Headlines

A seaside attraction which owes £51 million to a council that helped set it up faces “real risk of closure” as it files for insolvency, the Irish News reported. Bosses of Brighton seafront’s observation tower, Brighton i360, have announced the notification of administrators, blaming escalating costs, bad summer weather and the cost-of-living crisis as the reasons behind the decision. But Brighton and Hove City Council chiefs have said the “extremely disappointing” move will hit the council’s budget after it loaned millions to the project in 2014 and remains the biggest creditor.

Vinylrecycling, a Dutch PVC recycler previously known as BessTrade, announced it filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 19, SustainablePlastics.com reported. The recycler operates two plants within walking distance of each other in Lelystad, the Netherlands. The sites have a processing capacity of 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes/year of PVC waste and produce regrind and pellets of plasticised and rigid PVC, as well as micronised powder rPVC. Vinylrecycling is in a legal battle with the Netherlands Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) over PVC exports to third countries.

Mexico’s finance ministry is preparing to enlist a consortium of banks to provide financing that Petroleos Mexicanos would use to pay off debt with service providers, according to a recording of remarks made by its CEO, Bloomberg News reported. The state-owned oil company is coordinating with the finance ministry, which would potentially take on debt on its behalf to pay the service contractors, Chief Executive Officer Victor Rodriguez said at a private event on Friday hosted by Mexico’s College of Petroleum Engineers.

Panama’s credit score was cut by S&P Global Ratings, putting the Central American nation a step closer to losing its investment-grade status, Bloomberg News reported. S&P lowered Panama by a notch to BBB-, on par with Mexico and Romania, citing rising government debt levels made worst by sluggish revenue. The outlook is stable. “The downgrade reflects the sovereign’s weaker flexibility that increases the vulnerability to economic and fiscal challenges ahead,” analysts including Karla Gonzalez and Manuel Orozco wrote in a Tuesday statement.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has continued to slash interest rates, extending its campaign to restore momentum to the country’s stalled economy while signaling that more cuts are likely next year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The official cash rate was lowered by 50 basis points for a second successive time at a policy meeting on Wednesday. That brings total cuts to 125 basis points since mid-year and cements the RBNZ’s position as one of the most aggressive central banks in terms of easing.

Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline lost the latest round of its legal fight against European Union gas market rules, in a largely symbolic court defeat for the now-shuttered project, Bloomberg News reported. Gazprom PJSC-controlled Nord Stream 2 should have foreseen that the bloc would use its powers to “extend the internal market rules to cover gas pipelines from third countries,” the General Court said in its re-examination of the case on Wednesday.

Leading China hawks in the U.S. House of Representatives are calling for a rethink on whether Hong Kong should continue to enjoy the cozy banking relationship it has with the U.S., saying the city is becoming a hub for money-laundering and sanctions evasion, the Wall Street Journal reported. Hong Kong has turned into a major center for the export of controlled Western technology to Russia; the creation of front companies to buy Iranian oil; the managing of “ghost ships” that serve North Korea, as well as other violations of U.S.

The Indian government is working on an integrated platform for the insolvency ecosystem covering key stakeholders that will also help speed up resolution processes. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which came into force in 2016, aims to provide market-linked and time-bound resolution of stressed assets, the Economic Times of India reported. However, there have been delays in the resolution process. Anita Shah Akella, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), on Tuesday emphasised that IBC is not a recovery mechanism but a rescue mechanism.

India has started an investigation into financing and accounting practices at Byju’s after a previous inspection found corporate governance lapses at the struggling online tutoring firm, Bloomberg News reported. The federal government has asked the regional office of the Registrar of Companies in Hyderabad to investigate Byju’s books to ascertain if the company misreported financial statements and whether funds were siphoned off. There were shortcomings in the accounts of Byju’s. They didn’t specify what those failings were. The registrar’s office has one year to submit its report.

Court advisers have billed nearly $30 million for a stalled auction of shares in a parent of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum, raising the ire of creditors that have waited years to get compensation, Reuters reported. Citgo, the crown jewel of Venezuela's overseas assets, sits at the center of a Delaware court auction in which 18 companies seek to collect up to $21.3 billion for debt defaults and expropriations in the South American country.