Headlines

The Karmsund shipyard in western Norway has filed for bankruptcy, its owner Karmsund Maritime AS said on Tuesday. The unlisted group said its Karmsund Maritime Services AS (KMS) unit, which ran the yard and had 2007 turnover of 800 million Norwegian crowns ($113.6 million) and 130 employees, had been unable to secure financing. "The firm has experienced cost overruns and as a consequence of the financial crisis has been unable to get financing for further operations," Karmsund Maritime said in a statement. The parent company also owns 14 other companies, which it said continued to operate.

Law firms across the United States may be dismissing partners and staff, cutting bonuses and freezing salaries, but every cloud has a silver lining: experienced bankruptcy and restructuring lawyers are hotter than ever as the number of corporate failures surges, and the fees being charged are setting records for the United States, The Times reported.

A bankruptcy judge on Monday granted emergency relief to Redcorp Ventures Ltd. to protect the Canadian mining company's U.S. assets as the court considers whether to approve the company's petition for Chapter 15 protection, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. Judge Karen A. Overstreet of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington issued an emergency order that grants an automatic stay of proceedings against the Vancouver-based Redcorp and its wholly owned subsidiary Redfern Resources Ltd, which filed for Chapter 15 protection Thursday.

Banco Popolare became the first Italian bank to take up the government's offer of support for its lenders on Tuesday, with newspapers saying it could use the funds to help delist its Italease unit, Reuters reported. Italy's sixth-biggest bank said it had asked the Economy Ministry and the Bank of Italy for permission to issue €1.45 billion ($1.83 billion) of securities under a government-sponsored bond-purchasing scheme. Other leading lenders, including the country's two biggest banks--UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo--have said they would evaluate the programme.

The financial crisis claimed the last of Iceland's major banks Monday, as Straumur-Burdaras Investment Bank hf was taken over by Iceland's Financial Supervisory Authority and immediately shut down. Iceland fell into financial and economic chaos when the country's top three banks all collapsed in a matter of days early October as the global financial crisis swelled. Straumur, which owns U.K. stockbroker Teathers and was the fourth-biggest financial services company in Iceland when the crisis hit, had so far been able to stay afloat, until Monday.

When the leaders of 20 nations met in Washington in November to face down a grave economic crisis that imperiled them all, the air was filled with promises of a new era of global regulation intended to match a new era of global risk. Nearly five months later, those risks look greater than ever.

Struggling U.S. carmaker General Motors denied a weekend newspaper report its German unit Opel was preparing for insolvency. "This scenario is currently not on the agenda," a GM Europe spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. German newspaper Die Welt had reported on Saturday, citing no sources, that GM and Opel seemed to be preparing for an insolvency at Opel, having hired three law firms with renowned insolvency experts.

Latvia faces bankruptcy in three months if it fails to deliver budget cuts required by the International Monetary Fund and the next installment of its bailout is delayed, Premier-designate Valdis Dombrovskis said. Latvia, in the grip of the severest crisis since independence in 1991, was granted a €7.5 billion ($9.5 billion) bailout last quarter after the economy shrank 10.5 percent and the state seized its second biggest bank. The government fell on Feb. 20 after agreeing to budget cuts needed to keep the deficit below 5 percent of gross domestic product.

Nairobi sweets manufacturer Swan Industries has been placed under receivership by Investment and Mortgage Bank (I&M Bank) in a move that threatens to render more than 100 people jobless, Business Daily reported. The Kisumu-based company has been unable to pay a loan, which the bank refused to disclose on confidentiality grounds, on reduced sales in western Kenya and cutthroat competition from low-cost producers based in Nairobi. The bank appointed Mr Vipul Shah and Mr Dipesh Shah of Nairobi-based VSC Consultants as joint receiver managers.

The Canadian Auto Workers said it reached a tentative agreement with General Motors Corp. as part of the automaker’s restructuring, Bloomberg reported. The union said it will provide details in a press conference at noon local time in Toronto. General Motors, surviving on $13.4 billion in U.S. aid, was working with the union on ways to find savings by month’s end as governments in the U.S. and Canada study aid plans. General Motors and Chrysler LLC have been given until March 31 to present viability plans to the U.S.