Europe

RoyaleLife told a judge Wednesday that it is seeking to appoint administrators to one of its key subsidiaries, as the UK bungalow owner grapples with around £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) of debt, Bloomberg News reported. A lawyer acting for Time GB Group Limited told London’s high court that it will apply for an administration order and has approached insolvency practitioners from FRP Advisory. Time GB Group is facing a winding-up petition that was filed by a company called Yarwell Mill Country Park Limited in May, according to public filings.

The U.S. Commerce Department on Thursday said it will set preliminary anti-dumping duties on tin-plated steel from Canada, Germany and China, in a move to shield domestic steelmakers that will prompt warnings of higher prices for cans made from the steel and the foods, paint and other products they contain, Reuters reported. The department said it will propose preliminary anti-dumping duties of 122.5% on tin mill steel imported from China, 7.02% on imports from Germany and 5.29% on imports from Canada. A formal Federal Register notice is expected later on Thursday.

Norway’s central bank raised borrowing costs to the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis and signaled it still plans another quarter-point hike in the current tightening cycle, Bloomberg News reported. Norges Bank lifted its key deposit rate on Thursday by 25 basis points to 4%, the 12th increase since September 2021, as forecast by all analysts in a Bloomberg survey. It said the rate “will most likely be raised further in September,” with Governor Ida Wolden Bache keeping the door open for further hikes, depending on incoming data.

The U.K.’s headline rate of inflation fell in July, though key components of prices remained stubbornly hot, adding pressure on the Bank of England to keep raising interest rates to cool the highest inflation rate among leading industrialized countries, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices were 6.8% higher in July compared with the same month a year earlier, easing from the 7.9% increase recorded in June, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected inflation to decline to 6.9%.

The Dutch economy has entered a recession as it shrank 0.3% on a quarterly basis in the second quarter, a first estimate published by Statistics Netherlands on Wednesday showed, Reuters reported. The euro zone's fifth largest economy shrank for the second consecutive quarter, after a 0.4% contraction in the first three months of the year. Economic growth in the Netherlands had been almost 5% per year in 2021 and 2022 in a quick recovery from a COVID-19 slump.

The Czech government approved on Wednesday a bill allowing the taxation of large multinational companies which tend to book their profits in countries with a lower tax burden, Reuters reported. The bill affects firms whose annual revenues exceeded 750 million euros ($817.05 million) in at least two of the past four years. The aim is for multinationals to pay a profit tax of at least 15%. "We will join countries which refuse to allow corporate profits to be diverted into tax havens," Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said during a televised press conference.

Russia’s currency crisis might not follow the classic emerging-market template: Rather than a sharp depreciation stemmed by painful interest-rate rises, we are more likely to see a slow but inexorable decline, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Bank of Russia raised borrowing costs from 8.5% to 12% Tuesday in an attempt to stop a slide in the ruble. A day earlier, $1 briefly bought as much as 102 rubles, prompting rate setters to call an emergency meeting.

Some Bank of Ireland customers were able to withdraw money they did not have Tuesday and early Wednesday after an hours-long technical glitch that also halted many of the bank's online services, the Associated Press reported. The outage allowed some customers to transfer and withdraw funds “above their normal limits,” the Bank of Ireland said. Customers could withdraw up to €500 ($546) with their Bank of Ireland card, the bank confirmed to the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Basic wages in Britain hit a new record growth rate, figures showed on Tuesday, adding to worries for the Bank of England (BoE) about long-term inflation pressures even after 14 back-to-back increases in interest rates, Reuters reported. Official data showed some fresh signs of cooling in the jobs market with the unemployment rate unexpectedly rising to 4.2% from 4.0%, the highest since the three months to October 2021 and climbing more quickly than the BoE has forecast.

Russia's central bank hiked its key interest rate by 350 basis points to 12% on Tuesday, an emergency move to try and halt the rouble's recent slide after a public call from the Kremlin for tighter monetary policy, Reuters reported. The extraordinary rate meeting came after the rouble plummeted past the 100 threshold against the dollar on Monday, dragged down by the impact of Western sanctions on Russia's balance of trade and as military spending soars.