Finnish Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen was ousted as Social Democratic leader yesterday as her party turned to a trade union leader advocating more stimulus to promote growth in the northernmost euro member, Bloomberg News reported. Antti Rinne, head of the trade union Pro, won the backing of 257 party members against Urpilainen’s 243 at a congress yesterday in Seinaejoki, northwest of Helsinki. Urpilainen said she will step down as finance minister and leave the government. “Social democrats in Finland and in Europe must again target full employment,” Rinne, 51, said in a speech today.

Data from Statistics Finland tell a grim tale of hard times for many Finnish residents in 2013, Yle reported. The numbers show some 3,800 filings for personal debt restructuring, 3,100 bankruptcies, and nearly 600 business restructuring applications – all representing an increase over the previous year. Altogether 15,600 employees were affected by companies going out of business – the highest number in a decade. The same record applied to business restructurings, the numbers show.

Talvivaara won court approval to restructure the entire company's debt, allowing the nickel miner to continue production and helping it fend off bankruptcy, Reuters reported. Talvivaara, hurt by falling nickel prices and chronic production problems, was waiting for court approval to include the debt of a subsidiary, Talvivaara Sotkamo, in its reorganisation plans.

Indebted Finnish miner Talvivaara said on Tuesday its biggest creditor, zinc producer Nyrstar, has withdrawn support for its court application for a corporate restructuring, prompting the court to ask for more information, Reuters reported. Talvivaara, hit by falling nickel prices and chronic production problems, earlier this month halted operations and petitioned the Espoo District Court near Helsinki for a court-supervised reorganisation and warned it might face bankruptcy if the process failed.

Finnish miner Talvivaara edged closer to bankruptcy on Thursday after saying unnamed stakeholders had baulked at providing additional funds to help restructure debt of more than 300 million euros ($404 million), Reuters reported. Talvivaara, hurt by falling nickel prices and production problems, said it was assessing other funding options and could use its own cash to help it through the overhaul process. It said it had enough cash to last through the first quarter of 2014, but admitted bankruptcy was a possibility.

Finnish miner Talvivaara, hurt by falling nickel prices and production problems, said it would seek a court-supervised overhaul after failing to raise funds and might face bankruptcy if the reorganisation failed, Reuters reported. Friday's announcement, which sent Talvivaara shares down 43 percent to a record low, was made after the group failed to raise more cash from investors including Finnish state investment fund Solidium, which decided additional investment was not viable.

Russia's mining giant Norilsk Nickel has no plans to help bail out financially-troubled Finnish nickel miner Talvivaara, a source familiar with the Russian company's plans said, Reuters reported. Talvivaara said earlier on Thursday it was in talks with stakeholders to secure funds after a series of production disruptions at its Sotkamo mine and a fall in nickel prices put it at risk of bankruptcy. Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer, is Talvivaara's main customer and owns a 0.64 percent stake in the company.

Tiimari Oyj, a Finnish retailer that sells stationery and craft materials, filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to find funding, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Tiimari wasn’t able to secure enough financing to stay in business, the Vantaa, Finland-based company said in a statement to the Helsinki stock exchange today. The shares were halted at 0.07 euros at 4:17 p.m. yesterday in the Finnish capital pending an announcement from the company.

The Finnish paper company Stora Enso Oyj agreed to pay $8 million to end a nearly nine-year-old antitrust lawsuit accusing a former unit of conspiring to fix prices for purchasers of coated paper used in magazines and catalogs, Reuters reported. According to a filing on Monday with the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the settlement resolves claims against Stora Enso and the former Stora Enso North America Corp unit, which was sold in 2007 and is now known as NewPage Wisconsin System Inc after going through bankruptcy.

Finland's central bank delivered a stark warning Tuesday that the prolonged euro crisis is beginning to drag the country into the same financial troubles that the Southern Europeans it helped bail out are mired in, The Wall Street Journal reported. Weighed down by weak demand for exports and a decrease in private consumption, Finland's gross domestic product is likely to shrink 0.8% this year, the Bank of Finland said in its biannual economic outlook. That would mark a second-straight annual contraction.