Headlines

Japan may see corporate bankruptcy cases hit an 11-year high in the fiscal year to March as some firms go under due to a lack of workers, a think tank survey showed, a sign of the strain intensifying job shortages are inflicting on the economy, Reuters reported. The survey highlights the cost felt by some firms from the Bank of Japan’s past efforts to reflate growth with easy monetary policy enough to tighten the job market and lift wages.

London is at risk of being swamped by burst pipes and sewage leaks if Thames Water is forced into an emergency nationalisation later this month, The Telegraph reported. Insiders have expressed growing concerns that maintenance and repair works could grind to a halt if a multibillion-pound private sector-led bailout is rejected by the Court of Appeal in the coming days. A reversal of a £3bn rescue deal, which was sanctioned by the High Court last month, would trigger an immediate cash crisis at Thames and potentially force ministers to step in.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has directed that the resolution plans to acquire Jaiprakash Associates through the insolvency process should be invited for the entire company as a going concern and not by dividing its different business verticals, the Hindustan Times reported.

A proposed change to the regime governing global sukuk risks transforming the asset class into an equity-like instrument that can’t be assessed by credit-rating companies, according to Bashar Al Natoor, head of Islamic finance at Fitch Ratings, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called AAOIFI Standard 62, aimed at strengthening compliance with Shariah, or Islamic religious laws, would require sukuk issuers to transfer ownership of the underlying assets to the investors.

Swedish truckmaker Scania, a shareholder and customer of struggling battery maker Northvolt, told Reuters on Monday it had secured an additional supplier of battery cells, Reuters reported. Scania in January stepped in to help Northvolt with the day-to-day running of its flagship plant in northern Sweden in an effort to boost quality and output at the electric vehicle battery maker.

Chinese tariffs as high as 15% on a range of US agricultural goods take effect Monday, potentially exacerbating a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, Bloomberg News reported. The levies announced last week are far-reaching, touching commodities from beef and poultry to grains. Along with the tariffs, Beijing also said it would completely suspend soybean imports from three US entities and also halted purchases of American logs. Beijing’s move came after the Trump administration doubled a blanket tariff on all Chinese exports.

China’s consumer inflation dropped far more than expected to fall below zero for the first time in 13 months, an assessment skewed by seasonal distortions but also a sign of deflationary pressures persisting in the economy, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index declined 0.7% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Sunday, compared with a 0.5% gain in the previous month. That was lower than all but one forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts, whose median estimate was for a 0.4% drop.

Canada will keep in place its retaliatory tariffs against US-made products as long as President Donald Trump persists with a trade war, said Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister-designate, Bloomberg News reported. “The Canadian government is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs,” Carney said during his victory speech Sunday.

The European Central Bank needs to have an open mind on its next steps as it confronts persisting inflation risks, according to Governing Council member Peter Kazimir, Bloomberg News reported.