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Mahindra & Mahindra, Indian parent of South Korean SUV maker SsangYong Motor Co (SYMC), issued corporate guarantees earlier this year to some of its global creditors, such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and BNP Paribas, to safeguard their exposure once SYMC was on the brink of bankruptcy, the Economic Times reported. For others like Citibank, the Indian conglomerate’s corporate guarantee was not enough. So, M&M had to issue an indemnity letter in favour of the U.S. bank’s Indian arm.
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Switzerland will return $150 million from blocked Swiss bank accounts by the end of the year to the United States to be given to victims of convicted Ponzi scheme con artist Robert Allen Stanford, the Federal Ministry of Justice said on Monday, Reuters reported. Stanford, a former Texas financier known primarily by his middle name, was convicted of fraud by a Houston jury in 2012 in what prosecutors called a $7.2 billion fraud that lasted two decades and which was eclipsed in size only by the Ponzi scheme run by Bernie Madoff.
The U.K. and the European Union tomorrow will sign the treaty formalizing the post-Brexit trade agreement the two sides reached on Christmas Eve, Bloomberg News reported. After European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel sign the document, it will be flown by Royal Air Force jet to London where Prime Minister Boris Johnson will do the same. British lawmakers will get only a day to debate the agreement, because it needs to be implemented by the time the Brexit transition period ends at 11 p.m. on Dec. 31.
Ireland has added some fresh heat into the question of whether countries should raise minimum wages to put their economies on a more stable footing in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, with Prime Minister Micheál Martin saying his government would look at increasing the level by a fifth, the Wall Street Journal reported. Martin said such a move would be aimed at addressing income equality exposed by the pandemic, with many lower-income workers across the world bearing the brunt of lockdowns while better-paid people work from home.
Countries that once avoided upsetting Beijing are moving closer to the U.S.’s harder and largely bipartisan stance—to curb Chinese access to customers, technology and sensitive infrastructure, the Wall Street Journal reported. Australia, economically dependent on China, became one of the first countries to block Huawei Technology Co. on its soil, and led global calls for an investigation into China’s initial handling of the coronavirus. India, once a pillar of the world’s nonaligned movement, is expanding military cooperation with the U.S.
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The Moscow Commercial Court has again extended the procedure of sale of assets of Vneshprombank former co-owner Georgy Bedzhamov, charged with large-scale embezzlement for 6 months, according to court records, RASPSINews.com reported. Previously, the bankruptcy proceedings were extended in July. Bedzhamov was declared bankrupt in July 2018. In 2016, Bedzhamov was put on the international wanted list on embezzlement charges.
A unit of Vedanta Resources will issue $400 million in notes to an entity under Oaktree Capital Group, as the mining conglomerate looks to meet liquidity needs, Bloomberg News reported. The notes will be partly secured by shares in Mumbai-listed unit Vedanta Ltd., according to separate exchange filings from Vedanta and the U.S. hedge fund. India’s macroeconomic troubles have attracted a wave of global investors betting they can eke out profits from the rising number of capital-starved businesses struggling to stay afloat.
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Gold sales in Thailand are surging as households reach for a financial lifeline amid the pandemic, a tactic that risks complicating government efforts to tame an export-stifling rally in the nation’s currency, Bloomberg News reported. Exports of the precious metal surged to a record this year as prices climbed and Thais unloaded jewelry, bars and medallions to raise cash for routine expenses. Bullion traders expect the trend to continue into 2021 as the coronavirus drags on tourism and manufacturing, the mainstays of Thailand’s economy.
The European Union and the United Kingdom made public Saturday the vast agreement that is likely to govern future trade and cooperation between them from Jan. 1, setting the 27-nation bloc’s relations with its former member country and neighbor on a new but far more distant footing, the Associated Press reported. EU ambassadors and lawmakers on both sides of the English Channel will now pore over the “EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” which contains over 1,240 pages of text. EU envoys are expected to meet on Monday to discuss the document, drawn up over nine intense months of talks.
Britain yesterday urged businesses to prepare for Brexit, just days before a transition period designed to smooth the UK’s departure from the European Union comes to an end, Reuters reported.Britain and the EU clinched a trade deal on Thursday - one which preserves zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the bloc’s single market but which will still cause disruption. The transition period, under which Britain stayed aligned to the EU’s trading and regulatory rules, ends at 2300 GMT on Dec. 31.