Headlines

MMX Mineracao e Metalicos SA , the mining company founded by former billionaire Eike Batista, has filed for protection from its creditors in a Brazilian court, citing slumping iron prices and economic adversity. In a securities filing late on Friday, MMX said: "The fall in iron ore prices and the context of political and economic instability made it impossible for the company to achieve its revenue targets." Brazil is mired in a two-year-long recession in what is its worst downturn since the 1930s. The bankruptcy filing also includes its iron-ore unit MMX Corumbá.

Two of Australia’s biggest banks have agreed to pay a combined fine of 15 million Australian dollars (€10.5 million) after admitting to attempted cartel conduct aimed at rigging the benchmark rate for the Malaysian ringgit, the Irish Times reported. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Australia’s competition watchdog, said on Friday that ANZ Bank had admitted to 10 instances of attempted cartel conduct, while Macquarie had admitted to eight instances in 2011.

Governments need to get over the fixation with debt levels and ramp up spending on growth-friendly policies while cutting tax burdens where possible, the OECD said on Thursday, the Irish Times reported. The message in the OECD’s Economic Outlook to be published on Monday could offer support to a growing number of governments, starting with the upcoming Donald Trump-led US administration, looking to fire up growth with tax cuts. However, OECD chief economist Catherine Mann insisted that it was a not call for blind deficit spending and across the board corporate tax cuts.

A newly formed group of dissident bondholders in Oi SA has retained G5 Evercore to advise it in the Brazilian carrier's in-court reorganization, which has recently turned more protracted amid shareholder and bondholder rifts. In a statement distributed late on Thursday, the International Bondholder Committee said São Paulo-based G5 Evercore was being asked to find common ground with stakeholders of the debt-laden Brazilian carrier, which filed in June for the country's largest-ever bankruptcy. The International Bondholder Committee was formed on Nov.

Financial stability risk is rising in the euro zone and concerns may re-emerge about some countries’ ability to sustain their debt, potentially raising pressure on weak sovereigns, the European Central Bank has said. In an unusually downbeat message, the ECB warned that global political shifts, including the new US administration, may trigger sudden asset price volatility and flow reversals, compounding existing vulnerabilities to rising interest rates and yields.

A new strain of trickle-down economics has been spawned by the decision, on November 8th, to withdraw the bulk of India’s banknotes by the end of this year, The Economist reported. As holders of now-useless 500-and 1,000-rupee ($15) notes rushed to deposit them or part-exchange them for new notes, an e-commerce site offered helpers, at 90 rupees an hour, to queue outside banks in order to save the well-off the bother. Elsewhere, a chronic shortage of banknotes in a cash-dominated economy has left most trades depressed.

British workers are facing the longest period of wage stagnation in at least 70 years as faster inflation and lower productivity eat into pay packets, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said, Bloomberg News reported. Real earnings in 2021 are on course to be below their level in the 2008 financial crisis, the London-based research group said. It said Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts published Wednesday suggest real earnings will be 3.7 percent lower by 2021 than estimated in March.

After struggling to pay its debts while oil prices tumbled, Calgary’s Lightstream Resources Ltd. emerged from a “painful” restructuring with a $1.35-billion deal that will clear the way for new production in 2017, the company says, The Calgary Herald reported. Two New York-based debt holders, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and credit-focused investor GSO Capital Partners, will own Lightstream following the deal, which includes swapping their debt for equity. The transaction, expected to close Dec.

Small companies in Europe will find it easier to bounce back under new rules proposed by the European Commission as it takes the first step toward harmonizing the bloc’s disparate insolvency framework to boost entrepreneurship and growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. The plan, launched by the European Union’s executive arm Tuesday, stipulates that small businesses are given greater legal flexibility to restructure rather than go bust when struggling—similar to U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws.

In what has already been a tumultuous year marked by the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, Brazilians are bracing themselves for what promises to be Latin America’s trial of the century — the start of corruption hearings against her predecessor and mentor, the once wildly popular Mr Lula da Silva, the Financial Times reported.