Headlines

Sterlite Industries Ltd said on Monday that it would release Grupo Mexico SAB de CV from a potential legal liability of nearly $8 billion if the Indian miner can win control of bankrupt U.S. copper miner Asarco LLC, Reuters reported. In a court document filed on Monday, Sterlite said that if a federal court approves its plan to acquire Asarco over rival bidder Grupo Mexico's offer, it would not hold Grupo Mexico liable for more than about $900 million of liability related to the 2003 transfer of a Peruvian mine.

Nortel Networks Corp. said Monday that it intends to auction off some of the company's carrier networks business assets in bankruptcy court, The Associated Press reported. Nortel said the auction will be for its next-generation packet core network components, which include software that helps transfer data over wireless networks, related non-patent intellectual property and equipment. Nortel also anticipates granting the buyer a non-exclusive license of relevant patent intellectual property.

German airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG plans to cut around 15% of its administrative staff by the year 2012, a spokesman confirmed Monday, Dow Jones reported. The spokesman declined to specify the number of jobs to be cut, but said personnel costs will be reduced by around 5% annually to 2012. He was confirming a report in Monday's edition of the daily Handelsblatt newspaper. The newspaper added that the reductions are expected to be carried out through attrition, rather than forced layoffs.

Debt management companies that negotiate with lenders on behalf of borrowers in exchange for a fee could become regulated by the government, which launched a consultation on the issue, The Guardian reported. The companies set up debt management plans designed to reduce monthly repayments for borrowers, but these can be expensive over the long-term after fees are added to the repayments. Debt advice charities have long expressed concern about some companies operating within the burgeoning debt management sector.

Filing for personal bankruptcy is going to cost some Canadians a lot more - and take much longer - at a time when consumers are going broke in increasing numbers and unemployment is expected to keep rising, The Globe and Mail reported. The last of a raft of changes to Canada's federal bankruptcy laws, which were quietly pushed through by the Conservative government in August, kicked in Friday.

Bankruptcy petitions in Hong Kong rose by 33 percent in August from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, as companies continued to grapple with weak business conditions, Reuters reported. However, petitions fell from the previous month for a third straight month. Bankruptcy petitions totalled 1,099 in August month, up from 824 a year earlier but down 25 percent from 1,475 petitions in July, although monthly figures are not seasonally adjusted. The annual pace of increase was slightly slower than in July when petitions rose 36 percent from a year earlier.

Korean personal bankruptcy filings have increased significantly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The number of filings was 12,317 in 2004, but that rose to 118,643 in 2008, with 74,942 from January to August this year, The Chosun Ilbo reported. The rise was due largely to the credit delinquents, whose number soared since the credit card crisis in 2003. But there is also speculation that some lawyers as well as legal agents who can represent clients in some transactions are encouraging people with debts to file for bankruptcy as a way of boosting their fees.

The president of a leading European business group has condemned Germany's plan to sweeten the sale of Opel, General Motors' European arm, to a Canadian-led consortium with an offer of billions of euros in subsidies, the Financial Times reported. "We would have been much better off if we had had a structured insolvency. That would have left Opel in Europe in a much stronger position," said Jürgen Thumann, head of BusinessEurope, a pan-European employers' federation.

Switzerland is getting tougher on its banks, pleasing those who call for stricter oversight of the sector but also angering many who fear that new regulations could hamper business, The Australian reported. In an indication that the country's traditionally hands-off approach toward its corporate stars is changing, the Swiss bourse has launched its first investigation into UBS on allegations of breaches in disclosure rules.

Iceland's finance minister said British and Dutch objections to proposals for repaying debts of more than $5 billion were only an initial response and all three countries wanted to resolve the issue quickly, according to media reports on Saturday. Iceland owes the two countries the money after they reimbursed savers who had lost money in Icelandic bank accounts during its financial meltdown last year. After an initial agreement to repay the funds, Iceland's parliament attached amendments stipulating limits on the amount that can be repaid and setting a June 2024 expiry date for the agreement.