Headlines

Ford Motor Co.'s Canadian division and the Canadian Auto Workers union began labor talks on Tuesday after the union made substantial concessions to both General Motors and Chrysler earlier this year, The Associated Press reported. Ford asked the CAW to reopen its current labor contract, which doesn't expire until 2011. The GM and Chrysler concessions were part of a restructuring process that saw both automakers file for U.S. bankruptcy protection and receive billions of dollars from governments in both Canada and the United States.

General Motors Co. Chief Executive Frederick "Fritz" Henderson won't make a specific recommendation on what to do with the company's Opel unit when he meets with GM directors Wednesday, people familiar with the matter said, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new board, conducting only its second formal meeting since it was formed after GM's July release from bankruptcy protection, could ultimately decide to postpone a decision on the German operations until later in September, these people said.

GM has been vacillating over whether to dispose of the unit to Magna, a Canadian car company, RHJ, a Belgian private equity group, or complete a restructuring itself. European unions leaders fear that job cuts could be more drastic in the event of a restructuring or bankruptcy, The Telegraph reported. The car maker is expected to announce plans for the division after a board meeting on Wednesday afternoon, having come under pressure from the German government to decide the fate of 25,000 Opel and 5,000 Vauxhall workers.

Lebanon's mainly Shia Muslim movement Hezbollah has denied any role in the bankruptcy of a prominent businessman from the same sect, Salah Ezzeddine, the BBC reported. No senior member of Hezbollah had taken money that allegedly disappeared during the collapse of the Ezzeddine business empire, said leader Hassan Nasrallah. Mr Ezzeddine was personally close to a number of Hezbollah figures and managed the savings of many other Shia Muslims. Mr Nasrallah did not comment on allegations that senior Hezbollah figures had themselves been among victims of an alleged Ponzi scheme.

Japanese corporate bankruptcies fell for the first time in three months in August as companies found it easier to borrow and government spending fueled demand, Bloomberg reported. Business failures declined 1 percent from a year earlier to 1,241 cases, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said in Tokyo today. Efforts by the Bank of Japan and the government to encourage lending helped businesses stay afloat in the wake of the country’s deepest postwar recession. Companies have also benefited from more than $2 trillion in worldwide government stimulus that encouraged consumers to buy cars and electronics.

Three companies connected with Christchurch developer David Henderson have been put into liquidation at the High Court in Christchurch, The National Business Review reported. Associate Judge Rob Osbourne has granted applications to liquidate Montecristo Construction Ltd, Te Anau Ventures Ltd and Tomanovich Holdings over debts amounting to about $900,000 (excluding costs) owed to March Construction Ltd.

Receivers will examine the legality of redundancy payments made to directors of a stricken car component company while it sought a taxpayer bailout and cuts to workers' wages, The Australian reported. Launceston-based ACL Bearings went into receivership late last month after a $7 million federal government bail-out announced on June 28 failed to turn it around. Receiver managers Grant Thornton yesterday confirmed two directors were paid a combined $665,000 in redundancy payments between July last year and the end of June.

After 293 years, St. David’s, one of Britain’s oldest independent schools for girls, closed down in July after it ran out of money, The New York Times reported. St. David’s is among an increasing number of private schools here that have been forced to close or merge as a result of the recession. The Independent Schools Council’s most recent figures showed that 6 of Britain’s more than 2,000 private schools closed in the year from January 2008 to January 2009, and the number of students attending them, about 670,000, fell for the first time since 1994.

France will not impose unilaterally an overall ceiling on bankers’ bonuses after it narrowed differences with other countries over pay at a meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers, the Financial Times reported. French officials insisted that in spite of Nicolas Sarkozy’s outrage at what he called the “scandal” of bonuses, Paris would not impose its own cap. The president, who has played to public outrage over rewards to executives in an industry blamed for the economic crisis, had called for the G20 summit in Pittsburgh this month to find ways to cap bonuses.

The Group of 20’s plan for global rules to rein in bankers’ pay may cost lenders top performers and limit the freedom of companies to set employee rewards, according to the British and German banking associations, Bloomberg reported. “We are concerned that any suggestion of caps on individual pay deals could pose a real risk of chasing talent from one financial center to another,” said Angela Knight, chief executive officer of the British Bankers Association, in an e-mailed statement.