Headlines

The European Commission on Wednesday approved a restructuring plan and a state-guaranteed illiquid asset back-up facility provided by the Dutch government to ING banking and financial services group, Reuters reported. The Commission, competition watchdog of the 27-nation European Union, said in a statement it had approved the plan following an additional agreement between ING and the Dutch government.

A senior General Motors Co. executive said Tuesday that the final restructuring plan for GM's Opel/Vauxhall unit still could hinge on aid commitments from European governments, Dow Jones reported. The company aims to advance a new €3.3 billion turnaround plan for the European operation in two to three weeks and wants aid to supplement further investment of its own. Nick Reilly, president of GM's international operations, said there was no "bidding war" among European countries looking to preserve local auto jobs with financial support.

A growing number of global leaders are urging China to look to its long-term interests and allow its tightly controlled currency to rise. But they are encountering reluctance from a government still very much worried about the economy in the short term, The Wall Street Journal reported. stronger yuan, which would make Chinese exports less competitive, is particularly unappealing for China in a year when exports are down about 20% and many manufacturers have closed.

W.C. Wood Corp., which owned a freezer factory in Ottawa, announced it couldn't find a buyer in time to avoid liquidating the entire company, Industrial Laser Solutions reported. A Canadian court placed the company in receivership, leaving the Ottawa plant's remaining 150 employees without a job. The company had been looking for a buyer since filing a Companies Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada in May. It received Chapter 15 protection in the United States in June.

The pension fund of the Reader’s Digest Association’s U.K. arm has slammed the bankrupt media company’s disclosure statement, saying it fails to consider the company’s underfunded pension plans, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. Read more. (Subscription required.)

The Paris Commerce Court has postponed a decision on the future of troubled French fashion house Christian Lacroix to Dec. 1, the administrator for Lacroix said on Tuesday. This was because the main potential buyers for the fashion house, Gulf investor Hassan bin Ali al-Nuaimi, and France's Bernard Krief Consulting, "could not show the documentation certifying the funds needed for the acquisition were available," Regis Valliot said. If by the Dec.

AIB, Ireland's biggest bank, said in a trading update today that it is expecting 2009 bad debt charges to rise to €5.3 billion, up from a previous forecast of €4.3 billion, Finfacts reported. The bank said in an interim management statement, that the charges were weighted towards the €24 billion loan portfolio, that may potentially be transferred to the State "bad bank," the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA). The loans mainly related to the Republic of Ireland division, with some in the UK divisions.

The U.K. government this week will unveil its last legislative program before next year's general election, looking to sway voters with proposals giving the government more power to intervene in badly performing schools and to rip up bankers' contracts if they lead to excessive pay, The Wall Street Journal reported. The initiatives will be outlined Wednesday in the queen's speech, written by the government and delivered by the monarch to set out the legislative agenda for the next parliamentary session.

Lawyers for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc have filed a lawsuit against Barclays Capital to claw back billions of dollars of excess profit from last year's purchase of Lehman's U.S. brokerage business, court documents showed, Reuters reported. The lawsuit followed claims by Lehman lawyers in September that BarCap, the investment bank arm of Barclays Plc, received an $8.2 billion "windfall profit" from excess assets it took control of in the fire sale of Lehman's U.S. brokerage business in September 2008.

Insurance Companies who are exposed to over a million dollars worth of debt following the $5M collapse of technology magazine publisher Derwent Howard are set to start asking questions of the administrator, after two key assets involving Sony and the Woolworths owned retailer Dick Smith, were moved to new entities only weeks before the Company was placed into voluntary administration, ChannelNews reported.