Headlines

British inflation unexpectedly rose to 10.4% in February, pushed up by higher food and drink prices in pubs and restaurants, according to official data which is likely to prompt the Bank of England to raise interest rates on Thursday, Reuters reported. The figures - including increases in underlying inflation measures that the BoE closely monitors - are likely to bolster the concerns of those BoE policymakers who worry that inflation will be slow to fall, even after 10 straight rate hikes.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sued Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing him and other defendants of illegally selling crypto securities and scheming to artificially inflate trading volume in crypto assets, Reuters reported. Beginning around August 2017, Sun and his companies Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Limited and Rainberry Inc engaged in a scheme to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), the SEC said.

A power struggle and a trail of unpaid oil sales led Venezuela’s ruling elite to purge one of their own inner circle this week as the government tries to recover billions in missing energy revenues, Bloomberg News reported. Energy Minister Tareck El Aissami’s resignation Monday comes after months of close oversight by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, the regime’s most powerful official after President Nicolas Maduro.

Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund have agreed on a $15.6 billion loan package aimed at shoring up government finances severely strained by Russia’s invasion and leveraging even more support by reassuring allies that Ukraine is pursuing strong economic policies and fighting corruption, the Associated Press reported.

Lebanon's central bank will begin selling unlimited amounts of U.S. dollars in a bid to halt the spiralling devaluation of the Lebanese pound, Governor Riad Salameh said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Salameh set a new rate for Sayrafa, the central bank's exchange platform, at 90,000 Lebanese pounds per dollar on Tuesday. He set the rate at 70,000 on March 1 but it has steadily crept up, trading at 83,500 on the platform on Monday. The Lebanese pound's parallel market rate weakened from roughly 121,000 to the U.S.

African countries saddled with debt and ravaged by losses and damages from weather events like cyclones, drought and extreme temperatures have agreed to consider swapping debt to invest in climate action in a meeting of finance ministers in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the Associated Press reported. The “debt-for-climate swap” option is an economic tool that allows a country’s debt to be reduced in exchange for commitments on green investments.

The Bank of Canada was concerned about inflation sticking above its 2% target and agreed there might be a need to tighten monetary policy further when officials decided to leave rates on hold this month, Reuters reported. On March 8, the bank became the first major central bank to pause its tightening campaign, leaving the key overnight interest rate on hold at 4.50%.

Privately held retailer Scotch & Soda, which is based in Amsterdam, has filed a bankruptcy request for its Dutch operations, newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) reported on Monday, citing a company statement, Reuters reported. Scotch & Soda and owner Sun Capital could not immediately be reached for comment. The newspaper said the company statement cited "serious cashflow problems" that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and have continued amid high inflation and a consumer spending squeeze.

Switzerland’s tab for shoring up its reputation as a financial center could run to 12,500 Swiss francs ($13,500) for every man, woman and child in the country, Bloomberg News reported. To backstop the emergency sale of Credit Suisse Group AG to its Zurich rival UBS Group AG, the Swiss government pledged to make as much as 109 billion francs available — a hefty burden for the country of 8.7 million people. On top of that, there’s a guarantee from the Swiss National Bank of 100 billion francs that isn’t backed by a government guarantee, according to the deal announced Sunday evening.

Some holders of Credit Suisse Group AG's so-called additional tier 1 (AT1) bonds have approached a law firm to assess whether they have a case against the Swiss authorities’ decision to wipe out their holdings as part of the UBS Group AG deal, Reuters reported. George Zelcs and Chris Burke, partners at Korein Tillery, a boutique law firm specializing in complex litigation, said fewer than a dozen non-U.S. bondholders had approached them to discuss options. The firm has not yet been hired.