Headlines

Ryanair on Wednesday had another setback in its fight against state aid for rival airlines after Europe’s second-highest court again backed EU competition regulators’ approval of support for SAS and Finnair, Reuters reported. Europe’s biggest budget airline has filed 16 lawsuits against the European Commission for allowing state aid to individual airlines such as Lufthansa, KLM, Austrian Airlines and TAP, as well as national schemes that mainly benefit flag carriers.

Leaders from Britain’s aviation industry joined forces Wednesday to urge the British government to ensure that popular European destinations face the least onerous coronavirus travel restrictions when holidays are allowed again, the Associated Press reported. Under the government’s new traffic light system for England, travel to countries in the lowest green category could be opened up to quarantine-free travel from May 17. Arrivals would be required to take a pre-departure test as well as the gold standard PCR test on or before day two of their return to England.

The European Union set out its blueprint to raise nearly $1 trillion of debt over five years as it seeks to fund its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The bloc is aiming to issue the first debt under its NextGenerationEU stimulus as early as July and will use a “state of the art” platform to begin selling bonds and bills via a network of primary bank dealers by September, according to the bloc’s executive branch.

Latin American vehicle importer and distributor Automotores Gildemeister SpA has filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. with a prepackaged reorganization plan to cut about $200 million in debt, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Santiago, Chile-based company, along with 12 affiliates, filed for chapter 11 Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The privately held company had warned earlier this month that it would file for reorganization in the U.S. with support from its international noteholders.

The collapse of Archegos Capital Management LP, an investment firm that few even on Wall Street had heard of until it imploded last month, is changing a lucrative, decades-old part of global banking, Bloomberg News reported. Nomura Holdings Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG, the two lenders hit hardest, have started to curb financing in the business with hedge funds and family offices. European regulators are looking at risks banks are taking when lending to such clients, while in the U.S., authorities started a preliminary probe into the debacle.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday he would make proposals to restructure the debts of companies struggling with loans taken on during the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reported. Many French companies are emerging from the pandemic with severely strained balance sheets after they borrowed massively under a state-guaranteed loan programme designed to help them through the crisis. While the programme helped depress bankruptcies last year to record low levels, economists expect a surge in filings as various state support schemes are wound down.

Switzerland’s top financial regulator said the collapse of Archegos Capital Management LP will have consequences for how banks deal with risk as one of the country’s biggest lenders counts its losses from exposure to the investment firm, Bloomberg News reported. “This will be meticulously examined and there will be lessons, maybe for regulators, maybe for the banks who were involved, maybe for supervisors,” Mark Branson, the head of Swiss regulator Finma, said Wednesday in Berlin.

A ship that blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week in March is being held in the waterway as canal authorities pursue a $916 million compensation claim against the ship’s Japanese owner, one of the vessel’s insurers and canal sources said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Ever Given container ship, owned by Shoei Kisen, has been in a lake separating two sections of the canal since it was dislodged on March 29, as the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) conducts investigations. Two SCA sources, who declined to be named, told Reuters a court order had been issued for the ship to be held.

India’s markets regulator fined Yes Bank Ltd. for claiming that riskier bonds it sold to individual investors were as safe as term deposits, Bloomberg News reported.

Air Canada, struggling with a collapse in traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reached a deal on Monday on a long-awaited aid package with the federal government that would allow it to access up to C$5.9 billion ($4.69 billion) in funds, Reuters reported. The agreement - the largest individual coronavirus-related loan that Ottawa has arranged with a company - was announced after the airline industry criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government for dawdling. The United States and France acted much more quickly to help major carriers.