Headlines

World Bank President Ajay Banga on Friday stressed the need to increase transparency in debt restructuring processes to give greater clarity to all parties involved, including by expanding the debtor reporting system to all Group of 20 major economies, Reuters reported.

The number of people going financially insolvent across England and Wales in September was 7% higher than a year earlier, according to Insolvency Service figures, PAMedia.com reported. Some 11,101 people entered insolvency in England and Wales, which was 3% lower than in August 2025 but 7% higher than in September 2024. This was made up of 622 bankruptcies, 3,985 debt relief orders (DROs) and 6,494 individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs).

Company insolvencies in Scotland saw a sharp increase in September 2025, rising 41% compared to the same month last year, Scottish Financial News reported. Official figures show 103 companies became insolvent. This total was comprised of 50 creditors’ voluntary liquidations (CVLs), 48 compulsory liquidations, and five administrations. Despite the monthly surge, the overall insolvency rate for the year to September 2025 showed a slight improvement.

Thousands of people in Britain are suing the health care giant Johnson & Johnson over claims that the company’s baby powder caused cancer, mirroring a long-running litigation battle in the United States over the talc-based product, the New York Times reported. More than 3,000 people have joined the lawsuit, which was filed in Britain’s High Court on Tuesday. The initial value of the claim is 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion), said KP Law, which filed the case on behalf of the individuals. It is the first group claim against the company in Britain.

Electric aircraft startup Lilium may have ceased operations a year ago, but its insolvency filing wasn’t quite the end of the German-based company, TechCrunch.com reported. There were multiple failed attempts to restructure the company, including a last-ditch effort by Mobile Uplift Corporation, a company set up by investors from Europe and North America, to acquire the operating assets of the startup’s two subsidiaries. Ultimately, a bankruptcy administrator put the company’s assets through a competitive bid process.

A Bermuda captive that insured several New York hospitals affiliated with a leading Jewish not-for-profit organization says it is insolvent, citing millions of dollars in child sex abuse claims brought against it under the state’s Child Victims Act (CVA), the Insurance Journal reported. Northeast Insurance Co. has filed for “winding-up” of its business in Bermuda Supreme Court and has submitted a Chapter 15 filing in federal bankruptcy court in New York asking it to recognize those Bermuda liquidation proceedings.

The wine industry in Bordeaux is facing a deep crisis, with falling demand, declining prices, and a growing number of vineyards at risk of abandonment. In response, the Confédération Paysanne de Gironde has called for the creation of a public land management agency to help steer the region through this difficult period, Vinetur reported. The proposal was presented on Thursday at a meeting of the prefecture’s viticulture task force in Gironde.

Europe could soon be engulfed in another sovereign debt crisis, unless it adopts “bold” policy responses, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned, the Irish Times reported. In a report on Europe’s economy, the Washington-based fund also said the euro zone – while avoiding a “deep growth shock” from recent crises – had converged on a low growth path and that the impact of US tariffs was now beginning to “bite”. It warned that public spending pressures in several countries had put debt on a potentially “explosive path”.

Banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in talks with the U.S. Treasury to provide up to $20 billion in loans to Argentina, Semafor reported on Thursday, Reuters reported. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday had said that the department was working with banks and investment funds to create a $20 billion facility to invest in the South American country's sovereign debt. Bessent said that the facility would sit alongside a new $20 billion U.S.

Japan is poised to rewrite the rules of crypto oversight, moving to curb crypto insider trading as part of a broader push to bring digital markets into its orbit, Decrypt.com reported. The country's Financial Services Agency plans to empower its market watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, to police illicit crypto trades, in a shift that could reshape global standards for market integrity. The framework is slated to be finalized this year and submitted to parliament by 2026.