German banks' use of European Central Bank crisis funding dropped by a third in January from the previous month, a further sign that banks in the heart of the euro zone are returning to money markets after last year's credit squeeze. Banks in countries on the periphery of the 17-member bloc still rely on central bank lending, which, while at a record-low interest rate of 0.75 percent, is above market rates. The divergence complicates the ECB's interest rate-setting plans.

German lighting designer Hess filed for insolvency on Wednesday only months after celebrating its stock exchange debut, deciding an ongoing fraud investigation would scupper any hopes of raising fresh equity, Reuters reported. "After intensive examinations, the management board came to the conclusion that Hess is illiquid, has no positive prognosis of the continuation of the enterprise and the company is, according to the current status of examinations, over-indebted," the company said in a statement.

German do-it-yourself chain Praktiker AG is closing its stores in Turkey and withdrawing from the country after failing to sell the nine stores its operates there, Reuters reported. The company, which is battling to return to profit, said on Monday its Turkish subsidiary filed for managed insolvency proceedings with an Istanbul court earlier in the day. "We cannot afford a persistent loss-maker like Turkey.

It has been a difficult turnaround for Deutsche Bank. The big German financial firm said on Thursday that it lost 2.2 billion euros ($3 billion) in the fourth quarter, as it was hit by legal costs and expenses related to its restructuring, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. “The results underline the task ahead for Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, the co-chief executives who took over the bank less than seven months ago and have declared their intention to deal more severely with the legacy of the financial crisis,” Jack Ewing writes in DealBook.

Despite a drumbeat of optimistic forecasts from economists and upbeat statements from various European leaders, the actual news on the economy continues to be grim, with figures released Tuesday showing that Germany, the Continent’s flagship economy, contracted by about 0.5 percent in the final months of last year, the International Herald Tribune reported. Combined with a flurry of disappointing results recently in other major economies, the stumble raised questions about Europe’s ability to escape recession.

Cyprus's hopes of agreeing a eurozone bailout were thrown into fresh confusion on Wednesday as German politicians from across the spectrum warned that the aid package could be vetoed by the Bundestag, The Guardian reported. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is taking a hard line on Cyprus, saying the country must agree to wideranging economic reforms and privatisations before she would support a bailout. Negotiations between the Cyprus government and international lenders have stalled, with the Communist president, Dimitris Christofias, refusing to accept asset sales.

While German industry has enjoyed record export and profit growth, ordinary Germans have not had much economic joy over the past 13 years, The Guardian reported in a commentary. As Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research has demonstrated, real personal disposable income per capita rose by just over 7% from 1998 to 2011, compared to growth of 13% for Spain and around or over 18% for Britain, France and the US. German income growth lagged behind almost all OECD countries; only Italy and Japan performed worse.

German unemployment increased less than economists forecast in December even as Europe’s debt crisis curbed company investment and economic growth, Bloomberg News reported today. The number of people out of work rose a seasonally adjusted 3,000 to 2.942 million, the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Agency said today. Germany's economy, Europe’s largest, may have contracted markedly in the fourth quarter after the euro area's succumbed to recession, the Bundesbank said on Dec. 17.

The local court in Amberg, Germany, has ordered debtor-in-possession proceedings in accordance with section 270b of the German Insolvency Code (Insolvenzordnung) for SiC Processing GmbH, a Germany-based provider of solar slurry recovery services, AER-Online reported on Monday. The company's Norwegian subsidiary filed for insolvency earlier this month after its only customer, REC Wafer Norway, filed its own insolvency application during the summer. For SiC Processing GmbH, the court has appointed Dr. Hubert Ampferl, a partner at Nuremberg, Germany-based law firm Dr.

Photon Europe, the German publisher of several solar energy magazines and websites, has filed for insolvency, Recharge reported. A district court in the Western German city of Aachen has opened preliminary insolvency proceedings and appointed lawyer André Seckler as administrator, Photon says in a statement. Under German insolvency rules, he has three months to bring new investors on board to save the publisher, which has 140 employees. Seckler plans to keep it going in the meantime.