Headlines

The Spanish Supreme Court ordered Bankia on Wednesday to reimburse two small investors for misleading them during its 2011 initial public offering, the International New York Times reported. Under the ruling Bankia must pay one investor nearly 10,000 euros, or about $10,850, and the other nearly €21,000 euros, to cover their purchases of shares that eventually were nearly worthless. The ruling could be a boon to thousands of other investors who are suing the bank, accusing it of failing to fully disclose the loan problems that nearly caused the bank’s collapse in 2012.

Italy and the EU have reached a deal allowing Italian banks to sell their large portfolios of non-performing loans to private investors with a government guarantee, in an effort to ease market pressure on the financial sector in the eurozone’s third-largest economy, the Financial Times reported. The agreement, which follows months of tortuous negotiations between Rome and Brussels, is intended to clear one of the most worrying clouds hanging over the European financial system after the end of the continent’s long recession.

The European Commission on Wednesday raised questions about Portugal’s budget plan for this year, a move that could put pressure on the government to soften its antiausterity agenda, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a letter dated Jan. 26 and addressed to Portuguese Finance Minister Mario Centeno, the European Union’s executive arm said the budget plan sent to Brussels last week envisioned a structural deficit of 1.1% of gross domestic product this year, which is more than recommended by the commission.

The European Central Bank placed an “inappropriate” debt burden on Irish citizens in 2010 when it refused to force bond investors to share losses from troubled banks, a parliamentary committee report on the country’s banking collapse said on Wednesday. The report supports the view, widely held in Ireland, that the E.C.B. dictated policy to the government in a way that punished taxpayers while sparing investors who owned bonds issued by Irish banks. The central bank, which is based in Frankfurt, routinely denies that it meddles in politics or tells eurozone governments what to do.

Weak trading in the run-up to Christmas, when sales collapsed by a quarter compared to December 2014, spurred the decision yesterday by Hilco Capital to place Xtra-vision into provisional liquidation with the loss of 580 jobs, the Irish Times reported. The Xtra-vision brand is likely to survive via an online business, however, while its DVD vending machine business is also set to continue. Hilco’s HMV music store chain may also seek to buy back a small number of the 83 Xtra-vision stores and reopen them under separate ownership.

Default risks for a pile of $15tn in Chinese corporate debt are rising to their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis as sluggish demand, weak pricing and high leverage sap the dynamism of the country’s most powerful companies, the Financial Times reported. Rating agencies that assess credit risks among China’s top corporations are predicting a jump in bond repayment defaults this year as they add more companies to their watch lists for downgrades, ratings executives say.

Bahrain's central bank said on Tuesday it is taking steps to close down Iranian-owned Future Bank, which is based in the Gulf state, Reuters reported. On Monday, Ebtisam al-Arrayed, head of regulatory policy at the central bank, told Reuters that the regulator had yet to make a decision about Future Bank after placing it under its administration last year, along with Iran Insurance Co - the Bahrain branch of an Iranian insurer. At that time the regulator said the moves were to "protect the rights of depositors and policyholders".

Alexis Tsipras has fended off attacks from Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s newly elected opposition leader, by insisting that his Syriza government can rescue the country’s underfunded pension system without cutting benefits to retirees, the Financial Times reported. The prime minister and his rival went head-to-head on Tuesday night in a heated parliamentary debate, their first confrontation since Mr Mitsotakis, a pro-European reformer, was voted in to lead the centre-right New Democracy party this month. “There will be no reductions in main pensions,” a defiant Mr Tsipras said.

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday placed Chaoyang Life Insurance Co (朝陽人壽) under government receivership to prevent further deterioration of the company’s financial condition, the Taipei Times reported.“The company has repeatedly failed to carry out its proposed financial improvement measures and its negative net worth continued to worsen on an annual basis. It was NT$2.2 billion [US$65.23 million] in the red as of last month,” Insurance Bureau Director-General Jenny Lee (李滿治) said at a news conference.

Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, faced fresh questions last night over a tax deal with Google that allowed the company to pay just £130 million in back tax on 10 years of profits estimated at £7.2 billion, the Irish Times reported. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has demanded details of the settlement, asking Mr Osborne if he or his advisers were involved in arranging it.