U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner clashed over potential taxes on bank transactions at a weekend meeting here of finance policy makers from the Group of 20 leading economies, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K.'s Mr. Brown surprised many attendees by throwing his weight behind the idea of levying a tax on financial transactions and using those funds to pay for future bank bailouts. Germany and France reaffirmed their support for such a tax. Mr. Geithner made plain that the U.S. wouldn't support a bank-transaction tax.

General Motors Europe head Carl-Peter Forster is quitting in disgust at GM's decision to hang on to its European unit Opel/Vauxhall, a well-informed source told Agence France-Presse on Friday. The source confirmed a report in the Spiegel magazine, saying: "I expect a withdrawal by Forster within a week." GM executive vice president David Reilly would replace Forster, as GM seeks to soothe anger over its decision to abandon this week a sale of Opel to Canadian group Magna and Russian partner Sberbank, Spiegel said. Forster was a keen supporter of Magna's bid.

The number of company liquidations in England and Wales in the third quarter of 2009 fell 4.7% on the previous quarter - the first time the rate has fallen this year and possibly a sign that the impact the economic crisis has had on U.K. companies is starting to abate, Dow Jones reported. However, the 4,716 compulsory company liquidations in the third quarter, adjusted on a seasonal basis, still represents an increase of 14.6% on the same period a year earlier, data from the government's Insolvency Service showed Friday. Liz Bingham, U.K.

U.S. carmaker General Motors' decision to keep its European unit Opel will benefit European taxpayers, especially in Britain, Germany and Spain, British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said on Thursday, Reuters reported. He said he believed workers at GM's Vauxhall unit in Britain would prefer to keep the same management rather than have new owners, but gave no details of how the restructuring of the company would be financed.

General Motors Co. executives, rushing to update a restructuring plan for Opel and Vauxhall, are confident they can still win financial backing from Germany despite the rift created when the company's board abruptly abandoned a plan to sell control of the European divisions, The Wall Street Journal reported. John Smith, GM's lead restructuring executive for Opel, said in a conference call Tuesday that the car maker plans to review a new plan "very soon" and then present it to European governments and labor unions.

Germany, second only to China as the world's leading exporter of goods, has been particularly hard-hit by the collapse of global markets. But the mass unemployment some had feared has failed to materialize. Labor experts in many countries are wondering how Germany has done it, Spiegel Online reported. Germany currently has 1.1 million workers participating in short-time working programs, known in German as Kurzarbeit. They include people who don't have enough work, but who also are nevertheless not being let go.

German and Russian leaders seethed and unions tore up a deal to cut costs in protest at General Motors' "completely unacceptable" decision to keep Opel, its European unit, after months of talks, Reuters reported. Labor leader Klaus Franz rescinded hundreds of millions of euros in cost concessions that workers agreed to on condition that Opel was bought by Magna, the Russian-backed Canadian group long backed as buyer by Berlin and Moscow.

The British government still could make financing available for the restructuring of General Motors Co.'s European operations despite its decision not to sell the business to Austrian-Canadian auto parts maker Magna International Inc., Dow Jones reported. Provision of funding remained a possibility, according to a spokeswoman for Business Secretary Peter Mandelson. GM's European operations comprise the Opel and Vauxhall brands. Vauxhall operates two plants in the U.K. at Luton and Ellesmere Port, which employ about 4,700 workers.

Bank of Ireland today reported a pre-tax loss of €979m for the six months ending September 30, 2009, compared to a profit of €647m in the same period in 2008, Finfacts reported. The bank made an operating profit of €787m before bad debt charges. It said impairment charges over that period were €1.8bn, reflecting "significant deterioration" in asset quality in its property and construction portfolio.

The Bank of Spain said on Tuesday that it has approved the takeover of the only Spanish bank to be bailed out during the financial crisis, Caja Castilla La Mancha (CCM), Reuters reported. A savings bank from the region of Asturias, Cajastur, will take control of CCM if the general assemblies of both regional banks approve the terms of the deal, the Bank of Spain said in a statement.