Headlines

The Lehman-Barclays battle heated up Friday when Barclays dumped a 325-page counter-attack to Lehman’s claims that the British banking giant pocketed billions of dollars in excess assets when it bought Lehman’s U.S. operations, the Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. Besides lots of details about the around-the-clock negotiations in the days after Lehman’s collapse (like how Barclays threatened to walk at the last minute), the filing and about 7,000 pages of exhibits unveil a key litigation weapon that Barclays plans to use: Lehman’s own advisers.

Spanish jobless claims continued to surge in January as one of Europe's worst economic downturns continued, government data showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spanish jobless claims rose by 3.1% to 4 million in January from December, the labor ministry said in a statement. January jobless claims were up 22% from a year earlier. "January is a bad month for employment," Employment Secretary Maravillas Rojo said, adding that in the past even during times of economic growth, unemployment would go up in that month.

Activity in Britain's dominant services sector slowed more than expected last month as the worst snowfall in 50 years paralysed the country, The Guardian reported. The Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply's purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell to 54.5 in January, from 56.8 the previous month. A mark above 50 signifies growth as opposed to contraction. Analysts had forecast a reading of 56.5. This is in sharp contrast to CIPS's manufacturing figures released earlier this week, which showed that the sector grew at its fastest pace in 15 years last month.

After a year of successfully dodging a severe slump in car sales, 2010 has not started well for German carmakers. January saw the worst figures for domestic German auto sales in 20 years. But industry experts disagree over whether the figures represent a simple market correction after last year's government-sponsored cash for clunkers program or a sign of grimmer things to come, Spiegel Online reported. Only 181,500 new vehicles were registered in January, according to a statement released Tuesday by the Association of International Motor Vehicles Manufacturers (VDIK).

A capital raising is imminent for Allan Hubbard's troubled South Canterbury Finance with the company today admitting further provisioning is required for impaired assets, The National Business Review reported. In a market update, South Canterbury said it will report a loss for the six months to December due in part to provisioning for assets previously identified as impaired. The company also said that it had discovered adjustments might be required to the reporting of certain items in the June 30, 2009 audited financial statements.

The decline and fall of Japan Airlines, once Asia's largest carrier, which was put under bankruptcy protection on Jan. 19, is a tale of intellectual, political and financial corruption on an almost unimaginable scale, The Vancouver Sun reported. It is also an illustration of the massive task facing the new Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama if it genuinely intends to try to dismantle the institutionally entrenched wrongheadedness that has overtaken Japan during more than 50 years of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

IT firm Zylog Systems today said it has acquired Canada-based consulting and engineering company Brainhunter for 35 million Canadian dollars (around Rs 150 crore), the Business Standard reported. "This acquisition is through Creditors Arrangement Act bidding process where Zylog emerged as the successful bidder," the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Brainhunter is into consulting and engineering services in Canada with major presence in government, telecom, BFSI, and oil & pipeline verticals.

Canwest Global Communications Corp. will make changes to the way the court-supervised sale of its newspapers and online businesses will work, a company spokesman said Monday. A committee of noteholders had complained the bidding process for Canwest LP, which holds the big city dailies like the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Gazette, was not robust enough, the Canadian Press reported. Canwest spokesman John Douglas said the company worked with the group and a mutual agreement has been reached.

Many countries have started to see a rebound from last year’s economic recession. But will it last? Economists at the World Economic Forum in Davos warn that paying down massive public debt will be "very, very painful." Deep spending cuts and significant tax hikes may be unavoidable, Spiegel Online reported. For those now in their 30s, Kenneth Rogoff has bad news. "It will be terrible for you," the Harvard University economics professor told a young German at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Germany's debt is exploding, the population is aging," he said.

Outgoing EU economics commissioner Joaquin Almunia has warned that Greece will have to adopt new austerity measures if it fails to meet targets set out in an already tough emergency budget, The Irish Times reported. Mr Almunia said the budget programme was achievable but prone to risk. By mid-March, Greece will have to submit its first special report to Brussels on the implementation of the measures, with a follow-up due in mid-May.