Headlines

The Finnish paper company Stora Enso Oyj agreed to pay $8 million to end a nearly nine-year-old antitrust lawsuit accusing a former unit of conspiring to fix prices for purchasers of coated paper used in magazines and catalogs, Reuters reported. According to a filing on Monday with the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the settlement resolves claims against Stora Enso and the former Stora Enso North America Corp unit, which was sold in 2007 and is now known as NewPage Wisconsin System Inc after going through bankruptcy.

The insolvency of one of Canada’s largest and oldest contracting firms is having a ripple effect on companies in Sudbury and across Northern Ontario, NorthernLife.ca reported. The Comstock Group of Burlington is under bankruptcy protection and a number of Sudbury-area industrial suppliers, engineering firms, equipment rental and fabrication shops, which worked as service firms on projects in Sudbury and across Canada, have been hit particularly hard. Forty-two Sudbury-area companies showed up on a list of unsecured creditors owed greater than $1,000.

Chinese regulators have tried for months to rein in lending by the country's banks, most recently by instigating a cash squeeze that left some scrambling for funds. But the banks have stayed one step ahead, keeping the lending spigots open largely through increasingly complicated transactions, The Wall Street Journal reported. The banks' latest effort in their cat-and-mouse game with regulators involves making corporate loans appear on their balance sheets as less risky loans to banks.

Special liquidators for the IBRC have written to debtors saying they have begun assessing the market for sale of the former Anglo Irish Bank’s loans, which include debts of €250 million owed by property investor Paddy McKillen, the Irish Times reported. The move has stepped up the battle for ownership rights over London’s most prestigious set of hotel properties up a notch, with twin billionaire brothers David and Frederick Barclay saying there are eager to buy Mr McKillen’s debts.

The Greek government’s efforts to sell state-owned assets was sidetracked again when the chairman of the privatization agency was forced to resign after hitching a ride on the private jet of a Greek oil tycoon, the International Herald Tribune reported. One of the ways Greece plans to dig itself out of debt is through the sale of state-owned assets. But that effort has been besieged by missteps.

Russians who used the offshore haven of Cyprus before the collapse of the island’s banking system appear to have shrugged off the Kremlin’s calls to bring back their money to the motherland, instead opting to park their cash in the British Virgin Islands, data from the Russian central bank suggest, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported.

President Vladimir Putin is seeking ways to shore up the economy as corporate credit dries up amid policy makers’ reluctance to cut interest rates in the face of above-target inflation, Bloomberg reported. The economy grew 1.2 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, the slowest pace since 2009, as investment shriveled. That may mean Russia has entered its second recession in five years, according London-based to Capital Economics Ltd.

The future of online retailer Ruslan Kogan’s budding mobile business, Kogan Mobile, hangs in the balance after its wholesaler ispONE entered into voluntary administration and cancelled all services from its telco provider, Telstra, Business Spectator reported. In a statement, Telstra Wholesale confirmed that it would continue to support one of the two major telco brands serviced by ispONE. Up to 280,000 customers from both brands are set to be affected by the move.

Wiesmann GmbH, a German maker of retro-style luxury sports cars, has filed for insolvency at a local court and said it’s seeking strategic partners and investors, Bloomberg reported. Rolf Haferkamp remains chief executive officer and plans to restructure the company, Wiesmann said in a statement yesterday. Operations will continue at the headquarters and plant in Duelmen. Engines are supplied by Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), the world’s biggest maker of luxury vehicles.

Four years ago Ioannis Marinopoulos, a seasoned financial investor, followed the advice of his banker and transferred all his savings into Greek government bonds, the Financial Times reported. “The investment case was that sovereign bonds were the safest possible haven if a crisis struck Greece . . . much better than bank deposits,” the 41-year-old economist said.