Headlines

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to list for an early hearing the appeal of US-based creditor Glas Trust Company LLC against a judgment of the NCLAT, which had stayed insolvency proceedings against ed-tech firm BYJU's and approving its Rs 158.9 crore dues settlement with the BCCI, the Economic Times of India reported. A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was urged by senior advocate NK Kaul, appearing for the ed-tech major, that the case needed to be heard at the earliest.

Germany hammered out a deal that offers a potential lifeline for struggling shipbuilder Meyer Werft GmbH, the privately-held company that recently won a follow-on contract to supply vessels for Disney Cruise Line’s fleet, Bloomberg News reported. The federal government will acquire a 40% stake in Meyer Werft along with “a stake of the same amount by the state of Lower Saxony,” according to Economy Ministry officials. The financing for the federal government amounts to around €200 million.

Another tidal energy company that hoped to harness the powerful tides of the Bay of Fundy to generate electricity has come up short, CBC.ca reported. A spokesperson for the province's Department of Natural Resources and Renewables confirmed on Wednesday that Occurrent Power, formerly Big Moon Power, has filed for insolvency. "It is very unfortunate and is a concern for our tidal industry, clean innovation and greening the grid," Patricia Jreige said in a statement. Occurrent CEO Jay McKenna and CFO Mike Festa did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The long slide in German factory output continued in July, increasing the risk that the eurozone’s largest economy is falling into a second straight quarter of contraction, the Wall Street Journal reported. German factories have been faltering since 2018, but suffered a fresh blow when energy costs surged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Despite some hopeful signs at the start of this year, they have yet to embark on a sustained recovery.

Egypt kept interest rates at a record high as it weighs the effects of a new round of subsidy cuts on inflation that’s been slowing for five straight months, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank maintained its deposit rate at 27.25% and the lending rate at 28.25%, its Monetary Policy Committee said Thursday in a statement. The decision was correctly predicted by six of nine economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The others, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., expected a cut of 100 basis points.

Canada’s economy added jobs for the first time in three months, but the unemployment rate surprisingly jumped to the highest level since the pandemic as the expanding pool of new workers are unable to find work, Bloomberg News reported. The country added 22,100 positions in August, and the jobless rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.6%. Outside the Covid-19 era, that’s the steepest rate since May 2017. The employment gains were driven by a net increase of 65,700 part-time positions. The number of full-time jobs fell 43,600.

Foreign business chambers have been warning for weeks that a proposed overhaul of Mexico’s judiciary, that would make judges stand for election, will hurt foreign businesses and endanger investment in Mexico, the Associated Press reported. And President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum has spent weeks trying to calm those fears, saying it’s simply a pro-democracy measure. But on Friday, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — who came up with the plan — confirmed that the sweeping changes are indeed aimed directly at foreign firms.

The U.K. payments industry is still fighting for changes to fraud-reimbursement rules with just a month to go before they’re enacted, even after a significant U-turn by regulators this week, Bloomberg News reported. In an 11th-hour push, the Payments Association wrote to City Minister Tulip Siddiq on Friday, calling for the maximum reimbursement for victims of authorized-push-payment fraud to be cut to £30,000 ($39,000) — a “more appropriate” amount that would still cover 95% of fraud cases, the group said.

South Africa's justice minister on Friday denied corruption allegations against her related to a mutual bank scandal in which thousands of retirees lost their life savings, the Associated Press reported. VBS Mutual Bank, which held the savings of retirees mostly from the northern Limpopo province and also unlawfully secured investments from local municipalities, was declared insolvent and bankrupt in 2018 after it emerged that more than 2 billion rand ($112 million) had been stolen from the bank.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. are laying the groundwork for a swap that will help Ecuador manage its debt financing costs in exchange for a pledge to protect part of the Amazon rainforest, Bloomberg News reported. The two investment banks are preparing a deal ahead of formally engaging with potential investors for the transaction, said the people who asked not to be identified discussing private talks. The Nature Conservancy, a non-governmental organization, will be an adviser on the deal.