Headlines

More people and businesses in Nova Scotia filed for insolvency over the last year than in any other 12-month period since 2020, another signal of growing financial stress after bankruptcies steeply declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, CBC News reported. The figures come as tens of thousands of businesses across the country, including many in Nova Scotia, face a Thursday deadline to pay back the bulk of their pandemic-era Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loans.

The Irish High Court has appointed joint provisional liquidators to a firm that issues prepaid cards allowing customers to buy goods and services throughout the European Union, the Irish Independent reported. On Wednesday, Mr Justice Mark Sanfey appointed insolvency practitioners Kieran Wallace and Andrew O'Leary of Interpath Advisory Ireland as provisional liquidators to PFS Card Services Ireland Ltd, which is owned by the Australian financial technology group EML.

Vietnam’s Shipbuilding Industry Corp., which is set to declare bankruptcy in the first quarter, missed out on a recent recovery in ship orders, with only seven currently in its order book, a yard manager says, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company, also known as SBIC, couldn’t compete with bigger rivals in China and South Korea, the manager adds. The shipbuilder’s bankruptcy is inevitable, Minister of Transport Nguyen Xuan Sang said in a meeting with employees.

Romania’s state-controlled supplier of services in the air defence industry, Romaero, entered insolvency at its request after a court ruled in December that it should pay EUR 17 million in compensations for failure to upgrade a Boeing 737-200 to one of its customers. At stake are Romaero’s plots of land located in the northern outskirts of Bucharest, Romania-Insider.com. Last summer, the company missed the chance to become a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) centre for Black Hawk helicopters produced by the American military giant Lockheed Martin, Profit.ro reported.

Workers in Europe are hoping this year's pay round will help restore incomes eroded by higher prices, but the expected boost to their purchasing power could hamper the European Central Bank's efforts to bring inflation back to target, Reuters reported. The ECB has singled out wages as the single biggest risk to its 1-1/2 year crusade against inflation. It expects salary growth across the euro zone of 4.6% this year, far more than the 3% pace it considers consistent with inflation at its 2% target.

New Zealand houses are selling faster as signs that interest rates may have peaked encourage more buyers to enter the market, Bloomberg News reported. The median time to sell a house in December was 36 days, Real Estate Institute of New Zealand data showed Thursday in Wellington. That’s the lowest since March 2022 and down from a peak of 60 days in February last year. House prices in New Zealand are recovering after a prolonged slump that coincided with a steep rise in mortgage interest rates.

Commercial ship transits through the Suez Canal dropped to the lowest level since the Ever Given blocked the waterway nearly three years ago, highlighting the extent to which attacks on vessels near the Red Sea are redirecting global trade to a longer, costlier route, Bloomberg News reported. According to a data platform maintained by the International Monetary Fund and Oxford University, the seven-day moving average of daily Suez crossings by bulk cargo ships, container carriers and tankers fell to 49 as of Sunday.

Countries whose sovereign bonds were purchased by Russia would not be considered in default if Western governments decide to confiscate frozen Russian reserves worth $300 billion, credit rating agencies Moody's and S&P Global said, Reuters reported. U.S. and British officials are pushing to seize Moscow's assets immobilised in Belgium and other European countries. They are looking to secure wider Group of Seven (G7) backing for the move at talks next month close to the second anniversary of the launch of Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s hometown is among a fresh wave of UK town halls seeking government approval for emergency financial support in a last-ditch bid to avoid bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. Southampton City Council applied to the government for “exceptional financial support” last week, a move that could buy it more time to avert the bankruptcies that caused crises at Birmingham, Nottingham and Woking. It is seeking a capitalization direction that allows councils to fund day-to-day spending from their capital resources, including borrowing and asset sales.

A South Korean bankruptcy court judge has called on the government to bolster regulation in the crypto industry, claiming investors need more protection, CryptoNews.com reported. Per Newsis, the claims were made by Judge Lee Seok-jun, of the Seoul Bankruptcy Court. Lee wrote a paper on “regulations intended to protect virtual asset investors.” The paper was published in the most recent issue of the Court of Korea’s academic journal Sabeub. A slew of crypto-related legal changes come into force in July this year when the Virtual Asset User Protection Act becomes law.