Headlines

For insolvent DRAM manufacturer Qimonda, the clock is ticking, EE Times reported. While the insolvency administrator reports first contacts with potential suitors, the time line is tight. "It is definitive: If we don't have an investor by end of March, the company will face breaking up", a spokesperson of insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé explained. Currently, the production as well as all other activities of the company including R&D continue to work. Wages and other running expenses are covered by insolvency protection--but only until end of March.

NovaScotian Crystal Ltd. of Halifax is feeling the chill of the global economic slowdown. The Halifax waterfront glassworks has filed a notice with the bankruptcy court to make a proposal to creditors, who are owed $1.5 million, The Chronicle Herald reported. Principal owner Rod McCulloch said the company was enjoying growth in the 14 percent range through July and August before hitting a wall in September, adding that corporate sales of the high-end, hand-blown, hand-cut glassware disappeared in the months leading up to Christmas.

The threat of bankruptcy hangs over national JSC Naftogaz Ukrainy, as justifiable prices of gas for households and companies had not yet been set, according to first deputy head of the presidential secretariat Oleksandr Shlapak, the Kyiv Post reported. Shlapak said the Ukrainian cabinet on Wednesday transferred the functions of setting the ceiling prices of gas for industrial companies to the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), and the prices of gas for households and heat power supply companies have not been revised.

Fortis Holding, the Belgian government and BNP Paribas have reached a new agreement on the sale of most of Fortis's Belgian assets to the French bank, the Belgian government said Friday. BNP Paribas is now offering to buy 10% of Fortis's Belgian insurance business for €550 million ($713 million), while the remaining 90% will be held by Fortis Holding. Under the original deal, BNP Paribas agreed to pay €5.5 billion in cash for the entire Belgian insurance division, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government's statement said the Fortis board of directors approved the measures.

MacAir's sudden move into receivership has meant thousands of its passengers are now left stranded, Flightglobal reported. All of Friday’s flights were suspended, according to an anonymous MacAir official. MacAir late yesterday appointed Jonathan McLeod as administrator. He is principal of Brisbane-based corporate restructuring and insolvency firm McLeod & Partners. One of the airline's largest creditors, Australian banking giant Suncorp-Metway, also earlier today appointed Justin Walsh as receiver and manager. He is from the Brisbane office of accounting firm Ernst & Young.

Linklaters LLP, one of the world's top law firms specializing in mergers and acquisitions, will cut up to 270 jobs in Britain because of the global financial turmoil, the company said Thursday. The company said it expected to cut 100 to 120 lawyers and 130 to 150 support staff following a 90-day consultation period, The International Herald Tribune reported. That represents nearly 12 percent of the firm's staff of 2,320 in Britain. "There have been significant changes in the financial markets and the wider economy.

A day after Chinese and Russian leaders blamed a free-wheeling U.S. financial system as the source of the global economic crisis, Europeans at Davos are taking comfort in what they see as their kinder, gentler version of capitalism, The Wall Street Journal reported. For years, Europe's more-regulated model of capitalism has been maligned by many economists as a study in second-rate market economics. Now, as world leaders seek a way out of the crisis--and aim to avoid repeating it--U.S.-style capitalism is under siege and the European model is getting another look.

Personal bankruptcies among Canadians rose 9% in the first 11 months of 2008 over 2007, Equifax Canada has reported. The information solutions company’s most recent data, as of Nov. 30, shows that the number of consumer bankruptcy filings for 2008 had reached 109,068, up from 100,253 bankruptcies at the end of November 2007, Investment Executive reported. By the end of November, total consumer bankruptcies had already surpassed, by 1.6%, the total amount of bankruptcies for all of 2007, which totalled 107,312.

A creditor of Spain's Nozar has asked a judge to put the privately held property company into administration, court documents showed on Tuesday, a move that would lead to Spain's second biggest corporate default, Reuters reported. Last year creditor Avalatransa twice asked the courts to put Nozar into administration over unpaid debts, which in total exceed 4 billion euros, but both attempts were unsuccessful. Nozar, owned by the Nozaleda family, has five days to respond to Avalatransa's filing.

Qwest Communications International Inc. and three former executives have been slapped with a complaint by two bankruptcy trustees for Qwest's Dutch joint venture KPNQwest NV who allege that the defendants' fraud and mismanagement drove KPNQwest into ruin, Bankruptcy Law360 reported. The complaint includes two counts: one alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and another for “mismanagement and breach of duty” under Dutch law. The trustees said that since 1999, Qwest has engaged in a pattern of fraudulent activity in the U.S.