Germany

Germany has fined Citigroup nearly 13 million euros ($13.94 million) for lapses in its trading system controls, the nation's bank regulator said on Thursday, as its consumer protection division imposed its largest penalty ever, Reuters reported. It is related to a mishap in 2022 involving $1.4 billion in mistaken sell orders in equities, an event that riled markets and for which Citigroup was already fined 61.6 million pounds ($78.24 million) by British authorities in May.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition ditched a plan to buy the entire German unit of Tennet Holding BV’s power grid, after the cost proved too much for the government’s stretched finances, Bloomberg News reported. Discussions on a full sale by the Dutch state-owned grid operator to German development bank KfW have ended after more than a year of negotiations, Tennet said Thursday in a statement.

UniCredit SpA is working on three significant risk transfer deals linked to as much as €8.5 billion ($9 billion) of loans to Italian and German companies, Bloomberg News reported. The Milan-based bank is selling two so-called SRTs linked to €3.5 billion of leasing contracts with Italian companies and €2 billion euros of Italian small and medium-sized businesses, said the people, who asked not to be named because the deal is private. UniCredit also plans to issue SRTs linked to as much as €3 billion of loans to German SMEs by the summer.

Germany's biggest industrial union said Monday it will seek a 7% pay increase for millions of workers in negotiations starting later this year, arguing that companies including automakers and machinery manufacturers are in a position to afford it, the Associated Press reported.

In the first three months of the year 5,209 companies filed for bankruptcy in Germany, the Federal Statistical Office on Friday, continuing an upward trend, DPA International reported. This year's first quarter figure was 26.5% higher than in the same quarter last year. It was also 11.2% higher than in same quarter in 2020, before the coronavirus forced closures across the country. In May 2024, 25.9% more regular insolvencies were filed than a year earlier. Since June 2023, double-digit year-on-year growth rates have been recorded, according to the government statisticians.

A former Allianz fund manager pleaded guilty on Friday over his role in a meltdown of private investment funds sparked by the pandemic that caused an estimated $7 billion of investor losses, Reuters reported. Gregoire Tournant admitted to two counts of investment adviser fraud at a hearing before Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the federal court in Manhattan. He faces up to 10 years in prison at his Oct. 16 sentencing. Tournant also agreed to give up $17.5 million in ill-gotten gains, including bonuses that were inflated by his fraud.

German manufacturing orders unexpectedly fell in April, reflecting the persistent difficulties in the industrial sector even as Europe’s largest economy gradually recovers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Orders were 0.2% lower than the prior month, German statistics office Destatis said Thursday. It came after orders fell 0.8% in March, weaker than the 0.4% originally published. Over a three-month period, new orders were down 5.4%, mainly due to major aircraft orders in December 2023.

German financier Lars Windhorst was cleared after a German criminal investigation into whether he breached banking rules by setting up a financing vehicle to pay back investment firm H2O Asset Management, Bloomberg News reported. Berlin prosecutors dropped the probe because they didn’t find evidence that would have warranted criminal charges, a spokesman for the agency said. The probe was officially closed in April.

Germany’s jobless rate was stable at a low rate for a sixth-straight month, reflecting a resilient jobs market in Europe’s largest economy, ahead of a European Central Bank interest-rate cut later this week, the Wall Street Journal reported. The adjusted unemployment rate was 5.9% in May, data from the Federal Employment Agency showed Tuesday. The number of jobless claims rose by 25,000 in May, on a seasonally adjusted basis, ahead of estimates of 10,000 and the 8,000 increase recorded in April. Registered job vacancies stood at 702,000, down 65,000 on year, the agency said.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced plans for €23 billion ($25 billion) in income-tax relief for households through 2026 even as he wrestles with his coalition partners over how to plug a hole in next year’s budget, Bloomberg News reported. The proposal includes increasing the tax-free allowance for low earners, as well as lifting earnings brackets to offset the effect of inflation as workers are pushed into higher tranches under the country’s progressive taxation system.