Headlines

The private sector in Spain is set to shoulder most of the burden as the government moves to bring its wayward deficit into line, after the economy minister unveiled plans to raise an extra €6bn in corporate taxes next year, the Financial Times reported. Madrid is under intense pressure to find new ways to cut its yawning budget shortfall after EU finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to formally open sanctions procedures against Spain and Portugal.

The pension deficit of UK companies grew by £89bn in just one month, hitting a record level following Britain’s vote to leave the EU, the Financial Times reported. Figures from the Pension Protection Fund showed the total private sector pension shortfall rose to £383.6bn at the end of June, from £294bn a month earlier, as financial markets reacted to the Brexit vote. The plunge in equities, sterling and bond yields put more strain on schemes that are already under pressure from a prolonged period of low interest rates.

Incensed Hamilton steelworkers are calling for a public inquiry into U.S. Steel Canada's bankruptcy protection process, CBC.ca reported. This is the latest move in a long fight the union has spearheaded while U.S. Steel Canada searches for a buyer. "Our retirees deserve to live in dignity and stop having to worry whether what they earned will be swindled from them," United Steelworkers 1005 president Gary Howe said in a statement.

Italy has been warned it must abide by “strict” EU rules for rescuing teetering lenders, limiting Rome’s ability to pump public money into the country’s financial sector, the Financial Times reported. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the eurozone’s committee of 19 finance ministers, said on Monday that any Italian plan would have to respect EU rules that force losses on creditors before they can be bailed out with taxpayer funds.

Brexit could push Northern Ireland into recession given it’s relaince on the UK, an economist has said, the Irish Times reported. Business activity increased in Northern Ireland in the weeks before the EU referendum. The Ulster Bank purchasing managers’ index said June was the 14th month in a row in which companies recorded an increase in new orders. The latest report signalled that growth was maintained at the end of the second quarter, with sharper expansions of output, new orders and employment recorded.

Key stakeholders of Essar Steel Algoma Inc. are pursuing a multi-pronged effort to block the purchase of the steel maker by a New York-based private equity fund and a group of lenders, The Globe and Mail reported. Holders of Essar Algoma’s junior and senior notes, the United Steelworkers (USW) union and the port of Algoma are urging the Ontario Superior Court to halt a bid by KPS Capital Partners LP, which is seeking approval by the same court of a purchase agreement it has signed with the Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.-based company.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed on Monday (Jul 11) to officially declare Spain and Portugal in breach of the EU public spending rules, a key step to possibly imposing unprecedented penalties against members of the currency bloc, Channel News Asia reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The ministers took the rare step despite fears that too much austerity by Brussels will further stoke anti-EU populism after the Brexit vote.

As Irish shares threaten to enter a bear market for the first time since 2011, the outlook may Britain’s vote to leave the European Union could complicate the European Central Bank’s efforts to bolster the eurozone’s economy and drive up ultralow inflation, a top ECB official warned. The Brexit vote “certainly doesn’t help,” Ardo Hansson, the governor of Estonia’s central bank, said in an interview Friday with The Wall Street Journal in his office in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. “It’s one more factor creating uncertainty,” given that the U.K.

Several of Pacific Andes' major lenders believe that the fishing conglomerate is improperly using US and Peruvian bankruptcy laws to "derail" a planned sale of its Peruvian assets, Undercurrent News reported. In court filings on July 8, several creditor banks of the 16 Pacific Andes entities that declared bankruptcy in the US on June 30 questioned directors' motivations to have three Peruvian subsidiaries of the group file for bankruptcy under that country's laws rather than in the US.

Soft Chinese inflation and G20 concerns that the global recovery remains grim are hardening views among some economists that more government stimulus will be needed to support China, the world's second-biggest economy, the Irish Times reported. Consumer inflation last month remained under the official target of around 3 percent for this year, data released on Sunday showed, indicating persistently weak domestic demand. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.9 percent in June from a year earlier, compared with a 2.0 percent increase in May, China's National Bureau of Statistics said.