Headlines

Changing demographics, increasingly vocal retirees, and the prospect of more companies finding themselves in trouble have all combined to create more interest than ever in pension law, a leading practitioner said this morning, the Canadian Lawyer Legal Feeds blog reported. “I have often marvelled myself at the interest in pension law,” Andrew Hatnay of Toronto’s Koskie Minsky LLP said at the Canadian Bar Association conference in Halifax.

Last week, while parts of London and other English cities blazed in the worst riots for 30 years, the world's bond markets ignored the fires and broken glass to give the U.K. what looked like yet another vote of huge confidence, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. Yields on the 10-year gilt fell to record lows, below even equivalent German Bunds. This is in a country where, for a time, it looked as though the civil authorities had lost control of their capital city.

BDO has secured a six-month extension to its term overseeing the administration of collapsed law firm Halliwells, Legal Week reported. News of the reappointment of BDO joint administrators Dermot Power and Shay Bannon comes as it emerges that unsecured creditors may have to share a maximum of £600,000, despite BDO receiving claims worth £191.5m. The figure is contained within a progress report to the failed firm's creditors issued in July.

China Petrochemical Corp.'s partner in its only oil production venture in Australia appointed administrators Monday, a move that underscores how some of China's earliest investments in the resource-rich country have struggled to meet expectations, The Wall Street Journal reported. AED Oil Ltd. raised US$561 million in 2008 when it sold 60% of its underperforming Puffin oil field in the Timor Sea to China Petrochemical Corp., also known as Sinopec.

Mexican glassmaker Vitro on Monday said a court in Monterrey ruled it can vote on its own inter-company debt, a sticking point that has mired the company's bankruptcy plans in court battles with creditors, Reuters reported. Vitro, which has been battling with external creditors over its plans to restructure about $3.4 billion in debt, filed a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan in December. The company, in a separate court case, had argued it should have more control over the bankruptcy proceeding because of its inter-company debt.

French and German leaders meeting today in Paris are expected to present a joint strategy for greater euro zone economic governance, the Irish Times reported. Berlin officials said yesterday it was unrealistic to expect “big bang” proposals despite a promise from French president Nicolas Sarkozy last week to expect “extremely ambitious proposals”. “Such a big bang didn’t take place after the July 21st [summit],” said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Instead important steps emerged, the effects of which will unfold.

Chinese state media and government officials have declared an initial victory in dealing with piles of local government debt, but analysts warn debt risks remain a big threat to the Chinese banking system and the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. In an attempt to quell investor jitters, China's state auditor in June laid the groundwork for a debt clean-up by releasing a review that said local governments had borrowed 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.67 trillion) by the end of 2010.

Proposals to "tidy up" Scottish bankruptcy laws have been put forward by the Scottish Law Commission, the BBC reported. The independent body has published a consultation paper on consolidating existing bankruptcy legislation. It said the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 had "lost coherence" after being heavily amended in recent years. It added the proposals were intended to "remove anomalies, treat like cases in the same way or to omit provisions that no longer serve any purpose". Most of the law proposed for consolidation is already contained in the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985.

South Canterbury Finance receivers have sold another chunk of the failed lender’s business but the return to the taxpayer has been kept confidential, The National Business Review reported. Japanese investment bank Nomura has acquired South Canterbury’s consumer, business and rural loan portfolios – the last of the so-called “good bank” of assets. The three loan portfolios have a combined book value of approximately $123 million, receivers Kerryn Downey and William Black of McGrathNicol said in announcing the deal today. However, the purchase price was kept secret.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government unveiled measures Friday to balance Italy's budget by 2013, a year earlier than planned, by slashing €45 billion ($64 billion) in public spending in a bid to pull Italy back from the brink of the euro-zone crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported. The measures, composed of tax increases and spending cuts, seek to retool a fiscal-tightening package the government passed in July that disappointed investors, driving Italy's borrowing costs up to euro-era highs.