Headlines

Lawyers for insolvent Laurentian University continue to defend against a Speaker's warrant issued by the Ontario Legislature that aims to force the Sudbury school to give up privileged information to the auditor general, CBC.ca reported. A legislative committee tasked Bonnie Lysyk with a special audit last spring to look into how the university became insolvent.

Mexico central bank board member Jonathan Heath sounded the alarm about accelerating core inflation, saying in a series of tweets that the situation “looks grave” and may signal a structural problem, Bloomberg News reported. Even though annual inflation at the end of 2021 was marginally slower than in November and even slower than analyst forecasts, it isn’t good news because core prices are rising faster, Heath said. The annual core figure stood at 6% in the last half of December. It “signals the persistence of a more inertial or even structural problem,” Heath said in one Twitter post.

Argentine dollar bonds fell the most since September after Economy Minister Martin Guzman criticized spending cuts proposed by the International Monetary Fund, highlighting the difficulties ahead in securing a new agreement, Bloomberg News reported. Notes maturing in 2041 dropped 1 cent to 32.8 cents on the dollar, the biggest decline since Sept. 20, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Credit-default swaps widened the most in five weeks.

Euro zone bond yields edged up on Friday and kept near recent highs as annual December inflation in the bloc jumped unexpectedly to another record high, Reuters reported. Consumer prices in the bloc rose 5% annually in December, defying analyst expectations that inflation had likely peaked and the fall to 4.7% from 4.9% in November that a Reuters poll had expected.

CannTrust Holdings Inc., the troubled Canadian cannabis producer whose former executives have been charged with fraud, is preparing to wind down if it can’t find a way to fix a default by the end of the month, Bloomberg News reported. The Vaughan, Ontario-based company breached a minimum earnings covenant on its C$22.5 million ($17.7 million) bankruptcy loan, and is currently in negotiations with potential investors and strategic partners over ways to address the default and its liquidity shortfall, according to a Thursday statement.

Violent protests against the government in Kazakhstan led to intermittent internet shutdowns for a second day, as troops from a Russia-led military alliance arrived in the country to restore order. The lack of connectivity disrupted huge cryptocurrency mining operations in the country, which has become one of the world’s largest hubs for this activity, the New York Times reported. Creating, or mining, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is a power-hungry process in which vast computer networks compete online for newly created crypto tokens.

Argentine dollar bonds fell the most since September after Economy Minister Martin Guzman criticized spending cuts proposed by the International Monetary Fund, highlighting the difficulties ahead in securing a new agreement, Bloomberg News reported. Notes maturing in 2041 dropped 1 cent to 32.8 cents on the dollar, the biggest decline since Sept. 20, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Credit-default swaps widened the most in five weeks.

Mexico's central bank signaled concern over rising inflation and labor costs as its board voted last month to raise its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 5.50%, minutes from the latest monetary policy meeting showed on Thursday, Reuters reported. "All members mentioned that headline and core inflation expectations for 2021, 2022 and for the next 12 months increased again, along with medium-term expectations, while long-term expectations have remained stable at levels above the target," the Bank of Mexico said in the latest minutes.

An Indian court has ordered a halt on Amazon.com Inc.’s arbitration case against Future Retail Ltd. in Singapore, a day after it had refused to interfere with the process, Bloomberg News reported. Following an appeal by Future Retail, a two-judge panel of the Delhi High Court overturned Tuesday’s verdict and stayed the arbitration process started by Amazon to stop the cash-strapped Indian retailer’s asset sale to Reliance Industries Ltd. until the next hearing on Feb. 1.

Passenger traffic at Grupo Aeromexico in December reached its highest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mexican airline said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Aeromexico transported 1.74 million passengers last month, or 98.9% of the 1.76 million people it moved in December 2019, the company said in a statement. Aeromexico's total offer, measured in available seat-kilometers (ASKs), was equivalent to 82.6% of the capacity of December 2019, the company said. Domestic capacity was up 13.6% from December 2019, while international capacity was 70.7% of that month.