Headlines

Nine years after its first request for court protection, Oi has been declared bankrupt by a Rio de Janeiro court. In her ruling, Judge Simone Gastesi Chevrand, of the 7th Business Court of Rio de Janeiro— where the company’s restructuring case is being handled—ordered the suspension of all lawsuits and enforcement actions against the telecom carrier, as well as a ban on any sale or encumbrance of the bankrupt entity’s assets, ValorInternational.globo.com reported. The market reacted swiftly to the decision, sending the company’s shares tumbling.

According to the UK’s insolvency and restructuring trade body R3, 4,709 new businesses were launched in Yorkshire and the Humber during October, representing a 5.6 per cent decrease on September’s total of 4,989, the Yorkshire Post reported. The fall in new businesses, based on an analysis of data from Creditsafe, was among the steepest in the UK and highlights a wider trend of decreasing business start-up activity across every UK region, according to R3.

Bramble Energy, a UK-based manufacturer of electrolysers and fuel cells based on printed circuit board (PCB) technology, has filed a notice of intent to appoint an insolvency administrator, according to one of its largest investors. Hydrogen Capital Growth, which holds a 12.5% stake in Bramble, said in a statement that the UK manufacturer had been seeking new financing from third-party investors but it had “recently become tapparents” that the fundraising had been unsuccessful. Without this funding, “the company is unable to operate viably,” HydrogenInsight.com reported.

The German company IDAGIO, which runs a specialist classical music streaming service, has completed its insolvency proceedings in self-administration, theViolinChannel.com reported. The whole process took about four months, and the creditors have unanimously agreed to the insolvency plan proposed by the company. The proceedings will soon be approved by the Charlottenberg District Court. The new shareholders are the Berlin-based music entrepreneur Ki Soo Lee and Jim Chang from Singapore.

Weak domestic demand rather than U.S. tariffs is the main reason China is dumping surplus product on European markets at rock-bottom prices at the expense of domestic producers, a European Central Bank study argued on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Pressure has been growing on the European Union to act on surging imports from China as U.S. tariffs force Beijing to find new markets for products it now struggles to sell. "Escalating trade tensions between the United States and China might result in a further diversion of Chinese exports to Europe," the ECB argued in an Economic Bulletin article.

Trade unions in Ireland and Brussels have welcomed a decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to reject a challenge by Denmark to the validity of the EU directive on the Adequate Minimum Wage, the Irish Times reported. In its decision on Tuesday, the Court found that the EU had exceeded its powers in two specific areas of the directive but upheld the validity of a majority of its provisions. Denmark, with the support of Sweden, had challenged the validity of the entire directive, claiming that the EU was not permitted to legislate on wages.

Switzerland is close to securing a 15% tariff on its exports to the US, in what would be a relief for the country after it was hit with a punishing 39% levy in August, Bloomberg News reported. A deal may be concluded within the next two weeks, said the people, who declined to be identified discussing ongoing negotiations. They also warned that nothing is finalized and the talks could still come undone, as happened during discussions between US and Swiss trade negotiators in late July.

Germany’s economic sentiment remained broadly unchanged in November, as financial experts continued to express cautious optimism about the country's medium-term outlook. However, persistent doubts over economic policy effectiveness and sector-specific weakness tempered enthusiasm, EuroNews.com reported. The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment dipped slightly to 38.5 points in November from 39.3 in October, suggesting that optimism among experts is plateauing. The assessment of current conditions rose marginally by 1.3 points to minus 78.7, reflecting little improvement in the real economy.

Two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korea's Lee Jae Myung met and announced they had resolved months of negotiations over tariffs and security issues, the two sides have yet to release any agreement on paper, Reuters reported. South Korean officials say the delay appears to centre on discussions over their request for Washington's blessing to build a nuclear-powered submarine, which Lee raised publicly when he met Trump on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific forum in South Korea last month.

Two Ukrainian oligarchs have been told to pay $3bn (£2.3bn) in damages to the country’s largest bank following an eight-year fraud battle at London’s High Court, the Telegraph reported. On Monday, Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov were ordered to repay the funds to state-owned lender PrivatBank after a judge ruled they took part in a “fraud of Byzantine complexity”. The case saw the two former billionaires extract $1.8bn from PrivatBank through a series of fraudulent loans between 2013 and 2014 while they controlled the lender as the bank’s two largest shareholders.