, recovered just over £7m from the sales, with Barlow Lyde & Gilbert and HBJ Gateley Wareing - which took the largest teams - paying £2.5m and £2.55m respectively. Hill Dickinson paid £1.88m, while Kennedys paid £125,000 for the Sheffield office.

This is the new reality of the Greek economy, post-crash: The tax-inspector squads and mandatory receipts for corner stores, taxicabs and other traditionally cash-only businesses are among the new austerity measures introduced by Prime Minister George Papandreou in an effort to rescue his country from Europe’s fiscal crisis – in part by reducing the size of the untaxed “shadow” economy, estimated to account for 25 per cent of Greece’s GDP, The Globe and Mail reported.

A Kazakhstan bank's bid to use the U.S. bankruptcy court to halt an overseas legal proceeding could drag the court into disputes in which the U.S. itself has little at stake, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Kazakhstan's JSC BTA Bank says the U.S. bankruptcy court's decision to grant it Chapter 15 protection in the U.S. after it underwent restructuring in its home country last year extended a key benefit of U.S. bankruptcy law: the automatic stay that halts legal action against a debtor company.

The two founders of Italy's debt-laden Mariella Burani Fashion Group have been arrested as part of an inquiry into the bankruptcy of the luxury goods maker, a judicial source said on Wednesday. Former Chairman Walter Burani was put under house arrest by Milan judges investigating the bankruptcy of Mariella Burani Family Holding and Mariella Burani Fashion Group, the source said. His son Giovanni Burani was being held in jail awaiting questioning, the source said. Mariella Burani Fashion Group (was not immediately available for comment.

Almost six months to the day after the Residence club on Stephen's Green was seized by the banks, a new owner has taken over the reins at the private members' club, InsolvencyJournal.ie reported. Businesswoman Olivia Gaynor Long bought the club from receiver Jim Stafford last week and the business will now be run by a recently-formed company called Molana Ltd. The new firm is wholly owned by Long, and lists public relations consultant Eugene Long as one of its directors.

Soccer clubs in Europe may be facing bankruptcy unless changes including stricter financial controls are put in place, according to an A.T. Kearney study that looked at teams in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy, Bloomberg reported. “Running as normal companies, the leagues in Spain, England, and Italy would be bankrupt within two years,” Kearney’s Munich-based vice president Juergen Rothenbuecher and colleagues wrote in a report called Football Sustainability Study. Some clubs, even bigger ones, may disappear through bankruptcy in the next few years, the consultants wrote.

Households and small businesses across Central and Eastern Europe are sinking under the weight of foreign-currency debts, The Wall Street Journal reported. It's a sign of how the problems facing the region's financial system go beyond the borrowing by spendthrift governments that has been the main focus of investors. The rising number of borrowers' defaults already has hit bank profits. Ratings agencies warn that the exposure to foreign-currency lending could hurt the creditworthiness of financial institutions in the region.