Headlines

National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has allowed the withdrawal of corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) against Le Grandiose developer, Nobility Estates Private Limited, after lenders and the company’s ex-management reached a settlement agreement, the Times of India reported. It also restored the management of the real estate company to its board of directors. Tribunal’s principal bench, comprising acting president Bachu Venkat Balram Das and member (technical) Ravindra Chaturvedi, in an order on May 5, approved the withdrawal application.

Mexico’s Braskem Idesa SAPI and its creditors are nearing an agreement for a loan of around $250 million as part of a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg News reported. The company and its advisers are racing to line up debtor-in-possession financing so that Braskem Idesa can get a deal and benefit from an improvement in petrochemical spreads driven by the war in the Middle East. Read more. (Subscription required.)

U.K. mortgage lender Market Financial Solutions left Barclays, HSBC and Apollo Global Management facing hundreds of millions of dollars in potential losses when it collapsed in February, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, bankruptcy administrators allege its owner, Paresh Raja, moved around $550 million of MFS-borrowed funds into personal bank accounts and then bought luxury cars including six Ferraris and three Rolls-Royces. A spokeswoman for Raja said that he strongly denies the allegations and that there was no fraud or dishonesty.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Wednesday defeated an appeal by a Puerto Rican lender ‌whose access to the U.S. central banking system was cut off in a ‌crackdown on lenders with links to Venezuela, Reuters reported. In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in ​Manhattan rejected Banco San Juan Internacional's (BSJI) claim that the Federal Reserve Act entitled it to a "master account," which lets banks access the Fed's electronic payment system. BSJI ⁠sued in 2023 after learning that its 11-year-old account would be closed over concerns it was not complying with U.S.

Eurozone industrial output rose in March, though the war in the Middle East is expected to increasingly weigh on manufacturers across the currency area and as energy costs and supply disruptions mount, the Wall Street Journal reported. Industrial production rose 0.2% on month, after a rise of 0.2% in February, the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat said Wednesday. Output picked up in March despite rising energy costs due to the Iran war. This came in part due to the frontloading of production in anticipation of sharply higher costs and potential supply disruptions ahead.

French companies ​have so far absorbed the shock from the conflict ‌in the Middle East, but pervasive uncertainty and higher energy costs are beginning to test the economy's resilience, the ​central bank said on Tuesday in its monthly ​business survey, Reuters reported. The Bank of France said there was ⁠so much uncertainty over the outlook that it ​could not provide its usual growth estimate for the ​quarter. It said, however, that activity continued to expand in April, albeit more slowly, according to its April 28 to May ​6 survey of around 8,500 firms.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday signed an executive order to eliminate federal taxes ​on foreign purchases worth up to $50, reversing course on a highly ‌unpopular levy as he gears up to seek re-election in October, Reuters reported. The move is expected to lower the cost of goods bought on cross-border e-commerce platforms widely used by lower-income ​Brazilians.

Lengthening working lives are helping to support growth in the eurozone even as the population ages, but immigration is essential if the economy is to continue to expand over coming years, the European Central Bank said Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a report on the workforce, economists at the ECB calculated that rising employment has accounted for about half of the growth recorded in the eurozone since the third quarter of 2023, while gains in output per worker have been modest.

Digital assets have the potential to effect sweeping changes on U.K. financial markets, according to Lucy Rigby, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Decrypt.com reported.

The Bank of Canada on Wednesday said that there were no signs so far that artificial ‌intelligence was leading to widespread job losses, adding the technology had ‌the potential to transform tasks rather than eliminate them, Reuters reported. Deputy Governor Michelle Alexopoulos said the central bank was ​closely monitoring the employment market and anticipated that as AI becomes more prevalent, some jobs would be replaced and new ones would emerge.