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India’s Supreme Court upheld laws that protect new owners of insolvent companies from charges filed against the previous management in a verdict that could pave the way for faster resolution of big bankruptcies, Bloomberg News reported. A bankrupt company and its assets cannot face criminal proceedings once it is sold to new owners, the Supreme Court said on Tuesday while dismissing petitions challenging the rules. The former management can still be prosecuted.
A decade ago, Joseph R. Biden Jr. strode into a reception room in Athens for a meeting with the president of Greece, a country then drowning in debt and locked in tense negotiations with the European Union. “This man represents the Treasury Department,” a deadpan Mr. Biden said to his host as he gestured to a gray-suited member of his delegation. “He’s brought hundreds of millions of dollars.” The room broke up in laughter: It was clear the vice president hadn’t come with a briefcase of cash to pay off Greece’s debts.
Tsinghua Unigroup, a Chinese conglomerate that has long sought to become a semiconductor powerhouse, is now caught between a rock and a hard place as debt woes mount while key chip units are failing to thrive, Reuters reported. Best known for an unsuccessful $23 billion bid for U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology Inc in 2015, Unigroup in November shocked investors with a default on a 1.3 billion yuan ($200 million) bond. Including that bond, Unigroup has now either defaulted or had cross-defaults triggered on seven onshore and offshore bonds worth about $3.6 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
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New York-listed Best Inc, a Chinese logistics firm backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is considering a sale as part of a strategic review, Reuters reported. With the endorsement of Alibaba, its biggest shareholder, Best has tapped financial advisers to explore options as its shares have been underperforming and are worth a fifth of its IPO price in 2018, two of the people involved in the discussions said.
A tug of war has emerged in Japan between authorities calling on restaurants to close early to stem the spread of the coronavirus, and business owners who say such requests are pushing them past their limits, Bloomberg News reported. With Japan’s virus strategy dependent on voluntary cooperation, the struggle shows the limits of its social compliance model as the pandemic drags on into a second year.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte survived a confidence vote in the country’s Senate but fell short of an outright majority, weakening his government as it searches for a way to tame the Covid-19 pandemic and revive the economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The vote in the Senate was triggered by the decision of a small centrist party led by a former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, to withdraw from the governing coalition. Mr. Renzi said he objected to Mr.
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North Ireland is facing an “abyss” once the Brexit “grace period” on imports from Britain ends unless action is taken, one of its major haulage companies has warned, the Irish Times reported. “Northern Ireland’s going to get worse in April if we don’t get some easement,” said Paul Jackson of McBurney Transport in Ballymena, Co Antrim. “As a haulage business this is currently an unsustainable model, and we have to be engaged with directly and we have to have it sorted out before the first of April, we have to.” Mr.
China postponed Kenyan debt repayments due over the next six months, a week after the Paris Club of creditors offered the East African nation similar relief, Bloomberg News reported. Kenya had been scheduled to pay 27 billion shillings ($245 million) to China from January through June, Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani said Wednesday on Spice FM radio in the capital, Nairobi. The delayed payments were agreed after talks with the Chinese government, he said.
An annual wealth tax on the net worth of South Africa’s richest people could raise as much as 160 billion rand ($10.7 billion) and would narrow inequality in a nation where the most affluent 1% of the population own 55% of personal wealth, a study showed, Bloomberg News. The study, carried out by groups including the World Inequality Lab of which Thomas Piketty is co-director, assessed personal wealth in South Africa and proposed a range of taxes on net wealth of above 3.82 million rand, or the top 1% of the population.
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The International Monetary Fund has found that government support is keeping roughly one in ten German companies afloat that would otherwise have gone bust during the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. In a report that on Tuesday laid bare the scale of economic damage masked by state aid, the Fund also warned that, once support was unwound, bankruptcy could soar, potentially weakening Germany’s banks. The analysis said the pandemic impact was worst for hotels and restaurants, where almost a third of loans could have gone unpaid without state relief.