The European Union on Wednesday launched proceedings against Germany over a ruling by the top German court last year on a European Central Bank bond-buying program that broke with a verdict from the EU’s own top court, the Associated Press reported. Brussels says that “constitutes a serious precedent.” Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in May last year gave the ECB three months to prove that its key bond-buying program was justified and appropriate.

A lack of semiconductors, timber and other intermediate goods drove an unexpected fall in German industrial output in April, a further sign that massive supply bottlenecks are hampering the recovery in Europe's largest economy, Reuters reported. The Federal Statistics Office said industrial output dropped 1.0% on the month after a downwardly revised increase of 2.2% in March. A Reuters poll had pointed to a 0.5% rise in April. The drop in the headline figure was driven by a decrease in consumer goods production of more than 3% and a plunge in construction activity of more than 4%.

The auditor of Greensill Capital’s German bank withdrew its certifications of the failed lender’s 2019 annual accounts after allegations of irregularities, Bloomberg News reported. Ebner Stolz, a Stuttgart, Germany-based auditing firm, informed the bank’s insolvency administrator on April 23 about the step, according to a filing published on Friday in Germany’s Bundesanzeiger, the federal gazette for company disclosures. Greensill Bank was shuttered by German financial regulator BaFin in March as the lender’s parent company, founded by Lex Greensill, collapsed.

Germany’s economy contracted more than expected in the first quarter amid coronavirus lockdown measures, according to statistics released Tuesday, but a leading indicator showed that businesses’ optimism is rising as the pace of vaccinations increases, the Associated Press reported. The Federal Statistical Office said that the first quarter gross domestic product in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, dropped by 1.8% over the fourth quarter of 2020, according to figures adjusted for price, seasonal and calendar factors. The office’s preliminary estimate had been a drop of 1.7%.

One of Germany’s wealthiest families is selling down the last major investment of Heinz Hermann Thiele, three months after the billionaire patriarch’s death, Bloomberg News reported. The Thiele family’s KB Holding GmbH sold more than half its stake in Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s biggest airline, disposing of 33 million shares at a 9.80 euros each. While that’s a 9.8% discount to the stock’s closing price the previous day, the heirs likely broke even on the transaction given the original purchase price.

Lufthansa said on Tuesday that it was seeing a surge in demand for flights to the United States and to European destinations following a loosening of German travel restrictions as coronavirus case numbers decline, Reuters reported. Demand for summer flights to New York, Miami and Los Angeles has increased by up to 300%, the German airline group said, adding it would lay on extra flights from June and has restarted services to Orlando and Atlanta.

Germany loosened travel rules to allow people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to enter the country without needing to get tested or go into quarantine, Bloomberg News reported. The rules, which also apply to those who have recovered from the virus, were approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet on Wednesday. One-third of German residents have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, and nearly 10% have been fully inoculated. As the pace ramps up, Germany has granted more privileges to people immune from the disease, including easing trips to hairdressers.

Corporate insolvencies in Germany fell by 21.8% on the year in February, the Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday, continuing a downtrend that saw them hit their lowest level since 1999 last year thanks to a waiver during the pandemic, Reuters reported. Germany introduced the waiver last March, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, part of a package of measures aimed at supporting businesses but which gave rise to the charge that the government was simply propping up “zombie companies” with no future. Insolvencies duly fell. But since October, Berlin has phased out the waiver.

Lufthansa is working with Deutsche Bank and Bank of America to sound out investors about a capital increase worth roughly 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion), possibly as soon as June, Reuters reported. The final size and timing of the rights issue to repay state aid Lufthansa received during the pandemic will be subject to market conditions and the German airline is expected to opt for a June/July or September/October window.