Headlines

Highlighting the risk of investing in startups, goodz GmbH, a Berlin based company that did an equity crowdfunding round this past Spring, has filed for bankruptcy, Crowdfund Insider reported. goodz was an “e-boutique”, launched in February 2014, that featured cutting edge products in a curated e-commerce platform that was determined to target only responsible and well made products. The company was founded by Jeffrey van Ede, the former VP of Sony Europe and CEO of Sony Germany. The crowdfunding campaign on Seedmatch raised €100,000 from 134 investors.

Austria's upper house of parliament passed a law on Thursday that will wipe out the claims of subordinated debt holders in Hypo Alpe Adria, Reuters reported. The law, which enters uncharted territory for debt markets because the creditors had guarantees from Hypo's home province, had been expected to pass after being approved by the lower house of parliament earlier this month. Read more.

A strong start to the tourist season helped Spain’s unemployment rate fall to its lowest in two years while two banks with large local customer bases said business had picked up, fuelling hopes the country’s economic revival is gathering pace, the Irish Times reported. With a minister suggesting the government might raise its GDP forecast, data showed joblessness fell at the fastest quarterly rate on record between April and June.

Cyprus plans to seek a buyer for the local operation of Federal Bank of the Middle East, a Lebanese-controlled lender, which has been placed under administration by the island’s central bank following allegations of money-laundering, the Financial Times reported. FBME, which has a $2bn balance sheet, was accused by the US Treasury’s financial crimes enforcement network (FinCEN) of facilitating a “substantial volume” of money-laundering through its network for many years.

The fate of one of the biggest banks in the European Union’s poorest country, Bulgaria, remains hostage to a political crisis, which caused the prime minister’s government to resign on Wednesday, the International New York Times reported. The resignation of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski and his cabinet, which had been expected for weeks, comes as Bulgaria’s worst banking crisis since the 1990s threatens to take an economic toll on local businesses and foreign investors.

A group of creditors of Mt Gox, the collapsed Bitcoin exchange, is threatening a shake-up of bankruptcy proceedings in Tokyo unless the administrator settles its claims in the virtual currency, the Financial Times reported. Once the world’s largest trading venue for trading and storing Bitcoin, Mt Gox went offline in February saying it had lost track of about 750,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and another 100,000 of its own.

Settlement talks set for Wednesday between Argentina and bondholders who did not participate in the country's past debt restructuring have been rescheduled for Thursday, the court-appointed mediator said. Daniel Pollack, a New York lawyer appointed to oversee the settlement discussions, had scheduled a meeting for 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) after a U.S. judge ordered the parties to meet "continuously" until a deal is reached. Pollack in a statement said he was advised by the Argentina delegation they could not get to New York for the Wednesday meeting.

The number of recorded personal insolvencies has reached its lowest level in nearly a decade, according to official figures, BBC News reported. The Scottish government said more people were using its debt payment programmes to manage their finances. Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing described the figures as "encouraging". However, the figures also showed a rise in corporate insolvencies, with 250 Scottish firms failing in the second quarter of 2014.

The Central Bank has secured High Court orders winding up a credit union in Cork with 3,500 members, the Irish Times reported. The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, today appointed insolvency practitioners Jim Hamilton and David O’Connor of BDO Ireland as provisional liquidators of Berehaven Credit Union, Castletownbere. Mr Justice Kearns said he was satisfied to appoint the provisional liquidators. Paul Gallagher SC , for the Central Bank, had earlier told the judge an orderly orderly wind up of Berehaven Credit Union was “in the the public interest”.

A U.S. judge ordered Argentina and investors who did not participate in the country's past debt restructurings to meet "continuously" with a court-appointed mediator until a settlement is reached, warning of the threat of a new default, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York told Argentina and lawyers for investors who declined to restructure their bonds after the country defaulted on about $100 billion in 2002 that time was running out to reach a deal and avert a fresh default. "That is about the worst thing I can envision.