Headlines

Food delivery giant Zomato is facing an insolvency plea from uniform supplier Nona Lifestyle, alleging unpaid dues of Rs 1.64 crore, as reported by Bar and Bench on March 17, the Economic Times of India reported. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has adjourned the case to April 3, requesting the petitioner to clarify its next steps.

The Australian-based Village Roadshow Group is not impacted by the US-based Village Roadshow Entertainment Group’s (VREG) bankruptcy filing and has set plans to terminate its association with the company, Deadline.com reported. Village Roadshow Group released a statement this morning following news of bankruptcy at Village Roadshow Entertainment Group. VREG is an entirely separate operation from Village Roadshow Group, which was formed in 1954 and includes Village Roadshow Theme Parks, Roadshow Distributors, Roadshow Productions, Village Roadshow Studios, and Village Cinemas.

Property developer Sunac China said on Monday it expects to report a wider loss for the year ended December 2024, Reuters reported. Beijing-based Sunac, once among China's largest real estate developers, attributed the higher net loss forecast to the absence of gains that it had logged last year after the completion of its offshore debt restructuring. In late 2023, Sunac completed a comprehensive overhaul of its $9 billion offshore debt, exchanging its existing debt for a combination of notes, among others.

Inflation in Canada grew at the fastest pace in eight months, further limiting the central bank’s ability to cut interest rates amid a trade war that will both slow economic growth and boost prices, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose at a 2.6% yearly pace last month, the highest rate since June and up from 1.9% in January, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. The index jumped 1.1% on a monthly basis in February, the fastest pace in nearly three years.

Trade uncertainty is weighing on the European economy and any boost from investment in defense will take time, meaning the European Central Bank may need to keep cutting rates, rate setter Olli Rehn said, the Wall Street Journal reported. “As regards trade policy, the effect is fairly immediate because of pervasive uncertainty,” said Rehn, governor of the Finnish central bank, in a livestream hosted by MNI on Tuesday.

Weaknesses in the capital regime for the Swiss banking sector still need to be addressed after the 2023 collapse of Credit Suisse, the Swiss National Bank said on Tuesday, backing government efforts to make the industry more robust, Reuters reported. Switzerland has pledged to introduce stricter banking regulations in response to the demise of Credit Suisse, which was subsequently taken over by its old rival UBS. At the centre of proposals set out by the government last year is that UBS should hold more capital to make it more robust and prevent a repeat of the Credit Suisse meltdown.

Argentina's economy is expected to have registered year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2024, ending six consecutive quarters of year-on-year contraction and further lifting it out of recession, a Reuters poll of analysts showed on Monday. The average forecast from 15 local and international analysts showed Argentina's gross domestic product (GDP) expanding 1.7% in the last three months of 2024. "It's the first positive sign after six consecutive quarters of (year-over-year) contraction," said Pablo Besmedrisnik, economist and director of VDC Consultants.

The UK Labour government announced it would save billions of pounds a year by slashing welfare spending, unveiling controversial reforms which have provoked criticism from disability campaigners and divided Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing party, Bloomberg News reported. The government will toughen the criteria that sick and disabled people must meet to qualify for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs), a key benefit aimed at helping people with disabilities go about their daily lives, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told the House of Commons on Tuesday.

India's central bank-regulated entities can leverage artificial intelligence internal controls to address consumer complaints on mis-selling and aggressive practices, central bank governor Sanjay Malhotra said on Monday, Reuters reported. Ninety-five commercial banks in India received over 10 million customer complaints in the 2023-2024 financial year, Malhotra said. "With the rapidly growing customer base and expanding suite of products, this may grow if we do not get our act together," he added.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) is set to initiate a pilot program for its central bank digital currency (CBDC), named "Hangang," involving 100,000 participants, CoinMarketCap.com reported. Scheduled to run from April to June this year, the pilot will allow citizens to convert their bank deposits into tokenized deposits for use in local transactions, according to reports from local media.