Headlines

Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun's lawyers accused prosecutors of botching Germany's biggest post-war fraud trial at the start of his defence on Monday and alleged that their key witness was in fact the main perpetrator, Reuters reported. Braun, 53, and two other ex-Wirecard managers Oliver Bellenhaus and Stephan von Erffa are on trial on charges including market manipulation and fraud at the defunct payments company and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The billionaire co-founder of Guangzhou R&F Properties Co Ltd is wanted in the United States accused of paying kickbacks to obtain permits for a construction project in San Francisco, a court in London heard on Monday, Reuters reported. Zhang Li, the chief executive of Hong Kong-listed developer R&F, is wanted on a provisional warrant issued in the Northern District of California, which accuses him of participating in a scheme to bribe public officials between 2015 and 2020. Ben Lloyd, representing U.S.

Russian commercial bank Uralsib said on Monday it had completed the acquisition of a portfolio of consumer loans from Citigroup Inc's Russian unit, as the major U.S. lender reduces its exposure to Russia on the way to a full exit from the country, Reuters reported. Neither bank has disclosed financial details of the deal. "The acquired portfolio includes unsecured consumer loans, which going forward will be serviced by Uralsib Bank from the moment of purchase," Uralsib said in a statement.

Norway will not have to ration power supplies this winter or in the coming spring even in the event of an extended cold period and wider energy challenges in the Nordic region, the country's energy regulator NVE said on Monday, Reuters reported. "Our analyses show that even with significant operational challenges in the Nordics, we will not end up in a rationing situation this winter," NVE director Kjetil Lund said in a statement.

Germany faces a paradox: After years of record immigration that has seen the equivalent of the population of a large city arrive in the country every year, one in six people in Germany was now born overseas, compared with one in seven in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. But unlike the U.S., Germany is failing to find work for the newcomers despite a worsening labor shortage that is stifling economic growth. Europe’s largest economy will in addition need to fill about seven million jobs by 2035 as older workers retire, economists estimate.

Sunac China Holdings Ltd. became one of the first major Chinese developers to unveil a debt restructuring plan, providing a potential roadmap for defaulted peers as they try to survive the nation’s unprecedented real estate crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The company proposed to convert as much as $4 billion of its $9.1 billion in offshore debt into ordinary shares or equity-linked instruments, a Hong Kong stock exchange filing showed on Friday. The rest will be exchanged into new dollar bonds with maturities ranging from two to eight years.

China will sell 750 billion yuan ($108 billion) worth of special sovereign bonds next week, in a move economists said was likely to be a rollover of existing debt rather than representing new stimulus, Bloomberg News reported. The notes will be sold on Dec. 12, and issued to designated domestic banks in the interbank bond market, according to the statement posted on the Ministry of Finance website late Friday. The People’s Bank of China will carry out open market operations with relevant banks, it added.

Hungry for foreign currency to shore up their dwindling reserves, some troubled countries have in recent years turned to an unusual source of funds: The People’s Bank of China, the Wall Street Journal reported. China’s central bank has funneled billions over the past decade to around 20 countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Laos, via swap lines that allow overseas central banks to exchange their domestic currencies for Chinese yuan.

The British government said Friday it would ease regulatory rules on banks, insurers and investors to bolster London’s status as a global financial hub after its allure was dented by Britain’s departure from the European Union, the Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. presented a 30 point-plan called the “Edinburgh reforms” that the government hailed as a regulatory fine-tuning to boost the British economy, which has suffered a severe slowdown in recent years and is entering a recession.