Headlines

The European Commission has reprimanded Austria and Romania for breaking European Union limits on government spending — as Austria deals with the financial fall-out of months of political deadlock and Romania's long-running fiscal problems drag on, Politico reported. Under EU fiscal rules, a country's deficit — the difference between a government’s revenues and expenditures — cannot exceed 3 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Both countries went through a long period of political crisis this year. But their situations are very different.

Thames Water suffered a major setback in its fight to avoid nationalisation on Tuesday as it said U.S. private equity firm KKR had pulled out of a multi-billion pound rescue plan, Reuters reported. Britain's biggest water supplier has been pushed to the edge by its 18 billion pound ($24.35 billion) debt pile, and was banking on KKR investing about 4 billion pounds in new equity to effectively buy the company. The government has said that it is on standby in case Thames Water fails to recapitalise and needs to be temporarily nationalised in order to keep services running.

Helaba and other German lenders have paid millions of euros in recent weeks to settle claims by the administrator of former real estate tycoon René Benko’s Signa Prime Selection AG, the Luxembourg Times reported. Helaba paid €26 million at the end of May as part of an out-of court settlement, Signa Prime’s insolvency administrator said in a report to creditors dated Monday. Other payments include €3 million received from Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG and €2.1 million from Bayerische Landesbank.

The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has admitted Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. under the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) and has appointed Tehseen Fatima Khatri as the interim resolution professional (IRP), the Economic Times of India reported. The development followed an application filed by IDBI Trusteeship Services Ltd on behalf of the operational creditors. The trustee company had approached the tribunal after the company defaulted on its dues of more than Rs 88 crore.

The Trump administration wants countries to provide their best offer on trade negotiations by Wednesday as officials seek to accelerate talks with multiple partners ahead of a self-imposed deadline in just five weeks, according to a draft letter to negotiating partners seen by Reuters.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said the country's economy can withstand the hit from U.S. tariffs and sustain a cycle of rising inflation accompanied by wage growth, signalling the bank's readiness to raise interest rates further, Reuters reported. Uncertainty over U.S. trade policy and the range of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration could hurt Japan's exports, prod firms to delay capital expenditure plans, and discourage them from raising wages, Ueda said on Tuesday. While an agreement between the U.S.

An escalation of the US trade war would pose a “substantial risk” of losses for Danish banks, which are heavily exposed to export-driven industries, the Nordic country’s central bank warned, Bloomberg News reported. Danish lenders are particularly vulnerable to further trade tensions through their exposure to manufacturing firms as a large share of industrial exports goes to the US either directly or indirectly, Nationalbanken said in a financial stability report released Tuesday.

Euro zone inflation eased below the European Central Bank's target last month on surprisingly benign services costs, underpinning expectations for further policy easing even as global trade tensions fuel longer-term price pressures, Reuters reported. Consumer price inflation in the 20 countries sharing the euro slowed to 1.9% in May from 2.2% a month earlier, below expectations for 2.0% on a fall in energy prices and a sharp decline in services inflation.

Ukraine has incurred a sovereign credit default after electing not to make payments owed Monday to holders of $2.6 billion of its debt securities, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported.