Headlines

The Ukrainian government Thursday welcomed a long-delayed emergency payment of $1 billion from the International Monetary Fund, a move that paved the way for further international aid to help bolster the country’s fragile finances, The Wall Street Journal reported. “The positive decision of the IMF suggests that the world recognizes that there are reforms in Ukraine, there is qualitative and positive change in Ukraine, and the country is moving in the right direction,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in a statement.

The Hanjin Shipping Company filed for bankruptcy in South Korea on Aug. 31, and sought recognition of that bankruptcy in the United States under Chapter 15 of the bankruptcy code, which governs such matters. In the meantime, there has been apparent chaos as ships have been milling about off shore, stranding cargo and crew and even a filmmaker in a kind of insolvency limbo, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Perhaps what is most surprising about this entire event is the apparent lack of planning that went into this bankruptcy case.

A Singapore-based shipping trust that operates container ships is asking creditors for leniency on about $253 million of debt, in the latest sign of debt woes in the industry and in the city-state, the Times of Oman reported. Rickmers Maritime won’t be able to repay $179.7 million of senior debt due in March 2017 and the interest and principal on S$100 million ($73.3 million) of notes due in May 2017, it said in an investor presentation filed to the Singapore Exchange on Thursday.

The world’s leading experiment in monetary easing is floundering, and its engineers are divided over how to get it on track, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Bank of Japan has tried radical measures for 3½ years to reflate the country’s sagging economy, resorting this year to negative interest rates. Growth and inflation remain elusive. Now the bank’s board, while still in favor of easing, has some members wanting to revise the methods for doing so—likely sparking uncertainty for economy-watchers and worries for investors.

Europeans told the world’s top banking regulator that they’ve had enough. In two heated meetings in the past week, regulators from countries including Germany and Italy told the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision that proposed changes to how banks assess credit, market and operational risks must be scaled back and slowed down, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported.

For many years, China's authorities took a Goldilocks approach to housing prices: They wanted a market that was neither too hot nor too cold, and took measures as needed to control prices. Although an explicit asset-price target was never announced, it was widely assumed that the government wanted home prices to grow in line with the rate of economic growth, Bloomberg News reported. To accomplish this, technocrats in Beijing deployed a combination of monetary stimulus and regulatory measures.

Brussels is to venture into sensitive areas such as national insolvency laws and tax as it redoubles its efforts to forge a common EU capital market, the Financial Times reported. Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner in charge of financial services policy, moved to end speculation that Britain’s vote to leave the EU might spell the end of ambitious plans unveiled two years ago to build a capital markets union, saying instead that Brexit only increased the need for the project.

The number of German companies filing for insolvency fell further in the first half of the year after reaching a record low in 2015, as Europe's biggest economy enjoys a prolonged upswing, data showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The number of companies registering as insolvent fell by 5 percent to some 11,000 compared to the first six months in the previous year, the Federal Statistics Office said.

The top two shareholders in Oi SA have agreed to end their dispute over the future of Brazil's largest fixed-line carrier, which is mired in a protracted bankruptcy protection process, two people briefed on the matter said on Tuesday. Under terms of the accord, Pharol SGPS SA, Oi's biggest shareholder, and Brazilian investor Nelson Tanure of investment fund Société Mondiale FIA will devise and discuss strategies aimed at helping pull Oi from creditor protection, said the first person.

Brazilian prosecutors filed criminal charges against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his wife in connection with a vast graft scandal, raising the prospect that the nation’s most towering political figure could land behind bars, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a dramatic presentation carried live on Brazil’s main news stations, prosecutors charged Mr.