German authorities are stepping up preparations for emergency cash deliveries in case of a blackout to keep the economy running, four people involved said, as the nation braces for possible power cuts arising from the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. The plans include the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, hoarding extra billions to cope with a surge in demand, and possible limits on withdrawals, one of the people said.

Germany will nationalise gas importer Sefe, formerly known as Gazprom Germania, the economy ministry said on Monday, in a move to protect it from bankruptcy and force Russia out of the company, Reuters reported. Sefe was dropped by Russia's Gazprom earlier this year and put under German state trusteeship. It has since received close to 10 billion euros ($10.31 billion) in state-backed credit lines.

German industry has called for a delay to a global minimum corporate tax by at least a year to 2025 to give companies more time to prepare given the current crisis, according to a position paper published by industry association BDI on Monday, Reuters reported. "The ambitious timetable of applying the minimum tax as early as 2024 is not realistic against the background of the enormous complexity of the associated new regulations," BDI said.

German finance watchdog BaFin has told Deutsche Bank to take specific measures to improve efforts to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing or face fines, the latest rebuke in regulatory proceedings against the bank that started in 2018, Reuters reported. BaFin said in a brief statement on its website late on Friday it had ordered the bank on Sept. 28 to take specific measures or else face fines, part of regulatory requirements that were imposed on the bank from September 2018. The regulator declined to give further details.

The signs were already there. In January this year, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, one of Europe’s largest and oldest department store chains, asked for and received 220 million euros of government financial aid. That was in addition to the 460 million euro loan the business had already received from the German government, due to difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, WWD.com reported. In early October this year, the chain’s management said it was terminating a previously agreed deal it had made with union representatives. Difficult times called for radical restructuring, they said.

Energy giant Uniper posted a net loss of around $39.3 billion for the first nine months of the year—one of the biggest in Germany’s corporate history—highlighting the financial fallout from Russia’s decision to throttle natural-gas deliveries to Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company, which is soon to be nationalized by Germany in an attempt to stabilize it and protect its customers, said Thursday it was finalizing the details of additional state-support measures.

Germany's slowing economy means the government can borrow almost 36 billion euros next year, almost twice as much as expected, the Finance Ministry said, Reuters reported. In a letter to a legislator, first reported by newspaper Bild, the ministry said that provisions in Germany's constitutional debt brake aimed at balancing a cap on borrowing across the economic cycle meant the previously expected cap of 17.2 billion euros could now be exceeded. "This shows that the debt rule contains sufficient flexibility to remain effective even in crises," the letter read.

The German government said Wednesday that it plans to make plastic manufacturers contribute to the cost of cleaning up litter in streets and parks, the Associated Press reported. The Cabinet agreed on a bill that makers of products containing single-use plastic will need to pay into a central fund managed by the government, starting in 2025. The fund is estimated to collect about 450 million euros ($446 million) in the first year, based on the companies’ past production of single-use plastic. Affected items include cigarette filters, drink containers and packaging for takeout food.

The German government has agreed in principle to apply a cap on gas prices for some 25,000 large industrial companies from Jan. 1, 2023, the economy ministry said on Monday, after an expert commission presented its proposals in Berlin, Reuters reported. The ministry said that the government will make some technical adjustments to the commission's original proposal, but a cap of 7 euros cents per kilowatt hours for 70% of companies consumption will apply as per the commission's suggestions. Read more.

Hopes that the euro zone can stave off a recession got a boost as Germany defied expectations by reporting another quarter of economic growth, though momentum slowed dramatically in France and Spain, Bloomberg News reported. Surging energy prices, record inflation and rising interest rates are weighing on output across the continent in the third quarter as a post-lockdown splurge on leisure and tourism fades. But data Friday showed Germany managed to grow by 0.3% between July and September. Consumer-price growth from the region was mixed.