Headlines

DSB Bank NV's Chief Executive Dirk Scheringa on Monday called for a parliamentary investigation into the role played in its collapse by the Dutch finance ministry and Dutch central bank, Dow Jones reported. Scheringa said he may appeal the Amsterdam court's decision to declare DSB Bank bankrupt following a run on deposits. He claimed that the finance ministry and central bank disregarded a new business model DSB Bank wanted to launch, funded by a one-time government loan of €100 million.

Legal fees on the administration of Lehman Brothers in Europe have hit $112 million (£68.4 million) in the year since the bank's collapse, Legal Week reported. The figure is contained within a progress report from administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which covers all payments relating to the bank's collapse for the year ending 14 September. The report also shows that the fallen bank's administrators earned $238 million (£145 million ) in fees over the year, and that average hourly rates for advisers have fallen from £329 to £309.

Japan's top financial-services regulator is preparing to further shake up banking standards, continuing efforts that already have roiled markets and put big business on tenterhooks only a month into his new job, The Wall Street Journal reported. Shizuka Kamei, Japan's Financial Services Minister, vowed in an interview on Monday to ease capital rules for lenders to small businesses and to put pressure on big companies that set tough terms with smaller suppliers.

Britain’s financial regulator proposed a set of reforms on Monday that would tighten criteria for lenders to make home loans and would require the banks to assess whether a consumer would be able to repay a loan, The New York Times reported. The proposals by the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, also include a ban on mortgages that do not require verification of a borrower’s income.

An insolvency specialist today warned of a "deluge" of business failures next year, saying the UK is in the mid-point of a W-shaped recession, The Guardian reported. The warning came even though the number of companies failing has dropped in the last three months. Begbies Traynor, the business rescue and restructuring firm, said 134,000 businesses still showed "material signs of distress".

UK mortgage default rates are forecast to peak in 12 to 18 months but are unlikely to reach the level expected for the United States, according to a survey of participants in the mortgage securities market, Reuters reported. At the riskier end of the UK market, the worst is expected to come later. Non-conforming mortgage defaults are forecast to peak at 11.9 percent within 12 to 18 months for residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) issued in 2007.

The German government said Monday it is hopeful of overcoming European Union worries about General Motors Co.'s deal to sell its Opel subsidiary to a Canadian-Russian consortium, and argued that there was no need to review the bidding process, The Associated Press reported. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes last week voiced concern over Germany's plans to provide €4.5 billion ($6.7 billion) to support the takeover of Opel by Canadian auto parts maker Magna International Inc. and Russian lender Sberbank.

The CEO of Fraser Papers Inc. says the company's best bet to move forward as a money-making entity is a restructuring that would involve the creation of a separate company to oversee the firm's specialty paper business in Edmundston and in Madawaska, Maine, the New Brunswick Business Journal reported on a Telegraph-Journal story. In an affidavit filed Monday in an Ontario court, Peter Gordon says the company faces many challenges in its quest to emerge from creditor protection.

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court long have been Anglophiles, routinely turning to antique English cases to help decide issues from gun rights to terrorism, The Wall Street Journal reported. Now, the Mother Country is following the lead of its offspring. This month, the U.K. replaced its Law Lords -- a committee of noblemen that served as the highest tribunal for much of Britain -- with the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. It isn't just the name that echoes the top American court.

Iceland said on Sunday it had agreed to a new deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands billions of dollars of deposits lost when the island's banks collapsed in 2008, paving the way for new aid from international lenders, Reuters reported. Iceland passed a law in August to repay money lost in high-interest "Icesave" accounts, but Britain and the Netherlands balked at the terms, holding up aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other lenders for the island's stricken economy.