Headlines

Ukrainian officials today notified the International Monetary Fund of the country’s request for financial support, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said in a statement, the Irish Times reported. “We are ready to respond and, in the coming days, will send an IMF fact-finding team to Kiev to undertake a preliminary dialogue with the authorities,” Ms Lagarde said in a statement.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said all capital controls on the island would be lifted by the end of the year, a step that would remove a symbol of his country's isolation from the rest of the euro area. The controls have been in place almost a year, since Cyprus agreed to a €10-billion bailout from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund in March 2013. "The timeline is that we'll lift internal restrictions very soon, and for all other banking activities—including with abroad—by the end of the year," Mr.

A Brazilian court has suspended the deadline for shipbuilder OSX Brasil SA to present its restructuring plan under bankruptcy legislation until a new judge is appointed to the case, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The 60-day deadline to file the plan was already suspended in January while another court reviewed a challenge to OSX's Nov. 11 bankruptcy protection filing. The new deadline will be set once the case is formally transferred to a new judge.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's bankruptcy estate has struck a deal to resolve a five-year-long dispute involving its Swiss affiliate, clearing the way to distribute $1.8 billion to creditors, Reuters reported. The deal would enable the estate of Lehman to resolve one of its largest outstanding claims since the investment bank's September 2008 collapse, a major spark in the global financial crisis, and close a settlement from last year with Lehman Brothers Finance AG, the Swiss affiliate that specialized in equities derivatives. The settlement with the Swiss unit was approved by the U.S.

Honduras’s credit rating was cut by Moody’s Investors Service after the Central American nation’s deficit surged last year and the government boosted sales of short-term domestic debt, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s lowered Honduras’s credit rating to B3 from B2 today, putting the $18.4 billion economy in the same category as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Argentina. The move comes about one month after President Juan Orlando Hernandez took office vowing to tackle the deficit and as his finance minister seeks an accord with the International Monetary Fund.

French unemployment was at a record high in January, adding to the woes of François Hollande, the president, in the run-up to municipal elections next month, the Financial Times reported. The number of jobseekers increased 0.3 per cent compared with December and swelled the ranks of the unemployed in the eurozone’s second-largest economy by 8,900 people. The latest figure, published on Wednesday by the labour ministry, brings the total number of unemployed to a record 3.32m – about 11 per cent of the workforce.

Spanish entertainment company Zinkia, owner of the children's TV character Pocoyo, entered administration on Wednesday, the latest Spanish company to seek protection from creditors in an economic slowdown, Reuters reported. Despite reaching agreement on refinancing with bondholders, banks and commercial creditors, Zinkia did not manage to renegotiate the terms of a 2.5 million euro ($3.4 million) loan with a private lender, the company said in a statement.

While the spotlight maybe on the new gadgets being launched at Mobile World Congress by some of the world’s biggest tech companies, spare a thought for little old Pantech, South Korea’s ailing smartphone maker, The Wall Street Journal Korea Real Time blog reported. After trying for years to eke out profits and carve a niche for itself in the smartphone industry, Pantech is now seeking help to restructure its debt.

A landmark ruling will have a game-changing effect on the way landlords are paid in a corporate collapse, essentially giving them super creditor status. But what impact will this have on other creditors, and the insolvency profession? A consortium of landlords appealed and won a case that will see them repaid £3m in back rent due prior to the collapse of digital game retailer GAME from the new owners of the business, AccountancyAge reported.

A study by a leading economic think tank has shown the problem of wealth inequality has deteriorated in Germany in recent years. In no other eurozone nation are there such big differences between the rich and the poor, Deutsche Welle reported. The survey by the Berlin-based German Institute for Economic Research showed on Wednesday that the gap between the rich and poor in Europe's biggest economy had been widening steadily in recent years.