Headlines

Bratislava Airport reported that all its past due claims against Slovak low-cost airline SkyEurope Airlines, unpaid on June 22, have been submitted to the court supervising the airline’s restructuring process, The Slovak Spectator reported. On June 22, the Bratislava-based airline was granted protection from creditors, the SITA newswire wrote. Airport spokeswoman Dana Madunická informed SITA that SkyEurope has been settling its obligations within the regime of protection against creditors.

Earlier this year, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila C. Bair had a discreet visit from a Spanish banker, The Wall Street Journal reported. Francisco González, chairman and chief executive of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, the second-largest bank in Spain by stock-market value after Banco Santander SA, wanted to make sure the FDIC kept him in mind when selling assets the agency is getting from failed U.S. banks, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Icelandic politicians took a step on Saturday towards passing a controversial bill that will guarantee repayment of funds lost by British and Dutch savers in accounts of collapsed Landsbanki, a member of parliament said, Reuters reported. The parliament's budget committee agreed on a revised version of the so-called Icesave bill and is ready to put it before parliament for voting next week, said Thor Saari, who represents opposition party. the Civic Movement, in the committee.

Germany announced new rules on Friday to tighten banks' risk-management standards, increase the powers of supervisory boards over managers and outlaw risky and short-term-focused compensation plans, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new rules from banking regulator BaFin are the latest in a series of initiatives by European regulators and governments trying to put into practice the lessons learned from two years of turmoil in global financial markets that have resulted in bailouts across the continent costing hundreds of billions of dollars.

Investment firm Babcock & Brown Ltd may have continued to trade while insolvent, and directors may have acted negligently, a report by voluntary administrators Deloitte says, BusinessDay reported. Administrators David Lombe and Simon Cathro also raised concerns in their report over possible conflicts of interest between the boards of BBL and Babcock & Brown International Pty Ltd, the main operating and asset- owning entity within the BBL group. There may also have been inadequate disclosure in public offer documents.

All divisions of insolvent German tourism and retail group Arcandor are capable of remaining in business and do not have to be closed down, the company's insolvency administrator told a German paper. Insolvency administrator Klaus Hubert Goerg is in talks with eight interested parties for Arcandor's mail-order unit Primondo, he said, according to weekly paper Welt am Sonntag.

Investors in an aquaculture company whose abalone breeding programs were hit by mortality rates of up to 100 per cent have launched a bid to keep the venture going. A group of the growers has made a $250,000 deposit so they can assess the state of Australian Bight Abalone's finances and its failed crops. John Alford, one of the original investors in ABA, told The Australian: "The growers, as far as we're concerned, have put $45 million into this company, and it's their company….We look at it as a company with a pile of assets that has a cash-flow problem.

Volkswagen came out on top. After a protracted battle, the mass-market car maker will buy a 42% stake of Porsche's auto unit, issuing as many as €4 billion ($5.7 billion) of preferred shares to pay for it, The Wall Street Journal reported. A full Porsche takeover should be completed in 2011 -- not quite what the sports-car maker anticipated when it racked up €10 billion of debt trying to take control of VW, just as global sales plummeted. VW has the balance-sheet strength to absorb the purchase but needs to be cautious with its cash.

Opel labor leader Klaus Franz branded Volkswagen's renewed threat to pull business from Canadian auto parts supplier Magna if it acquires VW's closest German rival as "tantamount to blackmail," Reuters reported. Magna is in a close race with Belgian finance group RHJ to gain majority control of the German carmaker and has had to play catch-up recently as management at former Opel parent General Motors had already agreed with RHJ in principle over the sale of a 50.1 percent stake.

Three partners from top accounting firm KPMG involved in auditing collapsed property group Westpoint have agreed not practice for up to two years after investigations by the corporate watchdog found their work was inadequate, The Australian reported. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced today that the partners from the firm's Perth office had agreed to “enforceable undertakings”.