Headlines

AbitibiBowater's attempts to exit bankruptcy protection could be scuttled by Newfoundland and Labrador's environmental claims, says a court-appointed monitor for the insolvent paper producer, The Canadian Press reported. The province has issued five ministerial environmental orders requiring the Montreal-based producer to clean several sites. Some sites are no longer owned by AbitibiBowater, others are not in operation. They include the Buchans mine, operations at the expropriated Grand Falls-Windsor mill, the Stephenville mill, storing operations at Botwood and about 50 logging camps.

General Motors Co. failed to win approval from Chinese regulators to sell its Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., said two people briefed on the deal, Bloomberg reported. A government agency indicated that it won’t provide approval for Chengdu, China-based Tengzhong to purchase the Hummer line of sport-utility vehicles from GM in China, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the decision hasn’t been made public. The deal may be completed offshore, the people said. Regulators said they won’t block a transaction closed elsewhere, one person said.

The Greek government is moving closer to choosing new austerity measures in discussions with a visiting delegation of European Union and International Monetary Fund officials over how to tame its deficit, according to people familiar with the government's thinking, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to these people, the new package is likely to include an increase in the current value-added tax rate of 19%, more cuts in civil-service entitlements and higher duties on luxury items such as boats and expensive cars. Greece is also mulling a further increase in fuel taxes.

Aer Lingus is once again working on a contingency plan involving more than 1,100 compulsory redundancies and a major scaling back of routes in the event that staff reject a ballot on the restructuring deal that was agreed with unions recently and is aimed at saving €97 million a year, The Irish Times reported. It is understood that Aer Lingus’ senior executive team have become concerned in recent days that staff at the airline are set to reject the package of cost-cutting measures that was agreed last month with unions following several months of negotiations.

Ukrainian telecoms firm Ukrtelekom is the latest state-controlled company seeking to restructure its foreign debt, a letter from its chairman of the board to the state communications authority showed on Tuesday. The letter, seen by Reuters, says Ukrtelekom wants to pay $14 million of the $55.6 million due by Feb. 25 on $500 million in debt owed to Credit Suisse First and Deutsche Bank. The rest, it said, it wants to pay within three months of the deadline.

Dutch startup Sellaband, which enabled music fans to invest in their favorite bands, last week on Friday requested provisional suspension of payments in their home country. It was promptly granted by an Amsterdam Court, and was this morning changed into full bankruptcy. The news of the bankruptcy led to a flurry of reports about Sellaband calling it quits for good – or as we like to say, hitting the deadpool, TechCrunch reported. Now it appears that there’s a chance the startup may live to fight another fight after all.

Dubai's government said Monday it won't seek senior creditor status in restructuring talks now under way between Dubai World and lenders, a position that may help simplify negotiations with creditors over some $22 billion of the company's debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. Dubai World shocked investors in early November saying it would ask for a six-month debt standstill. In December, neighboring Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, extended Dubai a $10 billion lifeline, following a separate $10 billion infusion by the federal government last February.

Signature Aluminum Canada Inc. has until the end of the week to present a viable restructuring plan before its court-appointed stay of proceedings expires, opening the floodgates for creditors looking to force the struggling company into full-blown bankruptcy, American Metal Market reported.

Britain's pension regulator has muscled in on the unwinding of Nortel Networks Corp., hoping to recoup an immense shortfall in a bold and largely untested legal gamble in a Canadian courtroom, the Globe and Mail reported. Groaning under the weight of payouts to Nortel's pensioners in Britain, the relatively new U.K. Pensions Regulator has filed a $3.4-billion claim against Nortel's Canadian parent in an Ontario court that is set to start on March 1. It argues the underfunded British pension scheme should be topped up as part of the ongoing auction of Nortel's global assets.

Two brothers' dreams of owning and running a large scale sheep and beef farming operation in New Zealand’s Central North Island have seen their ambitions disappear - with the announcement of a receivership sale of their sizeable landholdings, Voxy reported. Pohonui farm and Rosemerryn farm - both west of Taihape - were purchased only a few years ago when the farming sector was booming.