A stake in a 186kg gold cube is poised to go on sale after its owner filed for bankruptcy, The Telegraph reported. The Castello Cube, an artwork made from 24-carat gold, is back on the market as part of insolvency proceedings involving Klemens Hallmann, a real estate tycoon. The Austrian businessman owns a 32pc stake in the Castello Cube, which will be transferred to administrators as they seek to raise funds to repay his creditors, according to debt collection agency Creditreform.

More than half of German and European machinery exports to the United States could be hit by new tariffs if Washington expands its list in December, the German Engineering Federation VDMA said on Wednesday, urging the European Union to renegotiate the tariff deal, Reuters reported. The federation, which represents 3,600 machinery and plant engineering companies, said 56% of exports could be affected by steel and aluminium tariffs, up from around 40% after an initial expansion in August. "This affects virtually all branches of mechanical engineering.

Swiss software company LzLabs GmbH sought US bankruptcy court recognition of its foreign insolvency case to halt patent infringement litigation brought by tech giant IBM and preserve its stateside intellectual property, Bloomberg Law reported. LzLabs faces severe financial distress following a 20 million pound ($26.7 million) UK judgment issued in IBM’s favor in March as well as IBM’s parallel US suit, the company said in a Chapter 15 bankruptcy petition filed on Oct.

Bernie Madoff went to jail in 2009 and died in 2021. His Ponzi scheme, one of the biggest frauds in Wall Street history, is still haunting the finance industry. HSBC said that it would set aside $1.1 billion as it continues to fight litigation in Luxembourg, the Wall Street Journal reported. The lawsuit, filed by a client soon after the collapse of Madoff’s scheme, alleged that Europe’s biggest bank had failed to protect its assets.

A German battery-maker partly owned by the investment firm of BMW AG heiress Susanne Klatten filed for insolvency for some of its key units, citing the loss of an unnamed customer, Bloomberg News reported. BMZ Group, which manufactures lithium-ion battery systems, said that two of its units had filed for insolvency proceedings, according to a statement dated Oct. 24. The loss of a major customer in the energy storage sector led to legal disputes and increased costs, prompting a liquidity crisis, it said.

The Netherlands' decision to take control of chipmaker Nexperia in September was due to fears the company's former CEO was already dismantling the company's European operations and moving production to China, four sources in The Hague familiar with the government's thinking said on Monday, Reuters reported. A monthlong standoff between China and the Netherlands over Nexperia has prompted carmakers in Europe, the U.S. and Japan to warn of possible production problems due to chip shortages.

Ongoing volatility in the multinational sector related to U.S. tariffs saw the Irish economy contract marginally in the third quarter, the Irish Times reported. Preliminary figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) indicated the economy shrank by 0.1 per cent between July and September of this year compared to the second quarter of the year. “The small decrease was mainly driven by contraction in the multinational dominated ‘industry’ sector in Q3 2025,” the agency said.

More than 2,000 Scotland-based jobs are at risk as oil and energy services group Petrofac has applied for administration, Sky News reported. The group's operations will continue to trade, and options for restructuring of the company and a possible merger or acquisition are being actively explored with its key creditors, the company said on Monday. People close to the company say they are hopeful a buyer can be found swiftly for its North Sea operations, with one suggesting that it could even happen in the coming days.

The European Central Bank is expected to leave its key interest rate unchanged for a third straight meeting later this week, and investors will be looking for hints as to whether the series of cuts that began last year is over, the Wall Street Journal reported. ECB President Christine Lagarde has since the summer said the central bank is in “a good place,” since the bank has tamed the upsurge in inflation that led price rises to peak at 10% in 2022. The bank last cut its deposit rate in June to 2%, having gradually dialed back borrowing costs from 4% in the spring of 2024.

Global public debt is rising faster than at any point in modern history, and this time, it is not just the historically large spenders driving it, EuroNews.com reported. The International Monetary Fund’s latest Fiscal Monitor warns that the public finances of major powers, led by the United States, have become a systemic global risk. "Although the number of countries with debt above 100% will be steadily declining in the next five years, their share in world GDP is projected to rise," the report stated.