Headlines

Canadian budget airline Lynx Air has filed for court protection from creditors and will cease operations on Feb. 26, it said on Thursday, as it struggles with rising operating costs, high fuel prices and increasing airport charges, Reuters reported. Despite substantial growth in the business, cost reductions and efforts to explore a sale or merger, the challenges facing the business have become "too significant to overcome", the company said. The Calgary-based airline, which launched its inaugural flight in April 2022, said flights will continue to operate until 12:01 a.m. MT (2:01 a.m.

The FTX estate has agreed to drop a lawsuit that sought to claw back at least $323.5 million from the original owners of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange’s European unit, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Under a proposed settlement, the two main targets of the lawsuit—FTX Europe co-founders Patrick Gruhn and Robin Matzke—agreed to buy back the unit’s assets for $32.7 million. Details of the proposed settlement emerged in a Thursday court filing from the FTX estate. The deal still needs to be approved by a judge.

Nigeria ordered telecommunications companies and other internet service providers in the West African nation to block access to cryptocurrency trading platforms, a presidential spokesman confirmed, Bloomberg News reported. The directive affects websites including those operated by Binance, Coinbase and Kraken, which are popular in Africa’s most populous nation where Nigerians use crypto as a hedge against frequent devaluation of the naira. In a statement to Bloomberg News, Binance confirmed that some users in Nigeria were experiencing issues accessing its website.

The German and Dutch central banks on Friday posted multi-billion euro losses for 2023 and predicted more financial pain ahead, suggesting that they are unlikely to pay dividends into state coffers for years to come, Reuters reported. The European Central Bank and some of its largest national affiliates are generating large losses, depleting provisions and much of their equity, as sharply higher interest rates force them to pay out billion in interest to commercial banks.

France is entering an era of belt-tightening, as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, economic slowdowns in Germany and China and record-high interest rates take a bigger-than-expected toll on growth, the New York Times reported. The French will find themselves faced with cuts of 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) in government spending, on items including environmental subsidies and education, the government announced Thursday, on top of €16 billion in cuts announced a few months ago.

China's securities regulator said on Friday it would mete out increasingly tough penalties on fraudulent listings, accounting scams and misappropriation of funds by big shareholders, as part of a crackdown to boost confidence in the stock market, Reuters reported. In its first news conference since the appointment of a new chairman, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) also said it would target insider trading and market manipulation more precisely, removing regulatory blind spots.

The U.S. and China are discussing new measures to prevent a wave of emerging market sovereign defaults, one of the most significant attempts in years at economic cooperation between the rival superpowers, Bloomberg News reported. The talks — including ways to preemptively extend loan periods before countries miss payments — are broadly aimed at both easing the $400 billion-plus annual debt service burden for poor countries and finding an alternative to the high borrowing rates those nations now face in the market.

Argentina’s economy contracted in December by the most since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic as newly elected President Javier Milei put in motion shock austerity measures that slammed the brakes on consumption, Bloomberg News reported. Economic activity in December fell 3.1% from November, according to government data published Thursday, a drop not seen since April 2020. From the same month a year earlier, activity fell 4.5%, more than the 3.2% decline forecast by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The contraction was driven by declines in the financial sector, manufacturing and commerce.

A U.S. judge said that Barclays must face part of a proposed class action by shareholders over the British bank's sale of $17.7 billion more debt than regulators had allowed, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan said that shareholders adequately alleged that Barclays' failure to disclose the absence of internal controls to catch the error was a material omission of fact.

Senegalese President Macky Sall’s pledge to step down at the end of his term was cheered by investors, following weeks of turmoil sparked by his attempt to stay in power, Bloomberg News reported. Prices on Senegal’s dollar eurobonds rose on Friday for the first time in four days, lowering yields on the notes due May 2033 by 10 basis points to 8.73% after his announcement late the previous evening. The nation’s dollar bonds due March 2048 also advanced.