Headlines

Britain's financial watchdog on Tuesday proposed tougher rules for approving financial promotions after a sharp rise in misleading marketing online, Reuters reported. Currently, marketing information can be approved by a firm regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) without its direct nod. But under the new measures, which are part of a draft financial services and markets bill before the parliament, firms approving the promotions will have to show they have the right expertise.

The world’s poorest nations saw their debt-service payments jump by about a third to more than $62 billion in 2022 from a year earlier, and these costs will keep diverting resources from health and education next year as interest on deferred repayments compounds, the World Bank said, Bloomberg News reported. “The increased liquidity pressures in poor countries go hand in hand with solvency challenges, causing a debt overhang that is unsustainable for dozens of countries,” the lender said in its annual debt report published Tuesday.

Global airlines are predicting their first industry-wide profit since 2019 next year as air travel rebounds from COVID-19 restrictions, while a new war of words erupted with airports on Tuesday over rising air fares and ground charges, Reuters reported. Airlines lost tens of billions of dollars in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, but air travel has partially recovered and some airports have struggled to cope. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) now expects a net profit of $4.7 billion for the industry next year, with more than 4 billion passengers set to fly.

Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti on Monday called for a common European Union approach to support competitiveness and protect strategic production, in response to the massive subsidies in the United States' Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Reuters reported. The EU fears that the $430 billion IRA scheme, with its generous tax breaks for domestic production of energy sector components, may lure away EU businesses and disadvantage European companies, from car manufacturers to makers of green technology.

French prosecutors said on Monday they have put a Ukrainian woman linked to the governor of Lebanon's central bank under formal investigation as part of a cross-border probe into alleged fraud to the detriment of the Lebanese state, Reuters reported. Anna Kosakova, with whom central bank governor Riad Salameh has a daughter, according to a birth certificate seen by Reuters, is suspected of aggravated money laundering, a spokesperson at the Paris office of the National Financial Prosecutors said.

The collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has opened a hornet’s nest of squabbles between foreign governments and its new U.S. chief executive, John J. Ray III, the Wall Street Journal reported. In Cyprus, the country’s securities regulator is complaining that Mr. Ray’s decision to place FTX in bankruptcy has stymied investigations and is preventing European customers from getting their money back. Officials in the Bahamas, where FTX moved its headquarters last year, are accusing Mr.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge ordered the founders of Singapore-based Three Arrows Capital Ltd. to turn over records related to the failed cryptocurrency hedge fund’s assets to its liquidators, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York granted the liquidators’ request to subpoena Three Arrows founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies as part of an effort to recover the hedge fund’s assets. Messrs.

Cineworld Group Plc said it intends to emerge from bankruptcy intact after senior lenders were said to be considering a sale process for its east European operations, Bloomberg News reported. The London-based company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in Texas in September to cut a near $9 billion pile of debt and leases. “Cineworld remains committed to working with its key stakeholders to develop a Chapter 11 reorganization plan that seeks to maximize value for the benefit of moviegoers and all other stakeholders,” a spokesperson said on Sunday.

Pension funds and other 'non-bank' financial firms have more than $80 trillion of hidden, off-balance sheet dollar debt in FX swaps, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said, Reuters reported. The BIS, dubbed the central bank to the world's central banks, also said in its latest quarterly report that 2022's market upheaval had largely been navigated without major issues. Having repeatedly urged central banks to act forcefully to dampen inflation, it struck a more measured tone and picked over crypto market troubles and September's UK bond market turmoil.

Euro zone retail sales were slightly weaker than expected in October, data showed on Monday, dipping more than forecast in a sign of weakening consumer demand that could herald the onset of the expected technical recession, Reuters reported. The European Union's statistics office said retail sales in the 19 countries sharing the euro fell 1.8% month-on-month for a 2.7% year-on-year decline. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a fall of 1.7% on the month and 2.6% on the year.