Headlines

Cyprus said on Tuesday it was not trying to wriggle out of terms of an EU/IMF bailout imposed on the island, but said some provisions of the deal needed tweaking to address problems in its battered banking sector, Reuters reported. "Every effort will be applied so our positions are met with understanding by our partners... We are not seeking re-negotiation but an adjustment of certain measures," Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades told reporters.

U.S. law firm Brown Rudnick has been hired to represent small investors in Britain's Co-operative Bank who are fighting for a better deal in its 1.5 billion pound rescue plan, sources familiar with the matter said, Reuters reported. The bank's parent, the Co-operative Group, is making bondholders swap their debt at a discount of at least 30 percent for new bonds and equity in the bank, which will be listed on the London Stock Exchange. The so-called "bail in", which has been used in bank rescues in Ireland, Spain and Cyprus, has angered many of Co-operative Bank's 5,000 retail bondholders.

Moscow Commercial Court has extended the receivership at AMT Bank for another six months, thus supporting the receiver's request, RAPSI reported from the courtroom. The Deposit Insurance Agency requested an extension because it has failed to complete all the necessary procedures. The next hearing is scheduled for December 17. The Moscow Commercial Court declared AMT Bank bankrupt on June 20, 2012 after the Deposit Insurance Agency filed for the bank's bankruptcy. The agency was appointed as the bank's receiver in October 2011.

Austria committed to increase spending by as much as 1.6 billion euros ($2.1 billion) until 2016 for construction projects after a builder filed for the country’s biggest post-World War II insolvency and put 5,000 jobs at risk in an election year, Bloomberg reported. The measures decided in the weekly government meeting in Vienna today include both new projects and bringing forward planned ones to this year and next year, Chancellor Werner Faymann told journalists today. Faymann said he still plans to balance the budget by 2016.

Spanish plastics bottle maker La Seda de Barcelona will ask shareholders to approve its debt refinancing plan and allow it to withdraw from insolvency proceedings on Wednesday, a person close to the company with knowledge of the plan told Reuters. La Seda said in a stock market notice on Tuesday that it had reached a preliminary deal to refinance 75 percent of its syndicated debt with creditors, after saying last week it would file for insolvency.

Dublin is facing fresh calls to hold a public inquiry into its banking crash following the broadcast of a phone call between senior executives at Anglo Irish Bank, which suggests the bank deliberately misled regulators as it sought help during the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The taped conversation between Anglo Irish executives John Bowe, head of capital markets, and Peter Fitzgerald director of retail banking, took place three days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Alpine Bau, the insolvent Austrian arm of Spanish construction group FCC, faces being broken up after late-night talks to save the company in its current form failed, putting up to 5,000 jobs at risk, Reuters reported. The head of Alpine Bau's works council, Hermann Haneder, said on Monday a consortium of rival builders was now looking at taking over parts of the company, either at the level of provincial divisions or individual projects. "The question is, will the workers be kept on when the projects are finished?" said Haneder, who took part in the last-ditch talks.

Canada's biggest securities regulator accused Ernst & Young LLP of failing to properly audit the financial statements of Zungui Haixi Corp. ahead of the Chinese shoe maker completing a 39.8 million Canadian dollar ($38.1 million) initial public offering in 2009 and listing its shares on the junior Canadian TSX Venture Exchange. The allegations come after the Ontario Securities Commission in December alleged the big accounting firm failed to adequately audit the financial statements of Sino-Forest Corp. between 2007 and 2010.

Amid skyrocketing professional fees, the United States and the United Kingdom have figured out that the self-regulated industry of salvaging distressed companies is in desperate need of rescue. Not so in Canada, the Financial Post reported in a commentary. Consider the four-and-a-half-year winding down of Nortel Networks Corp.

Ireland’s low tax revenue compared to peer countries is accounted for by relatively low levels of tax paid by those at the lower end of the income spectrum, according to a study published today by the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Irish Times reported. Those on higher incomes in Ireland pay proportionately similar amounts of tax to their better-off counterparts in high-tax countries such as Germany and the Nordics.