Headlines

The Restaurants Association of Ireland and some individual members of the group have applied to the High Court seeking leave to challenge distinctions made between indoor dining in non-hotel commercial restaurants and indoor dining within hotels, the Irish Times reported. The challenge relates to recent regulations signed by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and claims the distinction drawn should be quashed on the basis of “irrationality, lack of proportionality and unjustifiable interference” with restaurateurs’ property and economic rights.

Canada’s banking regulator raised a key capital requirement for large domestic banks, a signal that it considers the economic risks of the Covid-19 pandemic to have largely subsided, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s bank superintendent said Thursday it will raise the domestic stability buffer to 2.5% from 1%, beginning in October. The regulator lowered the buffer in March 2020, giving banks more room to absorb losses while still lending through the crisis.

Lebanon's banks, which once powered the economy by sucking in billions of dollars of deposits from abroad, are shedding staff, watching loan books shrink and chasing liquidity to stay afloat, Reuters reported. About 3,000 bankers, or more than 10% of the banking industry workforce, have resigned or lost their jobs so far since a financial crisis flared up in late 2019 - and the numbers keep rising, four senior bankers told Reuters. De facto capital controls are in place, depositors are locked out of most of their savings and lending to the private sector has plummeted.

Egypt left interest rates unchanged for a fifth straight meeting, seeking to guard against a possible surge in inflation caused by the spike in global commodity prices, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank held the benchmark deposit rate at 8.25% and the lending rate at 9.25%, the Monetary Policy Committee said Thursday in a statement. The decision extends Egypt’s pause in monetary easing that began in December, after authorities cut a combined 400 basis points throughout 2020 to tackle the pandemic’s impact.

Japan cleared the way for holding the Summer Olympics on schedule by setting an end to its state of emergency and lifting vaccinations to about a million shots a day, the Wall Street Journal reported. Thursday’s developments, combined with falling Covid-19 infection numbers and rising public support for the Games, make it highly likely that the Olympics will start in Tokyo on July 23 as scheduled, barring a last-minute surprise such as a renewed coronavirus wave.

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday proposed further restrictions on purchases of telecommunications equipment that pose national security risks, strengthening its opposition to Chinese providers of 5G wireless and other technologies, the New York Times reported. The F.C.C. voted unanimously to explore the proposal to ban U.S. companies from all future purchases of telecommunications equipment from companies like Huawei and ZTE of China.

Bankrupt miner Samarco Mineracao SA plans to receive a 1.2 billion reais ($238 million) debtor-in-possession loan extended by its controlling shareholders, Vale SA and BHP Group Ltd, to maintain its activity, according to court documents reviewed by Reuters. But a group representing 80% of Samarco’s debt excluding Vale and BHP oppose the move, saying the DIP financing goal would be to protect Vale and BHP assets. Among these creditors are York Global Finance, Ashmor, Solus and City National.

British inflation unexpectedly jumped above the Bank of England's target in May when it hit 2.1%, part of a post-lockdown climb in prices that is expected gather pace, Reuters reported. The acceleration of the consumer price index from April's 1.5% largely reflected how weak inflation was in May 2020 when the economy was reeling from its first tight lockdown. The figure represented the first time inflation has gone above the BoE's 2% target in almost two years and was above all 33 forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists which had pointed to a rise in inflation to 1.8%.

Britain’s decision to extend the last remaining Covid-19 lockdown rules another month will cause barely a ripple in the pace of economic growth this year but put thousands of jobs at risk in the industries hit hardest by the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. UKHospitality, which represents restaurants, hotels and bars, said its members will lose another 3 billion pounds ($4.2 billion) in sales in addition to the 87 billion pounds foregone during the pandemic, threatening 300,000 jobs across the industry.

Intrum AB, the biggest debt collection company in Europe, says that its latest survey of businesses in the region shows many are bracing for growing payment issues, Bloomberg News reported. “Companies themselves expect increases in late payments,” Anders Engdahl, Intrum’s chief executive, said by phone. “Overall, the aggregate loan-to-value ratio in relation to GDP in the European economy has increased quite sharply in 2021.” After more than a year of pandemic-induced restrictions, it’s still unclear how quickly Europe’s economy will bounce back from the Covid crisis.