Headlines

Fiat SpA, Italy’s biggest manufacturer, has “no reason” to cut autoworker jobs and capacity at its five domestic plants, the leader of the UIL labor union said, Bloomberg reported. Unions will oppose any “structural downsizing,” in Italy, where Fiat employs about 31,000 people, Luigi Angeletti, national secretary of the UIL union said in an interview today. Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne will present his offer for General Motors Corp.’s Opel unit today. GM has attracted three bids for Opel, according to Chris Preuss, a spokesman for GM Europe.

Until recently, Canadian pensioners have been shielded by the most protective legal regime on the continent, a Globe and Mail analysis found. Historically treated as sacrosanct trusts by the courts and no-go zones in corporate restructurings, Canadian pensions have mostly been impervious to the corporate stresses and courtroom manoeuvres that vaporized scores of U.S. retirement plans in broken industries such as the steel sector.

General Motors Corp. and the U.S. and German governments have the means to rescue the Opel division, making talks of a pre-packaged bankruptcy “senseless,” according to Opel board member Armin Schild, Bloomberg reported. An insolvency is “neither necessary nor sensible for Opel’s rescue,” Schild, an IG Metall union official who sits on Opel’s supervisory board, said in an interview today.

At least three bids were submitted to the German government Wednesday from suitors interested in acquiring or taking a stake in the ailing Adam Opel GmbH, a GM Europe spokesman said. Chris Preuss, a spokesman for the Zurich-based automaker which owns Opel, told The Associated Press that the bids had been received but did not identify who had filed them. So far, Italian automaker Fiat SpA has not been shy about courting Opel. Fiat wants to wrap GM Europe, including Opel, into a global car-making powerhouse along with Chrysler LLC.

Invest NI has demanded Nortel pay back £7.4m in grants the telecoms company received before it filed for administration earlier this year, the Belfast Telegraph reported. The economic development agency said the Canada-headquartered firm had breached a financial agreement signed in June 2006. Nortel put its UK operation into administration in January after its parent firm filed for US bankruptcy protection. In March the company axed 90 jobs at its Newtownabbey plant as part of 3,000 redundancies worldwide.

Property developer Kelly McEwan has been adjudicated bankrupt after the majority of his creditors rejected a proposal he put to them around payment of debts, The National Business Review reported. Associate Judge Anthony Christiansen adjudicated Kelly in the High Court at Auckland this morning following applications made by both FM Custodians and Hanover. Kelly had put a proposal to his creditors, who included the liquidators of several McEwan Group companies, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Cevdet Caner, the man at the center of Germany’s biggest real estate insolvency in 15 years, is fighting eviction from his 20 million pound ($31 million) London townhouse, complete with basement swimming pool, Bloomberg reported. His group of investment companies called Level One owes €1.5 billion ($2 billion) to creditors led by Credit Suisse Group AG, according to estimates by the German administrator. The two main holding companies defaulted and were placed under court administration in August, U.K.

Norway's non-oil economy sank into recession, reflecting sharply lower manufacturing output, Statistics Norway said Tuesday. Gross domestic product fell 1% in the first quarter compared with a downwardly revised contraction of 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008. Total GDP, which includes oil and gas and ocean shipping, contracted 0.4% in the first quarter, swinging from growth of 0.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The tug-of-war over the rights to Asarco LLC continues, with parent company Grupo Mexico SAB de CV protesting a bankruptcy court's apparent protection of Sterlite Industries Ltd.'s $1.7 billion bid to acquire the bankrupt copper mining unit, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. While Sterlite appears to have the edge, Grupo Mexico is not out of the running yet to regain control of the indirect subsidiary. Earlier this month, Judge Schmidt extended until Sept.

The German government Friday stepped up pressure in its efforts to help rescue Adam Opel AG, saying an orderly insolvency would be an option for General Motors Corp.'s (GM) German unit if none of the bids for the German carmaker are solid or if a considered trusteeship fails to get support, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The government announced Thursday a state-supported trusteeship to keep the German carmaker operating, should its parent company GM enter bankruptcy before Opel can be sold.