Headlines

Necessair Consulting, the company controlled by Ten Airways director Catalin Butu that could supply tickets to Fly Romania flights, has asked for its insolvency in the Bucharest Tribunal, Business Review reported. The trial term has been set for September 3rf 2014. Tickets for Fly Romania can no longer be purchased on the website. Two months ago, Fly Romania flights were being cancelled left and right. The number of tickets bought did not match the number of flights according to Fly Romania representatives.

Argentina's unemployment rate rose to 7.5% in the second quarter as the country's recession appeared to worsen and more companies laid off workers, The Wall Street Journal reported. The jobless rate, published by the government on Tuesday, is up from 7.1% in the first quarter and 7.2% a year earlier. Economists expect the unemployment rate to rise further this year as the recession worsens and more people find it harder to find jobs.

Europe’s banks have done the heavy-lifting in the toughest ever test of their financial strength, but an intensive quality assurance process and decisions still to be taken by supervisors means they cannot work out how they have fared, the Irish Times reported.

Ukraine has asked Switzerland for help in recovering assets moved to the Alpine country by members of ousted leader Viktor Yanukovych's inner circle, according to a Swiss official, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since the start of the summer, Switzerland's justice department has received three requests for assistance in repatriating the assets, spokesman Folco Galli said. The requests concern funds linked to the 19 members of Mr. Yanukovych's entourage, rather than to the former Ukrainian leader himself, Mr. Galli said.

Bank of China Ltd. more than doubled its money set aside for bad loans as profit growth cooled to the slowest pace in five quarters on weakness in the economy, Bloomberg News reported. Provisions for potential soured debt climbed to 12.7 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) in the second quarter, up 116 percent from a year earlier, based on half-year figures released by the Beijing-based company yesterday. Net income rose 8.5 percent to 44.4 billion yuan, the earnings statement showed.

The Karstadt supervisory board announced Tuesday that it had postponed a meeting scheduled for August 21, where executives would have discussed plans for the floundering department store chain's restructuring, Deutsche Welle reported. Chairman Stephan Fanderl said the meeting had not been rescheduled because the board wanted to wait for a decision by German anti-trust regulators on the recent takeover of the 133-year-old retailer by Austria's Signa Group. "We are still determined to start restructuring Karstadt thoroughly and as soon as possible," Fanderl said.

Argentina will send a bill to Congress to authorize the payment of foreign debt in local accounts in a bid to skirt a U.S. court ruling that is blocking payments and caused the nation to default on July 30, Bloomberg News reported. Argentina will seek to remove trustee Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and deposit funds for foreign bondholders at an account at the central bank, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said in a nationwide address.

London home sellers cut asking prices by the most in more than six years this month, adding to signs that the property market in the UK capital is coming off the boil, the Irish Times reported. London values fell 5.9 per cent from the previous month to an average £552,783 (€688,269), the biggest drop since December 2007, property website Rightmove said today. Nationally, prices declined 2.9 per cent, a record for an August. While property demand usually weakens during the summer, Rightmove said the slump this year was steeper than it expected.

In 2012, after years of discussion, Germany introduced new insolvency reforms. Bringing in more control for both debtors and creditors during insolvency proceedings, the reforms helped to improve the legal framework of corporate restructuring in Germany, Economia reported. Two years on, the dust has settled and there are two crucial areas where the benefits have become obvious: Creditors now have the ability to be heard by the courts and can even nominate the insolvency administrator, and debtors are also seeking help more quickly, before serious financial problems arise.

China said it will curb executive pay and perks at major state-controlled companies as part of an austerity program intended to curb government largess, The Wall Street Journal reported. The official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that President Xi Jinping called for the government to more tightly regulate executive salaries at state-owned enterprises and to make adjustment for "unreasonably high" compensation. He also called on SOEs to rein in other compensation such as spending on cars and accommodations, Xinhua said.