Headlines

The trial of three former Anglo Irish Bank officials has been adjourned until Thursday so the defence can examine freshly uncovered documents, the Irish Times reported. The trial was due to resume on Wednesday morning. However Judge Patrick McCartan told the jury of six men and six women documents sought by the defence had only just been discovered by the prosecution and that the defence needed the rest of the day to examine them.

Greece on Tuesday added its name to a roster that includes some of the world’s poorest and worst governed nations, including Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Those are a few of the countries that have missed payments to the International Monetary Fund — as Greece did Tuesday, when it failed to make a loan payment of about 1.5 billion euros, or $1.7 billion, to the fund. The International Monetary Fund does not use the term default. It instead places countries that miss their payments in so-called arrears.

Three bidders have submitted binding offers for Novo Banco, the successor to Banco Espirito Santo after a state rescue last year, the Bank of Portugal said on Tuesday, without naming the institutions. A source close to Chinese group Fosun International told Reuters earlier the company had submitted its offer before Tuesday's deadline. The list of contenders shrank from five that the central bank picked in April and who had until the end of June to present binding bids.

The founding father of UK’s bank ringfencing has dismissed the idea that by pushing retail banking units into standalone entities they could “go wandering off” and disregard parent groups’ strategy, the Financial Times reported. Some senior bankers have attacked new rules that force the biggest lenders to hive off their consumer lending operations into separately governed and funded structures, arguing that they will lose control of a key part of their business.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes Ireland’s parent’s rescue plan for the troubled business has trumped alternatives proposed by rival Boylesports and others, the Irish Times reported. Kenneth Fennell, the examiner appointed by the High Court to oversee the rescue of Ladbrokes Ireland told creditors and other interested parties on Tuesday that he favours the plan put forward by the chain’s UK parent. That proposal involves closing 60 out of 196 of its betting shops in the Republic, cutting 250 of its 840 jobs and repudiating a number of its leases.

China's push to extend its influence in the Western Hemisphere has hit an embarrassing setback at an unfinished, $3.5 billion resort and casino project in the Bahamas, Reuters reported. A series of construction delays, funding squabbles, lagging inspections and faulty work at the Baha Mar resort in Nassau have led to contention and finger-pointing in recent months among the local developer, a Chinese state-backed contractor and China's export finance bank.

Italian bonds halted a two-day drop and the nation sold €6.8 billion of debt, a sign of investor confidence that fallout from Greece’s financial crisis can be contained, the Irish Times reported. Italy’s sale included €2.9 billion of 10-year bonds and €1.5 billionof five-year securities. While the bid-to- cover ratio, a gauge of investor demand, was the lowest since December for the longer-maturity bonds, it increased for the shorter-dated notes.

Uncertain what might happen next, with banks and financial markets closed, across Athens people wasted little time Monday, rushing to the nearest A.T.M. to withdraw their new daily maximum of 60 euros, determined to raise every last cent while they could, the International New York Times reported. Yet, even as Greeks faced a new level of chaos and hardship this week, they were being confronted with another unsolvable riddle: a vote on their future that was even more uncertain than the current chaos. “Simply put, we’re confused,” Eleni Gardikioti, 31, an insurance worker, said.

China’s state auditor has uncovered falsified revenues and profits in the accounts of some of the country’s biggest state-owned companies, as Beijing broadens its assault on official corruption, the Financial Times reported. The National Audit Office said on Sunday that 14 state-owned groups, including well-known names such as State Grid, China Ocean Shipping Co (Cosco) and China Southern Power Grid, falsified nearly Rmb30bn ($4.8bn) in revenue and nearly Rmb20bn in profits in 2013.

Frankfurt prosecutors are examining the role played by individuals connected with Deutsche Bank’s involvement in the Libor rate-rigging scandal – potentially opening up a new front in the affair that has rocked Germany’s biggest bank. The investigation is the first step in a procedure that could lead to criminal charges, the Irish Times reported. The prosecutors’ investigation stems from a report by the German financial watchdog BaFin, details of which were revealed by the Financial Times on Friday.