Headlines

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said he would publish a bill this week to reform the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland, The Irish Times reported. He was speaking following the release of a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) identified shortcomings in the regulation of financial institutions.

A New Brunswick judge will examine the latest efforts to salvage the Miramichi-based Atcon Group of companies today, The Winnipeg Free Press reported on a Canadian Press story. Earlier this month, seven of the companies were placed under creditor protection, while another five were put into receivership. Last week, court-appointed monitor Ernst and Young and one of the company's creditors asked the court to move one of the companies - Atcon Industrial - into receivership, terminate the remaining 50 to 100 employees, and sell the assets.

Haemacure Corp said it received permission from the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec to sell its assets to Angiotech Pharmaceuticals Inc, a secured creditor of Haemacure, Reuters reported. The Canada-based biotherapeutic company said the United States Bankruptcy Court had previously authorized the sale to Angiotech of the assets of Haemacure's U.S. subsidiary. Haemacure also said it obtained a second extension, until April 19, within which to make a proposal to its creditors.

The Australian arm of recruitment advertising firm TMP Worldwide was placed into voluntary administration on Wednesday after falling victim to the global financial crisis, industry publication Recruiter reported. According to a report in The Australian newspaper, around 200 jobs are at risk at six locations around the country.

Nortel Networks Corp. says its chief restructuring officer and chief financial officer, Pavi Binning, stepped down Sunday following the sale of its optical networking and Ethernet businesses to Ciena Corp. earlier in March, CBC News reported. The company announced Ciena has elected to pay an all-cash purchase price of $774 million US for the businesses. Nortel said 2,000 of its employees will continue to work for Ciena. Binning, who is also Nortel's chief financial officer and executive vice-president, left the insolvent company effective Sunday.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. on Thursday renewed its bid to have a federal judge revisit Barclays Plc's purchase of its U.S. operations days after the investment bank collapsed into bankruptcy, claiming the British banking giant secretly pocketed billions of dollars in assets without telling the court, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is racing to secure an explicit pledge of European aid and cut his country’s borrowing costs as €20 billion ($27 billion) of debt comes due in the next two months, Bloomberg reported. With investors still demanding Greece pay 3 percentage points more than Germany on its 10-year debt, Papandreou says Greece can’t afford to hold out much longer at current market rates. His government still needs to raise another €10 billion to repay bonds maturing on April 20 and May 19.

Germany hasn't ruled out International Monetary Fund aid for Greece, a spokesman said Friday, Dow Jones reported. Ulrich Wilhelm, Chancellor Angela Merkel's main spokesman, told reporters Friday that because Greece hasn't requested aid from Germany or the European Union, there's no basis for making a decision. "It's an open question," Wilhelm said, adding that whether and how to provide aid for Greece would be "decided quickly" if Greece were to make such a request. "The government has not ruled out financial aid from the IMF," Wilhelm said.

Bank of England Deputy Governor for Financial Stability Paul Tucker said Friday that top policymakers need to face up to tough questions on how insolvency and resolution laws are applied to internationally active companies--an issue which has been ignored for far too long, Nasdaq reported on a Dow Jones story. In a speech in Brussels, Tucker stressed that while coordination of national special resolution regimes would be helpful, they aren't sufficient to deal with troubles at large complex financial institutions, since the tools can't be applied extraterritorially.

Criminal charges have been laid against four directors of Capital + Merchant Finance – one day after the Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation into the failed finance company, The National Business Review reported. The Securities Commission has been investigating Capital + Merchant since it went into receivership in November 2007, owing $167 million to about 7000 investors. The company’s receivers Grant Thornton have said it is unlikely any of these funds will be recovered.