Headlines

A U.S. court is expected on June 11 to confirm the restructuring plan of Bahrain-based Arcapita , the company said, making it the first Gulf company to file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 rules, Thomson Reuters News & Insight reported. Like most investment companies in the region, Arcapita was hit by the financial crisis as it struggled to exit its investments and its fee income from raising fresh funds in the Gulf Arab region collapsed.

After all the promises by the federal government to clean up the insolvency industry, a report released on Wednesday by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission indicates that things are getting worse, not better, The Age reported in a commentary. There are 682 liquidators in Australia and a report by ASIC into the supervision of the profession reveals that it received 437 reports of alleged misconduct involving registered liquidators in the past year, which is up slightly on last year's 426 complaints.

Liquidators of Nathan Tinkler's Mulsanne Resources were given the go-ahead by the court to sue the struggling Australian tycoon for allegedly letting Mulsanne trade while insolvent, said one of Tinkler's creditors, Blackwood Corp., Reuters reported. Blackwood is trying to recover A$28.4 million ($29.5 million) that Tinkler's private company Mulsanne agreed to pay last year for a one-third stake in the coal explorer. As a result of the claim, a court late last year appointed liquidators to wind up Mulsanne.

The euro zone jobless rate rose to a record 12.1 percent in March, a sharp reminder that unemployment remains among the region’s biggest problems, the International Herald Tribune reported. The unemployment rate in the 17-nation currency union ticked up by one-tenth of a percentage point from February, when the previous record was set, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, reported from Luxembourg. A year earlier, euro zone joblessness stood at 11 percent.

Enough customers have waived their claims against Intrade to allow the struggling online prediction market to remain solvent and pursue legal action against the estate of its founder, John Delaney, according to a director of the company, the Financial Times reported. The development comes weeks after the Dublin-based prediction market, which allowed customers to bet on everything from presidential elections to film box-office receipts, said it was likely to become insolvent and eventually liquidate after discovering a $700,000 shortfall in its customer segregated accounts.

Nochi Dankner, the chairman of debt-ridden Israeli conglomerate IDB Holding Corp, won a key battle in a fight with bondholders, with a Tel Aviv court allowing Dankner to keep control of the company albeit with outside supervision, Reuters reported. Many of the companies IDB owns have been hard hit by a combination of slowing economic growth and increased competition. IDB Development, a unit of IDB Holding Corp , owes nearly 6 billion shekels ($1.7 billion) in total debt and its bondholders have charged that the company should be declared insolvent and cannot pay its debts.

Ireland faces at least two more years of tax increases and spending cuts before an easing of austerity in 2016, the Irish Times reported. According to the first formal projections for government spending and tax revenues beyond 2015, a neutral budget in 2016 depends on recovery in the Irish and international economies, the successful implementation of austerity budgets every year up to 2015, and no large additional banking costs.

Cypriot lawmakers narrowly approved the island's €10 billion ($13 billion) bailout deal, paving the way for the country to receive its first installment of aid in a few weeks—as the country now turns to the daunting task of restructuring its devastated economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The loan agreement was approved by 29 lawmakers in the country's 56-member legislature, with 27 votes against the deal. As expected, Cyprus's main opposition party, Communist AKEL, and its junior ally, the Socialist EDEK party, voted against the agreement.

French film camera manufacturer Aaton has entered financial receivership, according to a statement from company founder Jean-Pierre Beauviala posted to the French Society of Cinematographers (AFC) website, StudioDaily reported. Known for the Super 16 Xterà, the tiny Super 16 A-Minima, and most recently the 2-perf and 3-perf 35mm Penelope, the company was most recently developing the Penelope Delta, a digital camera that sought to replicate the ergonomics of the 35mm original.

Cyprus's parliament decides on Tuesday whether to back a bailout imposed by its EU partners, with approval likely from a thin majority against mounting calls for the island to exit the euro, Reuters reported. Lawmakers were due to meet in an extraordinary session at 4 p.m. (1300 GMT) to ratify the terms of the aid, which is conditional on Cyprus winding down its second-largest bank and slapping heavy losses on uninsured depositors in another.