Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou declared he is not ruling out taking legal action against U.S. investment banks for their role in creating the spiraling Greek debt crisis. Both the Greek government and its citizens have blamed international banks for fanning the flames of the debt crisis with comments about Greece's likely default, actions that are causing the country's borrowing costs to soar, The Associated Press reported. "I wouldn't rule out that (legal action) might be a recourse.

The number of company winding-up petitions and individual bankruptcy petitions presented in courts in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2010 increased on the previous quarter, ministry of justice statistics showed Thursday, Dow Jones reported. In total, 2,777 winding-up petitions to dissolve a company that can't pay its debts were presented in the first quarter, 4% up from the 2,670 presented in the fourth quarter of 2009. This compares with the 3,461 winding-up petitions filed in the first quarter of 2009.

U.S. navigation device maker Garmin said it would raise its bid for debt-laden Raymarine by more than 16 percent, topping a third-party offer, if the British marine navigation supplier were to enter into administration, Reuters reported. Garmin said it would pay more than 17.5 pence for each share in Raymarine, representing a premium of at least 21 percent to Raymarine's Thursday close. Earlier on Friday, Raymarine said an unnamed third party had walked away from a potential deal but remained willing to reconsider a transaction if Raymarine placed itself with administrators.

AIB said today the Government's stake in the bank would rise to more than 18 per cent as it increased the holding instead of paying the State a dividend, The Irish Times reported. The National Pension Reserve Fund Commission was due to be paid a dividend today on €3.5 billion preference shares, amounting to €280 million. However, the European Commission had requested the bank would not make discretionary coupon or dividend payments on certain securities, as discussions on a restructuring plan are ongoing.

Romano Prodi recalls how he persuaded Germany to allow debt-swamped Italy into the euro: support our membership and we’ll buy your milk, he said. When Prodi toured Germany’s agricultural heartland after becoming Italian leader in 1996, he pitched “a big milk pipeline from Bavaria,” pointing to a three-year, 40 percent plunge in the Italian lira that was hurting dairy sales. “To have Italy outside the euro, a huge quantity of exports from Germany would have been endangered,” Prodi, now 70, said.

Fitch Ratings said today that Greek and Irish banks’ reliance on European Central Bank loans is out of proportion to the size of their assets, Finfacts reported. Greek banks accounted for 6.6% of the €749bn the ECB lent to financial companies by the end of 2009, though only held 1.6% of the Eurozone's banking assets, Fitch analysts wrote in a report. Irish banks took 12% of ECB funding, compared to a 5.24% share of the region’s bank assets.

The European Union's executive arm called for centralized review of member countries' budgets, a first step toward a tighter integration of fiscal affairs in Europe that would have been all but unthinkable just a few months ago, The Wall Street Journal reported. The European Commission proposed Wednesday that EU governments submit their budgets to Brussels for review by other governments before they are passed by parliaments. It also advocated punitive measures for countries that flout the EU's budget rules.

One of Scotland’s oldest housebuilders has been forced into receivership by the Bank of Scotland, The Herald reported. Renfrewshire-based John Dickie Group, founded in 1880, was told at the beginning of the month that the bank was not prepared to continue its support, and the directors were asked to call in administrators. They resisted, and yesterday the bank called in receivers, whose appointment is likely to be announced today.

The International Monetary Fund is ready to do deals. Bolstered by a big new balance sheet and the outsize ambition of its globe-trotting managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the I.M.F is now presenting itself as the indispensable institution in the sovereign debt crisis, The New York Times reported. Trying to shed its old image as a hidebound policy task master, the fund is refashioning itself as the investment bank of multilateral institutions — doing whatever it takes to get the deal done.

The new management team at State-owned Anglo Irish Bank is reworking its proposed rescue plan for beleaguered Quinn Insurance to join forces with a foreign trade buyer to run the insurer and temporarily share ownership, The Irish Times reported. Anglo Irish is revising its proposals in an attempt to allay the Financial Regulator’s concerns about its ability to manage the firm by handing over control of the company to a large insurance partner.