Headlines

he French government is preparing to sue a British private equity firm over claims it short-changed a failed local steelmaker, The Telegraph reported. Roland Lescure, the French finance minister, said the government would be “uncompromising” as he accused Greybull of failing to follow through on investment pledges for Novasco, which is based in Hagondange, a city in north east France. The situation has led to months of uncertainty for the 700 people employed by Novasco, after the company was placed into administration in August – a year after it was taken over by Greybull.

Hundreds of learner drivers have been left more than £164,000 out of pocket after a driving school closed down and are "unlikely" to get their money back, an insolvency firm has said, BBC.com reported. NxtGen Driving Academy, part of NG Driving Group Ltd, taught students across the East of England but ceased trading on 3 November. Documents seen by the BBC show that, before the firm was shut down, 399 customers had paid the company for driving lessons that will not be fulfilled.

A local NHS board has approved the takeover by an “AI-powered” digital health company of a distance selling care home pharmacy that entered administration this year with £5m debts, PharmacyMagazine.co.uk. reported. UK-based MedPal AI, whose core product is a health data app offering personalised recommendations, first announced on October 1 that it was entering the online pharmacy market with its acquisition of Universal Pharmacy, pending approval by Norfalk and Waveney Integrated Care Board which was recently granted.

Wizz Air is slashing the number of flights it operates from Gatwick in a scramble to cut costs, the boss of the airline has said, The Telegraph reported. József Váradi, the chief executive of Wizz, said it was losing money flying out of Britain’s second-busiest airport because of high operating fees and poorly timed departure slots. As part of a Europe-wide shake-up, the Budapest-based carrier will move more planes from Gatwick to Luton because of its lower costs.

Japan’s economy contracted at a 1.8% annual pace in July-September as President Donald Trump’s tariffs hit exports and private residential investment plunged, the Associated Press reported. Data released by the government Monday showed that on a quarter-by-quarter basis, Japan’s gross domestic product, the sum value of its goods and services, slipped 0.4%, the first contraction in six quarters. The annualized rate shows what the economy would have done if the same rate were to continue for a year.

As a judicial administrator in the insolvency proceedings of Nordis Management SRL, CITR conducted, for approximately seven months, an extensive analysis of the Nordis Mamaia Wave project. The goal was clear: to determine the legal situation of each housing unit and to identify any overlapping agreements on the same unit, the Romania Journal reported. The analysis aimed to obtain a complete picture of the company’s assets and liabilities in order to correctly carry out the next stages of the insolvency procedure.

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) ​is considering regulations that would define ‌cryptocurrency as financial products subject to insider trading rules and ‌reduce the tax rate on profits, the Asahi newspaper reported on Sunday, according to Reuters. The regulations will apply to 105 types of cryptocurrencies available in Japan ⁠such as bitcoin ‌and ethereum, and would require exchange service providers to disclose information ‍such as the risk of price fluctuations, the paper said.

Datuk Seri Najib Razak has failed in his bid to stay a bankruptcy notice after the High Court upheld the Inland Revenue Board's (IRB) action against the former prime minister for an unpaid additional assessment of close to RM1.7 billion, TheEdgeMalaysia.com reported. Similarly, his son Datuk Nazifuddin Najib has also failed to obtain a stay over a bankruptcy notice issued against him for not paying RM37 million. With this, the IRB can continue with initiating bankruptcy proceedings against the duo.

New Zealand late on Sunday welcomed the United States' announcement that it ​would remove additional tariffs on a range of New Zealand ‌agricultural products, including beef, offal and kiwi fruit, but said it ‌would like to see all the additional U.S. tariffs on New Zealand goods removed, Reuters reported. President Donald Trump on Friday removed tariffs he had imposed on more than 200 food products, including beef, ⁠amid consumer concerns about ‌rising U.S. grocery prices. The products represent around 25% of New Zealand's ‍exports to the U.S.

The South Korean Financial Supervisory Service and creditor banks are working to select corporations that will undergo restructuring next year, Chosun Biz reported. With a slump in domestic demand and the trio of high inflation, high interest rates and a strong dollar, the number of corporations at risk of insolvency is expected to increase from a year earlier. According to the financial sector on the 14th, major creditor banks are conducting regular credit risk assessments of small and midsize corporations with credit exposure from financial institutions of less than 50 billion won.