Headlines

Greek lawmakers voted late Friday to increase taxes on middle- to high-income earners, self-employed professionals and businesses despite vehement objections by the political opposition and several ruling coalition deputies who said austerity-weary citizens should not be subjected to further pain, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Property buyers using mortgages will have to stump up more than twice as much out of their own pocket to make a down payment as a result of the Central Bank’s new mortgage rules, new research found yesterday, The National reported. Buyers’ self-funding requirements will rise by 100 per cent for nationals and 150 per cent for expatriates, said Chiradeep Ghosh, an analyst at Securities and Investment Company (Sico), a Bahrain-based investment bank. Bankers are to meet tomorrow to formulate a response to the government circular.

The former chief executive of bankrupt Nortel Networks and two former senior executives were found not guilty Monday of falsifying financial reports in what prosecutors said was a scheme to report profits and gain bonuses, the Associated Press reported. Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Marrocco dismissed all charges against former chief executive Frank Dunn, chief financial officer Douglas Beatty and corporate controller Michael Gollogly. The verdicts come four years to the day after Nortel sought bankruptcy protection and began liquidating.

British music and DVDs retailer HMV confirmed on Monday that it was calling in the administrators as talks over a deal to prevent an imminent covenant breach failed, Reuters reported. "The board regrets to announce that it has been unable to reach a position where it feels able to continue to trade outside of insolvency protection," the company said in a statement on Monday evening. Deloitte would be appointed as administrators and the business would continue to trade while a purchaser was sought, it said.

Eurozone countries facing Irish-style bank collapses will still have to shoulder a large portion of future bailouts if they want to receive any aid from the eurozone’s €500bn rescue fund, according to a proposal seen by the Financial Times. The plan, circulated late last year among eurozone finance ministry officials, would force struggling countries to either invest in failing banks alongside the rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, or guarantee the ESM against any losses.

Nortel Networks was once the largest telecommunication equipment company in North America, but since it filed for bankruptcy in 2009 it has earned a new label: one of the world's most complicated legal proceedings, Reuters reported. Bondholders, suppliers, governments and former employees from around the globe hold $20 billion in claims based on different insolvency laws and are competing for Nortel's last remaining asset - $9 billion in cash.

The euro zone is not considering a debt restructuring for Cyprus, the EU's top economic official was quoted on Friday as saying, as the heavily indebted island struggles to negotiate an international aid deal, Reuters reported. Cyprus applied for a financial rescue last June after its banks suffered huge losses on the EU-approved writedown on Greece's debt. But it has so far failed to persuade its European partners to sign off on the package, given concerns the level of the island's indebtedness means it would be unable to repay the aid without further concessions from international lenders.

Goldman Sachs is among a handful of banks considering delaying UK bonus payouts until after April 6 when the top rate of income tax falls from 50 to 45 per cent, the Financial Times reported. The bank’s plan, which relates to bonuses paid for performance in 2009, 2010 and 2011, rather than new awards, is expected to prove controversial despite being perfectly legal.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks a “bold policy leader” as the next Bank of Japan governor as he aims to end deflation and drive a recovery from recession, Bloomberg reported. The choice of a successor to Masaaki Shirakawa, whose term ends in April, will be made after consultations with Yale Professor Emeritus Koichi Hamada and others, Abe said yesterday on public broadcaster NHK’s “Sunday Debate” program. The government and central bank need to agree on implementing a 2 percent inflation target to end deflation, Abe said.

Axtel SAB plunged the most in three weeks after a creditor group said it would reject the company’s restructuring offer. The stock of Mexico’s second-largest land-line phone carrier fell 3.9 percent to 3.19 pesos at 1:59 p.m. in Mexico City Friday. Bondholders controlling 40 percent of Axtel’s dollar notes will reject the Mexican phone company’s restructuring offer, Bloomberg News reported yesterday, citing a letter obtained from two investors in a creditor group.