Headlines

Two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korea's Lee Jae Myung met and announced they had resolved months of negotiations over tariffs and security issues, the two sides have yet to release any agreement on paper, Reuters reported. South Korean officials say the delay appears to centre on discussions over their request for Washington's blessing to build a nuclear-powered submarine, which Lee raised publicly when he met Trump on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific forum in South Korea last month.

Two Ukrainian oligarchs have been told to pay $3bn (£2.3bn) in damages to the country’s largest bank following an eight-year fraud battle at London’s High Court, the Telegraph reported. On Monday, Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov were ordered to repay the funds to state-owned lender PrivatBank after a judge ruled they took part in a “fraud of Byzantine complexity”. The case saw the two former billionaires extract $1.8bn from PrivatBank through a series of fraudulent loans between 2013 and 2014 while they controlled the lender as the bank’s two largest shareholders.

E-commerce company WeMakePrice has been declared bankrupt. This comes 1 year and 4 months after it triggered a large-scale unpaid settlement crisis in July of last year and applied for corporate rehabilitation proceedings, the Chosun Daily reported. Seoul Rehabilitation Court’s Rehabilitation Division 3 (Chief Judge Kim Joon-young) finalized the decision to terminate WeMakePrice’s rehabilitation process on the 10th and declared bankruptcy.

Mainland businessman Li Yonghong’s company, Rossoneri Sport Investment Co., Ltd., which previously owned Italian football club AC Milan, is facing a liquidation petition filed by creditor General Fantasy Limited, with a hearing set for next January, TheStandard.com.hk reported. Li acquired AC Milan through his Chinese-led consortium in 2017. However, the company later failed to repay debts after signing a bond subscription agreement with five investment fund firms.

When Patrick O’Connell picks up the phone these days to help Prince Edward Islanders in financial distress, he’s hearing a familiar concern: the rising cost of living, which is driving people deeper into debt, CBC.ca reported. O'Connell, a licensed insolvency trustee for P.E.I. with Allan Marshall & Associates, said many of the Islanders he speaks with are struggling to make ends meet as everyday expenses continue to climb. He said last month was the busiest his firm has ever been on the Island, handling more insolvency files on P.E.I. than ever before.

The insolvency regulator has proposed mandating bidders for bankrupt firms to disclose beneficial ownerships, a move aimed at curbing misuse of the ‘clean slate’ principle and preventing backdoor entry of disqualified promoters or related parties, the Economic Times of India reported. In a discussion paper, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has suggested a standard format for beneficial ownership disclosures by all potential resolution applicants.

European business sees a far greater impact in 2026 from U.S. tariffs and other trade tensions than in 2025, when front-loading mitigated the consequences, a survey by BusinessEurope showed on Monday, Reuters reported. The survey found that trade tensions were likely to pull 2025 gross domestic product down by 0.03 percentage points for the euro zone, the EU and a broader group of European countries. For 2026, the negative impact was likely to be 0.5 to 0.6 percentage points, with the euro zone faring worst.

The Bank of England has dropped demands for strict rules governing cryptocurrencies following pressure from Donald Trump’s administration to soften its stance, the Telegraph reported. Threadneedle Street unveiled proposals on Monday aimed at helping the UK to grab a slice of the $300bn (£230bn) market. While officials confirmed plans to cap the amount of so-called stablecoins that people can own at £20,000 for individuals and £10m for businesses, it said retailers and cryptocurrency exchanges would be exempt from the “temporary” limits.

Brazil's central bank on Monday released long-awaited rules for trading virtual assets, including cryptocurrencies, that ​will extend existing rules against money laundering and terrorism financing to virtual-‌asset service providers, Reuters reported. Latin America's largest economy approved a legal framework for cryptocurrencies in 2022, but ‌its rollout hinged on complementary regulation from the central bank, which later held four public consultations on the matter.