Headlines

Norwegian Air has withdrawn requests to repudiate a total of 36 aircraft leases after reaching agreement with the lessors in question as part of a restructuring process, Ireland’s High Court heard on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The budget airline was late last year given protection from bankruptcy in both Norway and Ireland, where most of its assets are registered, and is aiming to emerge from the process with fewer aircraft and less debt.

Asian nations led the world in crushing Covid-19 in 2020. Now some are being hamstrung by border closures and other rules they imposed to stay safe, potentially putting them behind the U.S. and other countries in leading the global economic recovery, the Wall Street Journal reported. Countries such as China, Thailand and Australia virtually halted the coronavirus within their borders by shutting off entry to most outsiders and aggressively quashing infections that slipped in.

Irish public finances fell deeper into the red last month as spending on various pandemic-related supports rose and tax receipts fell, the Irish Times reported. The latest exchequer returns, published by the Department of Finance, show the Government’s budget deficit - on a rolling 12-month basis – swelled to just over €14 billion in February. This was fuelled by a combination of falling tax revenues and increased spending on financial supports for impacted workers and businesses.

Poland’s government received an EU slapdown over its radical judicial reforms after the bloc’s highest court ruled Tuesday that changes to the way Polish Supreme Court judges are appointed may infringe EU law, Politico reported. The judgment comes amid growing concern about the independence of Poland’s judiciary, and forms part of a years-long legal and political conflict between Brussels and Warsaw over worries that the nationalist government is backsliding on the EU’s democratic standards.

The huge public deficits that have piled up as governments bail out their pandemic-hit economies are prompting the first rethink of a four-decade decline in corporate tax rates worldwide, Reuters reported. Britain may be first to see the tide turn as soon as Wednesday when finance minister Rishi Sunak is widely expected to announce a small increase in corporate levies in his budget announcement to help pay for the hit from COVID-19.

Mexico does not see the need to reduce its oil exports, as many Latin American producers did last year, because demand and pricing for its flagship crude remains firm, the head of state oil company Pemex’s commercial arm said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Mexico briefly joined an effort by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies last year to reduce production to revive crude prices but it limited its contribution to the cuts to 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) for a couple of months through June. The nation had to curb fuel imports amid lower demand.

Brussels and Washington, D.C., imposed new sanctions against senior Russian officials on Tuesday, delivering a one-two punch at the Kremlin over the poisoning attack and jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Politico reported.

Thai Airways International Pcl is seeking a capital infusion of as much as 50 billion baht ($1.65 billion) under a debt restructuring plan set to be submitted to a bankruptcy court to keep the flag carrier operational, Bloomberg News reported. The fund may be raised through equity, loans or convertible securities, said sources, who asked to not be identified before the debt plan is submitted to the court in Bangkok on Tuesday. The capital infusion plan will need to be backed by the airline’s hundreds of credit-holders and approved by the court, they said.

Waves of bankruptcies triggered by the coronavirus pandemic will wipe as much as $1 trillion from the value of global corporate debt markets, the Bank for International Settlements warned, Bloomberg News reported. Company insolvencies “are expected to rise as measures to support credit are wound back, new consumption habits and business practices accelerate the downsizing of specific sectors,” the BIS wrote in a quarterly report published on Monday.