Barclays Plc had “a right to walk away” from a 2008 deal to buy bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit and would have if certain assets had been left out, the U.K. bank’s top in-house lawyer said, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “That was clearly in Barclays’s mind at that point in time,” Jonathan Hughes, Barclays’s global general counsel, told a bankruptcy judge in New York today, referring to the bank’s discovery during the negotiations that Lehman couldn’t deliver all the promised assets.

New statistics compiled by InsolvencyJournal.ie reveal that insolvencies in the first four months of 2010, have increased by 27 per cent compared to the same period last year, Finfacts reported. A total of 532 company failures were recorded so far this year, compared to 419 between January and April 2009. 125 companies went bust in April, down 15 per cent from the March total of 147 insolvencies. Dublin continues to account for the majority of failures with 52 insolvencies - - 42 per cent of all insolvencies.

European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet, who capitulated on a January pledge not to relax lending rules for the sake of one country, may have to sacrifice more principles to prevent Greece from bringing down the euro, Bloomberg reported. Trichet yesterday diluted rules for the second time in a month to guarantee the ECB will keep taking Greek government bonds as collateral for loans.

The €110 billion ($147 billion) three-year Greek bailout by euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund won't be enough to cover Greece's costs, an examination of Greek financial figures shows, setting Europe up for more tough choices if private markets don't start lending again, The Wall Street Journal reported. The bailout announced here over the weekend will solve one pressing problem: Greece will have enough cash to repay an €8.5 billion bond that comes due in two weeks.

Chrysler expects to report its first substantial monthly sales increase in the U.S. in more than two years Monday, but CEO Sergio Marchionne is shifting attention to Fiat, where problems are deepening, the Detroit Free Press reported. The European half of this new alliance is facing change nearly as wrenching as Chrysler's government-backed bankruptcy. Car sales in Italy are expected to fall about 15% this year because the government stopped paying consumers to replace dilapidated old vehicles.

The government will resist attempts by any of the main players in the Irish insurance market to take over Quinn Insurance, on the grounds that such a deal would reduce market competition and result in further job losses at the company, the Sunday Business Post reported. The Quinn Group said last week it would sell the insurance business, which is in administration, in an effort to protect jobs. Both Quinn and the government are now favouring selling the business to a new entrant to the Irish insurance market.

Greece, effectively bankrupt and with a European gun to its head, committed itself to years of austerity on Sunday when it signed a financial bailout deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, The New York Times reported in an analysis. But there are serious questions about whether the deep cuts in salaries and benefits the agreement calls for are politically sustainable over time, even as deflation will make it impossible for Greece to grow its way out of debt.

Euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund, seeking to halt a widening European debt crisis that has threatened the stability of the euro, agreed to extend Greece an unprecedented €110 billion ($147 billion) rescue in return for draconian budget cuts, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under the three-year agreement announced here late Sunday, Greece would receive €80 billion in loans from other euro-zone members and €30 billion from the IMF. The planned rescue is the largest ever attempted by the IMF and a first for the 16-member euro zone.

Frankfurt-based aluminum company Almatis Group Friday put its operations in the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure the company's $1 billion debt load, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In court papers filed Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Almatis said the proposed restructuring would slash its debt by more than $600 million to $414.6 million. The company has already filed a reorganization plan, which has the support of more than two-thirds of the holders of Almatis's first-lien debt.

Specialist door maker McTavish Ramsey, one of Dundee's oldest manufacturing firms, has gone into receivership with the loss of nearly three-quarters of its workforce, The Scotsman reported. Joint receivers Blair Nimmo and Neil Armour were called in after the firm failed to trade its way out of a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) set up at the beginning of March. It had been hoped that the 146-year-old business, which suffered poor trading through the winter, would stabilise its finances under the reduced debt repayment arrangements of the CVA.