Headlines

Disgraced gambling giant Crown used its history of egregious law-breaking to argue down the third-largest corporate fine in Australian history, ABC reported. Last week, the Federal Court ordered the gambling giant to pay $450 million for at least 546 breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws between 2016 and 2022, an action brought by financial crimes agency AUSTRAC. With the company now owned by a private-equity firm, it is probably the last time such details of Crown's finances will be made public under the current owners.

China's central bank is expected to leave key interest rates on hold on Thursday, but the pressure to ease is growing almost by the day, Reuters reported. Japanese trade, Australian unemployment and Hong Kong inflation data top the regional economic calendar on Thursday, and investors will be hoping the continuing corporate earnings-fueled gains on Wall Street will drive local risk appetite. The Dow Jones Industrials is now up eight days in a row for the first time since September 2019. It last posted a nine-day winning streak in September 2017. Sentiment was again positive during the U.S.

New Zealand's Bed Bath & Beyond is fighting on two fronts to protect its brand. Now, the High Court has knocked it back, Newsroom reported. This country’s most familiar green-and-white High St.

Public services are in crisis. The NHS is on its knees. The water industry – which is now largely privatised – has failed to invest in infrastructure, and as a result sewage pollution is damaging the environment at an unprecedented rate, the New Statesman reported. Thousands of pupils have been taken out of outdated and unsafe school buildings and are being educated remotely or in temporary classrooms.

Under Belgian law, criminal and civil judges can impose a prohibition on both individuals and corporate entities to prevent them from performing certain management functions in a company (management prohibition) upon conviction or in the context of insolvency, Linklaters reported. In practice, however, these management prohibitions often remain a dead letter, as persons who are prohibited from taking up a directorship are still appointed directors due to a lack of monitoring of compliance with these prohibitions.

The Iranian government has decided to merge 18 retirement funds in response to a budget deficit of 3,000 trillion rials (approximately $6 billion) and its increasing debt to these funds, Iran Focus reported. Retirement funds in Iran are called “time bombs,” not because they are all considered bankrupt, but because they can lead to the destruction of both the economy and the Iranian society, along with bankruptcy.

Australia's corporate insolvency laws are facing extensive reforms in the near future, Mondaq reported. On 12 July 2023, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (Committee) tabled its highly anticipated report into Corporate Insolvency in Australia (Report). In December 1988, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) published its General Insolvency Inquiry (ALRC Report 45), more commonly referred to as the Harmer Report, following a five-year review of Australia’s corporate and personal insolvency laws.

Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras said on Wednesday it will analyze all offers presented for Braskem but believes that discussions on a potential sale of the petrochemical producer are still far from over, Reuters reported. Petrobras is one of Braskem’s main shareholders alongside conglomerate Novonor, which holds a controlling stake in the firm but has long looked to sell it to repay creditors after entering bankruptcy protection. Three offers so far have been presented for control of Braskem: a joint bid from Abu Dhabi's ADNOC and U.S.

Australia's securities regulator said on Wednesday it had canceled the license of the local arm of collapsed U.S. cryptocurrency exchange FTX, effective from July 14, Reuters reported. Bahamas-headquartered FTX, once a star of the crypto industry with a $32 billion valuation in January 2023, filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection last November, saying it was unable to completely repay customers who had deposited funds on its exchange. The industry has since been reeling amid the scrutiny of global regulators, while FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces a criminal lawsuit by the U.S.

Australia's central bank decided to keep interest rates steady this month as policy was clearly restrictive and there was a risk a squeeze on household finances could lead to a sharp downturn and higher unemployment, Reuters reported. However, the bank retained a warning that some tightening may still be required to bring inflation to heel, wary that the wider effects on inflation from higher rents, weak productivity and higher electricity prices had not been fully captured.