Headlines

The euro zone's bailout fund should be allowed to lend to help finance the closure of banks in the bloc, a proposal prepared for euro zone finance ministers showed on Monday, Reuters reported. European countries are seeking to reach a deal before the end of the year on how to close failing lenders, as part of an ambitious plan to create a banking framework and fix broken banks, whose problems have festered since the financial crisis.

For a year and a half, Antonis Samaras has kept Greece’s bailout programme broadly on track despite his coalition government’s shrunken parliamentary majority and resistance within his cabinet to implementing tough structural reforms, the Financial Times reported. For the Greek premier, stern admonitions from Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and other EU leaders that Athens must work harder to fulfil its obligations to international lenders have given way to recognition of the “sacrifices made by the Greek people” as fiscal targets are finally met.

Eastern Germany's savings banks have written down their stake in stricken Landesbank Berlin (LBB) to 1 euro, the head of the association representing them said. "We have drawn a line under it in the hope that we're through now," OSV President Michael Ermrich told Reuters, adding that he did not expect a dividend from LBB in the next two to three years. On Friday, sources had told Reuters that Germany's savings banks would have to shoulder as much as 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in further writedowns on LBB, which is being dismantled into a savings bank and a real estate business.

The new chairman of State Bank of India has pledged to crack down on rising levels of corporate bad debt that have alarmed policy makers and foreign investors in Asia’s third-largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Arundhati Bhattacharya took over the state-backed bank in October. India’s biggest lender, which controls about a fifth of the country’s $1.5tn of bank assets, has struggled to cope with a sharp increase in non-performing loans in the aftermath of India’s recent economic slowdown.

Aer Lingus is threatening legal action if Siptu goes ahead with a strike in the latest twist in the ongoing row over the €780 million hole in the pension fund that it operates jointly with Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), the Irish Times reported. Siptu is set to begin balloting members in the airline and airport operator next week for industrial action as the trade union says there is growing frustration over the delay in resolving the dispute.

Nzoia Sugar Company has denied a report by the Auditor General last week that indicated that it is technically insolvent and operating on a negative working capital, allAfrica.com reported. The company is reported to have debts amounting to Sh16billion hence making it hard to even meet its basic financial obligations. The second largest sugar milling company however said the report presented to Parliament's Public Investments Committee, did not include all the required records especially the cash books while carrying out the forensic audit.

The fight over defunct Nortel Networks' $7.5 billion in cash will be decided in joint U.S.-Canadian court hearings and not in arbitration, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia upheld a bankruptcy court ruling in March that there was never an agreement to use arbitration to divide the pile of cash among various Nortel estates around the world. Nortel sought protection from creditors in courts around the world in 2009 and its businesses were quickly sold, reducing a once-global corporate giant to little more than a pile of cash.

The Irish government said Wednesday the sale at a profit of a huge investment in Bank of Ireland that was made at the height of the debt crisis will boost confidence in the country as it prepares to exit its international bailout in the coming weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Unemployment in France rose to its highest level in nearly 16 years in the third quarter, dealing a fresh blow to President François Hollande who has pledged to bring unemployment down by the end of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported. Unemployment in the euro zone's second-largest economy rose to 10.9% in the third quarter, from 10.8% in the second, according to data published Thursday by national statistics agency Insee. The rate hasn't fallen since the beginning of 2011, bringing joblessness in France to a level not seen since the beginning of 1998.

The Central Bank has given the country’s main lenders until next June to put in place mortgage debt solutions for 75 per cent of customers more than 90 days in arrears, the Irish Times reported. The new targets, agreed in conjunction with the EU-IMF troika, also stipulate the number level of “concluded solutions” on the banks’ books must reach 35 per cent by the same date. There are just under 100,000 Irish mortgage accounts more than 90 days behind in their repayments.