Headlines

A shareholder rebellion over executive pay rippling through the U.K. is exposing fissures inside some of the country's biggest companies and could reverberate in boardrooms on both sides of the Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal reported. The uprising began last month when an unusually high percentage of shareholders at Barclays PLC voted against the bank's pay plan. People familiar with the matter say the vote was preceded by an internal fight on the bank's board, with some directors pushing Chief Executive Bob Diamond to forgo his bonus—an idea that was rejected.

EU finance ministers reached agreement on Tuesday on tougher rules to make banks safer, overcoming bitter clashes over a flagship reform to strengthen the financial system, the Financial Times reported. The breakthrough moves the EU a step closer to being the world’s first large jurisdiction to implement the so-called Basel III capital rules, an internationally agreed blueprint for avoiding another banking crisis.

Political deadlock in Greece on Monday stoked a renewed sense of crisis about the fate of the European economy as new data confirmed a downturn in one of the world’s major trading blocs, The Washington Post reported. The immediate focus was on the inability of Greek politicians to form a new government after divided elections last week — raising the possibility that the country may yet reject a recent international bailout agreement and leave the euro currency union.

Strong production in Germany could not make up for a slump across the rest of the euro zone in March with declining output at factories falling and signaling an oncoming recession may not be as mild as policymakers hope. Industrial production in the 17 countries sharing the euro fell 0.3 percent in March from February, the EU's statistics office Eurostat said on Monday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.4 percent increase overall.

The United Arab Emirates is close to finalising an updated federal bankruptcy law and a draft of the legislation should be ready by the end of this year, Justice Minister Hadef bin Juan al-Dhaheri said on Monday, Reuters reported. The draft, which has been in the works since 2009, should enable both listed and family-owned companies in the UAE to be rescued rather than having to go through lengthy bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings. "The ministry is studying a set of laws," Dhaheri told a conference on financial restructuring and bankruptcy in Dubai.

German solar-power company Sovello GmbH filed for insolvency and will attempt to restructure in the process, Bloomberg reported. Sovello, based in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, cannot pay its debts and has asked the Dessau insolvency court to be allowed to restructure under its management, the company said in a statement on its website today. Attorney Bernd Depping has been appointed as preliminary administrator, the company said. “We have checked alternative scenarios to regain solvency,” Chief Executive Officer Reiner Beutel said in the statement.

Rwanda's Ministry of Trade is struggling to popularize the Law of Insolvency among the business community here but success continues to elude its efforts. Since its enactment in May 2009, the Insolvency Law still struggles to be accepted in the business community and is yet to serve its purpose, that of helping insolvent firms sort out their affairs. The law hands down procedures through which indebted businesses that can't pay creditors can declare themselves insolvent or bankrupt.

The Chinese economy is in a lot more trouble than headline GDP figures have indicated until now, the Financial Times reported. Less closely watched economic data released in recent days, including figures for electricity, rail cargo and bank loans, have all shown a steep drop in activity that appears to have caught policymakers by surprise. China’s GDP statistics are only released every three months and in the first quarter of this year they appeared to show a continuation of the gradual decline that has been under way for the past year.

Eurozone central bankers have talked publicly for the first time of managing a possible Greek exit from Europe’s monetary union as stalemate in Athens talks on a coalition government raises the prospect that Greece will renege on the terms of its international bailout, the Financial Times reported. The comments by members of the European Central Bank’s governing council indicate that the risk of eurozone fragmentation is being taken increasingly seriously by the region’s policymakers.

Germany is facing a unique dilemma as many euro-zone counterparts debate how much fiscal belt-tightening their citizens can withstand to restore sound public finances: how much inflation it can stomach to help its southern neighbors, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Friday, Germany's central bank rejected speculation that it is softening its anti-inflation rigor, as its leader tried to keep a largely economic debate about restoring growth in Southern Europe from damaging the Bundesbank's cherished reputation in Europe's largest economy.