Headlines

Dabur India said on Wednesday its subsidiaries were among companies sued in the U.S. and Canada by customers alleging that the use of hair relaxer products had caused ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and other health issues, Reuters reported. "Currently, the cases are in the pleadings and early discovery phases of litigation," it said in an exchange filing, adding the allegations are based on "unsubstantiated and incomplete" study.

A Russian appeals court has imposed interim measures against Credit Suisse and ruled that funds totalling $20.9 million held by the Swiss bank in Russia may be seized, court filings published on Thursday showed, Reuters reported. Credit Suisse declined to comment. Kaluga-based Russian lender Gazenergobank won its appeal on Oct. 16 against an earlier decision by Moscow's arbitration court, which had opted not to grant interim measures, the filings showed.

Canada needs to promote greater competition among businesses by modernizing its laws, the country's antitrust regulator said on Thursday, citing a study of data from 2000 to 2020, Reuters reported. The study found that competitive intensity, a measure of how hard businesses feel they need to work to gain advantage over competitors, had fallen.

Congress is ramping up its scrutiny of the crypto world after reports that Hamas received funding from digital currencies, YahooFinance.com reported. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) applied some new pressure on Tuesday with a letter to the White House and Treasury asking for a "plan" to "prevent the use of crypto for the financing of terrorism." The letter was a response to reports that militants behind the attack on Israel received large amounts of crypto as financing.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Thursday told DBS Group Holdings' unit DBS Bank and Citibank Singapore to conduct a thorough investigation after they failed to recover their systems fully within a required timeframe during an unscheduled outage on Oct. 14, Reuters reported. The central bank said unscheduled downtime for a critical system that affects a bank's operations or service to customers must not exceed four hours within any 12-month period. On Saturday Oct. 14, DBS's and Citibank's online banking and payment services went offline from around 3 p.m.

Colombia’s central bank could put its credibility at risk if it rushed to cut interest rates prematurely, according to its newest board member, Bloomberg News reported. “There’s a big risk in easing early then having to reverse course,” co-director Olga Lucia Acosta said Tuesday, in her first interview since she was appointed by President Gustavo Petro last year. Brazil, Peru and Chile are all easing monetary policy as inflation cools across Latin America.

A judge has dismissed a winding up petition lodged by tax officials against a company linked to rugby union star Lawrence Dallaglio, YahooFinance.com reported. Judge Sally Barber considered the case at a hearing in the specialist Insolvency and Companies Court in London on Wednesday. Barrister Tom Cockburn, who represented HM Revenue & Customs, told the judge that Lawrence Dallaglio Limited had entered a voluntary liquidation. The former England forward, who was not at the hearing, is listed as a company director on a Companies House website.

A Country Garden $15 million coupon payment deadline has expired without word of payment, fuelling expectations that China's biggest private property developer has defaulted on its offshore debt as the nation's real estate woes deepen, Reuters reported. Non-payment would trigger cross defaults in other Country Garden bonds as is standard in bond contracts. The company has almost $11 billion of offshore bonds and a default would set the stage for one of China's biggest corporate debt restructurings.

China’s economy showed signs of emerging from a soft patch in the third quarter, as retail sales got a lift from government stimulus and factory activity stabilized after months of weakness, the Wall Street Journal reported. Growth came in at 4.9%, faster than expected by economists though still a decline on a year-on-year basis from the previous quarter. Growth accelerated on quarter-on-quarter terms, which strips out distortions caused by China’s unlocking from Covid lockdowns in 2022. The economy’s performance holds off for now broad fears about a more serious economic crunch.

Singapore’s financial regulator will conduct an on-site inspection of Credit Suisse Group AG after at least one of its customers was charged for money laundering in a scandal that has rocked the city-state, Bloomberg News reported. The local unit of Credit Suisse will be among banks the Monetary Authority of Singapore plans to examine to determine whether they properly handled the monitoring of wealthy clients. Officials from the regulator are set to interview personnel and review documents within weeks.