Headlines

A former Swiss banker has pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to helping launder $1.2 billion of money embezzled from Venezuela’s bankrupt state oil company in a scheme that involved close relatives of a Venezuelan official, The Wall Street Journal reported. People familiar with the case say that official is President Nicolás Maduro. Matthias Krull, a 44-years-old Panama-based former Swiss bank executive, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering on Wednesday, the Justice Department said. As part of his plea, Mr.

U.S. officials seem to think they have the upper hand in trade talks with China because its economy is struggling. Judging by the string of measures they’ve recently announced to shore up growth, Chinese officials may privately agree. The trouble is, such measures aren’t going to work as fast or as well as markets seem to think they will. China’s growth woes are homegrown, not the result of U.S. tariffs, a Bloomberg View reported.

The U.K. government said it will move forward with plans to punish directors who fail to safeguard their workers from the effects of a company’s bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. New powers announced Sunday will be given to the U.K. Insolvency Service, including the ability to issue fines or even disqualifications to company bosses if they are found to have tried to avoid paying a dissolved company’s debts.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is primed to choose international banks to lend it $11 billion (€9.5 billion), filling the hole left by the delayed listing of state energy group Saudi Aramco and providing financing for crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious economic reforms, The Irish Times reported. The loans will be the first made to the Public Investment Fund, the vehicle used to drive the young prince’s vision for an economy less dependent on oil, which has placed bold bets on electric car maker Tesla, ride-hailing app Uber and space travel company Virgin Galactic.

The European Central Bank has become increasingly confident that it can wean the euro zone off some of its crisis-era support without endangering the region’s economy, The Irish Times reported. According to minutes published on Thursday from the July 26th meeting of the bank’s governing council, the euro zone was set to grow at a “solid pace”, with the risks to the outlook “broadly balanced” despite the threat of a global trade war. The ECB remains on track to end its €2.5 trillion quantitative easing programme by the end of 2018.

Smurfit Kappa has defended itself after the Venezuelan government took temporary control of the Irish cardboard boxmaker’s subsidiary in the South American country, which is in economic freefall and recording hyperinflation, The Irish Times reported. Local reports have said that the government seized Smurfit Kappa Carton de Venezuela for three months, amid complaints about prices that the company is charging for packaging products in an alleged abuse of its dominant market position.

The British government issued its first contingency plans on Thursday for leaving the European Union without an agreement, seeking to prepare the public for possible disruptions without spreading alarm that could undermine support for the entire undertaking, the International New York Times reported. The government emphasized that it hoped and expected to hammer out a deal with the European Union.

As China’s economy slows and the trade war with the United States intensifies, Beijing’s economic bosses are swinging into action, the International New York Times reported. Chinese officials are pushing banks to lend more and allowing indebted local governments to spend money on big projects again. They have moved to shore up the value of the country’s currency. They have also helped out the stock market, say financial analysts, as the government works to avert a stock market collapse like the one three years ago that shook the world.

Eurozone businesses have tempered their expectations about the pace of future growth according to a closely-watched survey of executives, with fears of a global trade war weighing particularly heavily on the manufacturing sector, the Financial Times reported. The flash reading of the August purchasing managers’ index, compiled by IHS Markit, showed indicators of current activity, employment and price gauges for the single currency area, “remained elevated”.

On October 27, 1997, the S&P 500 fell nearly 7 per cent as contagion from Asia’s currency crisis spread globally. About a year later, Russia’s debt default and the collapse of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management sparked a 20 per cent decline in the S&P 500. In August 2015, fears of a hard landing in China, following a surprise 2 per cent devaluation in the currency, led the S&P 500 into correction territory, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.