Headlines

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition plans to introduce a minimum wage next year that some analysts and business groups are warning could lead to sharp reductions in the number of internships, the Financial Times reported. The legislation, which is expected to come before the Bundestag in the next few weeks, will require employers to pay everyone at least €8.50 an hour from the age of 18. That fulfils a longstanding goal of the political left and trade unions. Yet a less appreciated consequence of the legislation is that it would drive up the cost for many companies to use interns.

Belgian financial institution KBC appeared to rule itself out yesterday from any interest in a link-up with Ulster Bank in the Republic as part of the strategic review being carried out by that bank’s parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Irish Times reported. In a presentation to investors, KBC made clear that it plans to plough an independent furrow in Ireland until it is back in profit here in 2016. “For Ireland, KBC’s first priority is to become profitable from 2016 onwards.

Trade unions have told Aer Lingus they would have serious problems with any demands for staff to provide compensatory savings in return for investment to deal with a deficit in their pension scheme, the Irish Times reported. A Government-appointed expert panel recommended this week Aer Lingus should increase its proposed capital injection into new pension arrangements for serving personnel from €110million to €146.7 million.

France and Italy, still struggling to meet the euro zone’s tough budget targets, may be gaining support for an effort to relax the rules, the International New York Times reported. The effort, backed by Socialists in the newly elected European Parliament, could color discussions in Luxembourg on Thursday and Friday, when the bloc’s finance ministers gather for their monthly meetings. The European Union is finally emerging from a six-year economic crisis that threatened to destroy the euro currency.

Mt. Gox Co., once the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, won approval of its U.S. bankruptcy filing, giving a boost to a Japanese investigation into the disappearance of 650,000 units of the digital currency, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stacey G. Jernigan said today in Dallas she has “ample legal authority” to accept the U.S. filing and recognize Mt. Gox’s Japanese bankruptcy as the foreign main proceeding. The ruling empowers the company’s Japanese trustee to examine witnesses, gather and review evidence, and oversee assets in the U.S., such as servers.

Spain is looking at extending a law enacted in March which helps struggling companies cut debt and avoid bankruptcy to firms already in the liquidation process, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The rules were designed to ease loan refinancings by making it harder for small creditors to veto deals between companies and their lenders and create a mechanism for creditors to write off part of the debt. The amendment would be passed in the next few weeks, de Guindos said.

Austria's draft law on restructuring heavily indebted Hypo-Alpe-Adria Bank International AG could lead to higher financing costs for the country's banks and damage investors' trust if enacted, the president of the Austrian Bankers' Association said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Italian government has asked ArcelorMittal SA to consider investing in or buying troubled Italian steel producer Ilva, the chief executive officer of the world's largest steelmaker said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. "We have been invited by the Italian government to look at it. That does not mean that we are going to acquire it," CEO Lakshmi Mittal said on the sidelines of the Steel Success Strategies conference in New York.

As President Xi Jinping of China prepares to tackle what may be the biggest cases of official corruption in more than six decades of Communist Party rule, new evidence suggests that he has been pushing his own family to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, reducing his own political vulnerability, the International New York Times reported. No investment stakes have been tied directly to Mr. Xi or his wife and daughter.

Argentina, looking to skirt a U.S. court ruling forcing it to pay holders of defaulted debt, will seek investor backing for a plan to move the rest of its international bonds into the local market, Economy Minister Axel Kicillof said, Bloomberg News reported. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s administration has studied “extensively” the process to shift bondholders into the domestic market via a debt exchange and will meet with lawmakers to discuss the plans tomorrow, Kicillof told reporters today in Buenos Aires. At the same time, Argentina will send its lawyers to speak with U.S.