Germany

Tokyo Electric Power Co should go through a court-led restructuring similar to Japan Airlines, the head of the Tokyo bourse was quoted as saying, sending the utility's stock tumbling to an all-time low on the possibility of a delisting, Reuters reported. Japan's government, however, reiterated there would be no such restructuring of the operator of the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which it has said should remain solvent and listed as it battles to restore power output and compensate victims of the nuclear crisis.

Germany’s senior bank regulator has criticised the European Banking Authority for its conduct of this year’s bank stress tests, accusing it of acting without legitimacy in setting controversial rules that define bank capital, the Financial Times reported. The comments from Jochen Sanio, head of BaFin, highlight the unhappiness in Germany at the EBA’s approach to the tests and cast doubt on the backing for the new authority from the financial sector in Europe’s largest economy.

German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG said Tuesday it has bought real estate and manufacturing facilities once owned by its former Qimonda unit for EUR100.6 million and also raised its capital expenditure budget for the current fiscal year, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The purchase covers cleanroom and manufacturing facilities in the German city of Dresden as well as 300-millimeter manufacturing equipment and is part of the company's strategic capacity expansion, Infineon said in a statement. Qimonda, a maker of DRAM chips, filed for insolvency in 2009.

Government officials from France and Germany went out of their way Monday to stress the need for a unified euro zone even as intensifying worries over Greek debt piled pressure on the currency bloc, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a Europe Day speech, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Monday said it's paramount that euro-zone states continue to show solidarity towards one another—signaling France could agree to go further to help Greece meet its funding needs for next year.

Germany's WestLB is being given another deadline, until the end of June, to submit details of a restructuring plan to the European Commission, three persons close to the matter told Dow Jones Wednesday. The German government was informed by the Commission of the new deadline in writing over the weekend, they said. In mid-April WestLB owners and the German government delivered a plan to turn WestLB into a bank providing central banking services to savings banks in the region, known as a Verbundbank.

The Bundesbank’s new hawkish president Jens Weidmann said private investors should help cover costs of the euro zone crisis, the Irish Times reported. Mr Weidmann promised a continued “stability culture” at the German central bank after taking over yesterday from outgoing president Axel Weber. “To put the currency union back on a solid footing, the rules have to be formulated so that national finance (players) and private investors are, in principle, prepared to answer for the consequences of their decision,” said Dr Weidmann, an economist and former student of Prof Weber.

The US Justice Department sued German giant Deutsche Bank Tuesday for more than $1 billion for mortgage fraud, saying the bank illegally obtained government insurance for substandard mortgages during the US housing boom, Agence France-Presse reported. Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary MortgageIT "repeatedly lied to be included in a government program to select mortgages for insurance by the government," the Justice Department complaint said.

In an interview with the left-leaning German daily Die Tageszeitung published Thursday, Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, described Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann as "one of the most dangerous bankers in the world," Spiegel Online reported. Johnson singled out Ackermann's famous target of a 25 percent pretax return on equity for particular criticism. He said such returns were only possible because Ackermann knows that Deutsche Bank is too big to fail and that it would be "rescued by taxpayers" if it was faced with bankruptcy.

WestLB's owners and management are still working on three plans for the troubled German lender, two people familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Tuesday. The three options that owners and management are working on are a complete sale of the bank, downsizing the bank by 30% and transforming WestLB into a bank focusing on the Verbund business, which provides central banking services to the region's savings banks, the people said. More detailed plans for all three proposals will be handed in to the European competition authority on Friday.

Two of Germany's public-sector lenders are expected to fail European "stress tests" if they can't find a way around new regulations prohibiting inclusion of some non-voting government stakes in their core capital ratios, The Wall Street Journal reported. NordLB and Helaba were among the rare German banks that survived the financial crisis without any state aid. However, both banks are dangerously low on capital when their silent participations, a special type of subordinated debt that makes up as much as half of the banks' capital, is discounted.