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It was a seething, stomping protest in this ordinarily genteel medieval town: Throngs of residents, whistling and booing, swarmed the county hall. “Criminals!” they shouted. They held up banners that read: “Tory councilors wanted for crimes against people in Northamptonshire.” The crime? The bankruptcy of their Conservative-led local government, which has a budget deficit so big that councilors are stripping away all but the minimum services required by law, the International New York Times reported.

Global EM equities slipped into bear market territory last week, with the MSCI index dropping 20 per cent from its January peak. While plenty of attention has naturally focused on Turkey’s woes, the worry for investors is that a number of EM economies, their currencies and domestic bond markets are feeling a significant burn from a strong US dollar.

Deutsche Bank said Saturday that it is acting on its own to buy bonds of Noble Group Ltd, days before a crucial shareholder vote on a $3.5 billion restructuring of the Singapore-listed commodity trader, The Wall Street Journal reported. The confirmation comes a day after The Wall Street Journal reported the bank’s unexpected offer to buy the bonds. It wasn’t clear on Friday if Deutsche Bank was acting on behalf of another company or for itself, as banks typically handle bond tenders like this for clients.

As Venezuela and its state-owned oil firm PDVSA lurch from crisis to crisis, defaulted creditors are jockeying for position to ensure they are among the first to receive cash when payday eventually comes, the Financial Times reported. The Opec country is essentially bankrupt and creditors are increasingly chasing its oil assets with their biggest target being Citgo, the Houston-based oil refiner that processes Venezuelan crude oil and is estimated to be worth roughly $4bn. Next in their sights is seizing Venezuelan oil cargoes at sea, as US hedge fund Elliott Management did

Lenders to Bhushan Power and Steel have zeroed in on JSW Steel as the most preferred bidder to take over the near-bankrupt company, the Financial Express reported. The Sajjan Jindal-led steelmaker has offered to pay Rs 19,350 crore to lenders of Bhushan Power against their total outstanding of Rs 47,000 crore and Rs 350 crore to the operational creditors in lieu of their admitted claims of Rs 700 crore.

Belair Airlines has declared insolvency as of Wednesday, August 15, after talks with a prospective investor collapsed, ch-aviation reported. Under the new ownership of German investment firm SBC, the former airberlin group unit had, earlier this year, planned to secure a new Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) from the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) in time to commence ACMI and charter flights during the current summer season.

AQ/AQ founder Julie Lingard has filed a notice to creditors to continue trading her business, despite filing for insolvency in July, Retail Gazette reported. Lingard was the managing director of AQ/AQ when it appointed liquidators on July 4. Insolvency specialists AABRS were brought in to handle the liquidation after a special resolution passed by the company to voluntarily wind up the business. However, Lingard has since filed a notice to creditors on July 25 to allow ”the re-use of a prohibited name”.

The Supreme Court ruled that creditors can proceed against personal guarantors of a corporate debtor even while insolvency proceedings are on, Bloomberg Quint reported. The top court said the moratorium envisaged under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code will not apply to the personal guarantors. The provision places a moratorium on any suits or proceedings against the company during the insolvency resolution period.

Turkey’s attempts to stabilize its embattled financial markets have borne some fruit this week, sparking a relief rally in the lira, but investors are still looking for ways to hedge against any new shocks, The Wall Street Journal reported. The lira has gained around 24% against the dollar over the past three days after it hit a record low on Monday. The rally came after Qatar announced a $15 billion support package and Turkey’s banking regulator moved to limit the amount of the local currency banks can swap for foreign currencies with counterparts.

Tax collection in Africa resembles an exasperating fishing expedition, in which the big fish wriggle into tax havens and the tiddlers hide in the informal sector. It is made even harder by a self-inflicted problem. Governments give out a range of exemptions, thereby poking holes in their own nets, The Economist reported. Consider “tax expenditures”, a measure of the revenue lost by deviations from usual tax rates. Taxmen in Kenya and Uganda let about 5% of GDP slip through their fingers in this way, according to the World Bank.