Headlines

A Toronto car dealership has launched a $750-million class-action suit on behalf of more than 200 General Motors of Canada Ltd. dealers that seeks compensation for how GM handled the termination of their outlets last year, The Globe and Mail reported. The suit names the auto maker, law firm Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP and two of the firm's lawyers.

A U.S. federal judge has authorized the trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff's investment firm to hire a Canadian law firm to help track down the imprisoned Ponzi schemer's assets in Canada, Reuters reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland late Wednesday approved the hiring of Montreal-based Kugler Kandestin LLP as special counsel to represent trustee Irving Picard in Canadian proceedings. Picard last week said he had learned of what he believes to be "customer property located in Canada," and sought permission hire counsel to help find it. The Securities Investor Protection Corp, a U.S.

Traditionally, India’s middle-classes were conservative savers, buying homes near the end of their working lives after decades of frugality. They had little choice. Until the mid-1990s, even home loans were tough to come by from India’s state-dominated banking sector, the Financial Times reported. That changed as private and foreign banks worked to build market share in the country’s fast-growing economy, pushing out consumer creditwith little heed to clients’ other outstanding obligations.

Canadian bankruptcies rose 2.4 percent in November from a year earlier as consumers struggled to repay debts, but business bankruptcies were down sharply, suggesting the worst may be over for corporate insolvency, Reuters reported. The number of consumer bankruptcies in November rose 3.9 percent from November 2008 to 8,482, while business bankruptcies fell 21.7 percent to 396, the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada said in a report.

When it comes to rescuing banks, the Swedes are earning a reputation as trendsetters. First they set a standard for recovering from disaster; now they want to export their idea for how to pay for it, The New York Times reported. The country went through its own crippling banking crisis during the early 1990s, after the bursting of a domestic credit bubble. It rebounded relatively smoothly through an aggressive bailout policy built around nationalization and carving the troubled assets of banks off into a so-called bad bank.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) placed the Apex Rural Bank (Bulacan), Inc. under receivership, the first one to be taken over by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. this year, BusinessWorld reported. "Notice is hereby given that the Monetary Board decided to prohibit the Apex Rural Bank from doing business in the Philippines and to place its assets and affairs under receivership," it said in a directive. The supervision and examination sector of the BSP, however, declined to disclose details on the Apex Rural Bank’s financial condition.

Australia's planned legislation to overturn a court ruling that puts shareholders on an equal footing with unsecured creditors in the event of corporate insolvency will not be retrospective, a minister said. The legislation "won't be retrospective, it will be prospective," said Chris Bowen, Australia's financial services minister. "I'll be hopeful to have them implemented by the third quarter of this year at the latest," Bowen told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

A pillar of Japan Inc. founded in 1951 to help the country rise from the ashes of World War II, Asia's largest airline by revenue sought court protection from creditors on Tuesday to grapple with a debt load of $25 billion, a level well above its cash flow, The Wall Street Journal reporeted. Japan's new government played a big role in steering the company toward bankruptcy protection and portrayed the moves—despite the new subsidies—as an early sign of how economic policy making is changing since the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost power four months ago.

General Motors’ Opel unit said on Thursday that it would close its plant in Antwerp, Belgium, this year as part of a plan to reduce its capacity by about 20 per cent, the Financial Times reported. The plant employs 2,606 people – about 5 per cent of the US carmaker’s European workforce – and made 88,873 of Opel/Vauxhall’s Astra model in 2009. GM said it planned to wind down production in the next few months. The Opel Antwerp plant employs 2,606 people - about 5 per cent of the US carmaker's European workforce - and made 88,873 of Opel/Vauxhall's Astra models in 2009.

Rubicon US REIT Inc filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to court documents, five months after administrators found its Australian owner likely to be insolvent, Reuters reported. Property investment fund Rubicon US REIT is a subsidiary of Rubicon America Trust of Edgecliff, New South Wales in Australia. The fund suffered from soured investments in U.S. real estate. The company listed assets and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million in its bankruptcy filing.