Headlines

A top Spanish official said Monday that Sunday's agreement on details of a Greek bailout package showed the euro zone won't allow the default of a member nation, Dow Jones reported. "It shows the unanimous decision of the European Union, and especially the euro zone, to support financial stability, and it leaves no room for the hypothesis that a euro-zone country could ever default," Diego Lopez Garrido, secretary of state for European affairs, said Monday.

Tagish Lake Gold Corp., which explores for and develops high grade gold-silver mineral deposits in the Yukon Territory of Canada, has obtained creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, MarketWatch reported. Day to day operations are expected to continue without interruption. The company had over $7,000,000 in total current liabilities as of January 31, 2010, including secured and unsecured amounts due to its trade and general creditors, and it is currently unable to meet those liabilities as they become due. YS Mining Company Inc.

Canwest Global Communications Corp.’s insolvent newspaper division won an extension of bankruptcy protection until June 30 to let it complete an auction for the publications, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. Ontario Superior Court Judge Sarah Pepall granted the extension today following a hearing in Toronto. The bankruptcy protection, first granted Jan. 8, was due to expire April 14. Canwest Global agreed to sell Canwest Ltd.

Dubai World could see a response this month from banks to a proposed restructuring offer for about $23 billion of debt, according to the chief executive of one of its largest lenders, Dow Jones reported. "There's a set deadline in weeks," Alaa Eraiqat of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, one of seven lenders that form a creditor committee for Dubai World, told reporters Monday. Other banks on the committee that represents more than 90 Dubai World creditors include HSBC Holding PLC, Standard Chartered PLC, Lloyds Banking Group PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC.

Finally there is a deal. It came late, and only after the financial markets – and a rating agency – forced the European Union to put up or shut up. It will provide Greece with emergency loans at a rate of about 5 per cent, which is lower than present market rates. There is no agreement yet about the overall amount of money to be disbursed. But I hear that the total figure will be much larger than has been widely reported – somewhere between €50bn and €60bn, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. It is not the worst conceivable deal.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc told a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Friday that Barclays Plc should be forced to return certain assets it received in its 2008 acquisition of Lehman's core U.S. brokerage, because Barclays arranged a secret $5 billion discount, Reuters reported. In opening arguments at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, an attorney for Lehman Brothers claimed that Lehman and Barclays employees had hidden information about the discount from their lawyers and the court, amid intense deal negotiations in the darkest days of the financial crisis.

Asiana and its parent organization, the Kumho Asiana Group, have been entangled in an ugly liquidity trap since late last year and many of its member companies are now facing creditor-led restructuring programs, The Korea Times reported. And Asiana was one of the main culprits behind this crisis, which started back in 2008 when the firm had borrowed heavily to buy a land transportation company, Korea Express, at a ridiculously high price. The global economic crisis made it worse by bloodying its balance sheet red for the next two years. Everything looked bad until a few weeks ago.

The Reykjavik City Theatre is to embark on a marathon performance on Monday in a radical break from its usual productions, which have recently included King Lear and Waiting for Godot. Shortly after Monday’s release of a report into the causes of Iceland’s 2008 banking crisis, actors will start reading the 2,000-page inquiry findings. They will continue around the clock until every word is told. It could take five days, the Financial Times reported.

An Alberta judge has appointed a receiver over the companies and assets of Gary Sorenson, who is charged in an alleged fraud that has ballooned to as much as $500-million, making it the country's largest alleged Ponzi scheme, the National Post reported. The justice found that Mr. Sorenson's businesses, known as the Merendon companies, which are located in Central and South America, have received more than $50-million from companies run by his alleged co-conspirator in the Ponzi scheme, Milowe Brost. "None of the companies has accounted for any of the monies received.

The insolvency administrator of Karstadt is still in talks with potential investors about a sale of the venerable German department store chain, he said on Monday at a meeting of Karstadt creditors. The creditors are meeting for the second time to vote on the department store chain's insolvency plan, kicking off the final stage of the company's sale, Reuters reported. Insolvency administrator Klaus-Hubert Goerg wants to sell the 120 Karstadt stores by the end of April. He plans to sell the company as a whole -- a prerequisite for concessions from real estate owners and employees.