Headlines

A Brazilian judge on Tuesday sentenced Marcelo Odebrecht, the former chief executive officer of South America’s biggest construction company, to 19 years in prison for his involvement in a sprawling corruption scandal centered on Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, The Wall Street Journal reported. The scion of a billionaire family, 47-year-old Mr. Odebrecht was convicted of money laundering, corruption and organized crime. He was CEO of Odebrecht SA when he was arrested and jailed last June. He later resigned from the company founded by his grandfather.

Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp will press hard to approve a capital increase for Brazilian steelmaker Usiminas SA this week, with a threat to sue if fellow shareholders block the motion, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday. The Japanese group will propose a cash injection of 1 billion reais ($267 million) at a Friday board meeting, and is willing to finance the capital increase alone if the other major shareholder, Italian-Argentinian conglomerate Techint Group, refuses to participate, the same source said.

The Central Bank has sold another €500 million of the legacy debts of Anglo Irish Bank, bringing total disposals so far to €3 billion, the Irish Times reported. Some €22 billion in government bonds remain outstanding from the 2013 deal to scrap the Anglo promissory note scheme. The 2041 floating rate government bonds were acquired yesterday from the Central Bank and cancelled by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). Following this cancellation the total nominal outstanding for the 2041 bond reduces to €1 billion.

The full Knesset late Monday passed a bill in its first reading meant to completely revamp the bankruptcy scene to help bring the law on the issue into "the 21st century" as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has often put it, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Kenya’s economic growth has failed to keep pace with its peers and the country needs to “step up a gear” if it is to achieve its long-term goals, the World Bank has concluded in a major report on east Africa’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The five-yearly study, “From economic growth to jobs and shared prosperity”, provides a striking contrast to recent reports from analysts and investors, who have been championing Kenya as one of the brighter emerging economies, particularly in the wake of falling commodity prices.

China’s central government will take over some of local authorities’ debts in a move to help them regain footing and to allow Beijing to cut business taxes, The Wall Street Journal reported. Key to the Chinese leadership’s economic agenda this year is to slash taxes and debt loads for companies, leaving firms with more funds to invest and innovate as Beijing looks to entrepreneurs to help drive growth. But lowering taxes has long been a difficult pill for local officials to swallow, since they see spending-induced growth as crucial to their survival.

Greece’s international creditors narrowed their differences over the economic overhauls that Athens should implement in exchange for fresh loans, paving the way for a new round of negotiations which could lead to a much-anticipated deal on debt relief, The Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s bailout monitors agreed to send their teams back to Athens as soon as Tuesday, in a sign they were moving closer to each other’s positions on the type and scale of budget cuts and economic overhauls that Athens must undertake to meet the targets set out in its rescue program.

Portugal faces potential liabilities of more than €1.5bn after losing a British court battle over derivatives that Lisbon has challenged as “toxic”, the Financial Times reported. State-owned transport companies have for more than two years withheld payments due to Santander on interest-rate swaps described by Portugal as “highly speculative”. But in a case brought by the Spanish bank, the High Court has ruled that English, not Portuguese law should apply to the nine contracts, effectively overturning Portugal’s bid to invalidate them.

Troubled oil and gas explorer Petroceltic on Monday applied for its shares to be temporarily suspended from trading in Dublin and London until the wrangling over its future is resolved, the Irish Times reported. The move follows a petition to appoint an examiner to Petroceltic by dissident shareholder Worldview, which has a 29 per cent stake in the explorer. Worldview on Friday brought the High Court petition aimed at securing court protection for Petroceltic, which owes about $230 million to its banks and is currently unable to make its repayments.

The Bank of England is preparing to protect British banks from running out of funds in the event of a Brexit vote by flooding them with a wall of money in the latest sign of the authorities’ nervousness surrounding the EU referendum, the Financial Times reported. The central bank has announced it will give commercial banks three exceptional opportunities just before and after the June 23 poll on Britain’s membership of the EU to borrow as much money as they like to offset any threat of a run on banks and prevent a repeat of the chaos of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008.