Headlines

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce said on Friday it would appeal a New York court's ruling in a lawsuit brought against the bank by an entity of U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, Reuters reported. Cerberus had alleged that CIBC defaulted on certain payments and is seeking damages of $1.067 billion. CIBC said it had satisfied all its obligations. The court issued a liability ruling against the lender, but has not determined how much it will have to pay. The parties will get to present arguments on the damages at a hearing on Dec. 19, CIBC said.

Ghana will launch a domestic debt exchange on Monday, its Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said, expressing confidence that the move would help restore macroeconomic stability and end the West African country's worst economic crisis in a generation, Reuters reported. Ofori-Atta said in a video address on Sunday that Ghana's government had finished its debt sustainability analysis, but he did not provide any information on plans for foreign debt that are anxiously awaited by international creditors.

Industrial production in Brazil rose 0.3% in October from September, government statistics agency IBGE said on Friday, returning to positive territory after two consecutive monthly declines though still below pre-pandemic levels, Reuters reported. Production in October also grew 1.7% from a year earlier, slightly above market consensus of a 1.6% rise.

Rangers FC could still be sued for £9.5million by the administrators of the Elite Sports Group despite the sports goods distributor going insolvent, the Scottish Daily Express reported. The Ibrox club is facing a civil court action over claims Rangers breached a contract related to the provision of kits for the Glasgow team. Elite is the exclusive brand partner to Danish sportswear firm Hummel and it instructed lawyers to go to the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Elite won a bid to force Rangers to disclose sales data to them last month.

The company behind the tether stablecoin has increasingly been lending its own coins to customers rather than selling them for hard currency upfront, the Wall Street Journal reported. The shift adds to risks that the company may not have enough liquid assets to pay redemptions in a crisis. Tether Holdings Ltd. says it lends only to eligible customers and requires that borrowers post lots of “extremely liquid” collateral, which could be sold for dollars if borrowers default. These loans have appeared for several quarters in the financial reports that Tether shows on its website.

Italy is set to toughen regulation of digital assets and expand taxation on crypto trading from 2023, following similar moves by countries such as Portugal, Bloomberg News reported. A provision in the country’s proposed 2023 budget plans to extend a 26% levy on capital gains to digital assets for profits larger than 2,000 euros ($2,062.3). Digital coins and tokens so far have been treated as foreign currency by Italy’s tax authorities, which implied a lower taxation.

The surge in private equity activity in Europe in recent years has loaded hundreds of companies up with debt, eroded their credit ratings, and left many of them vulnerable to bankruptcy as an economic recession approaches, Bloomberg News reported. There were 762 private equity buyouts last year in Western Europe for a total of $336 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, the highest since 2007.

Ongoing Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure have increased the cost to keep Ukraine's economy going next year, adding up to $1 billion a month to previous estimates of $3-$4 billion, the head of the International Monetary Fund told the Reuters. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said she was confident that the European Union, United States and other international partners would continue to provide needed support for Ukraine.

European Union member states on Thursday reached a deal on rules that would force large companies to check whether their suppliers use slave or child labour, or pollute the environment, but with an optional exemption for financial services, Reuters reported. Known as corporate sustainability due diligence, the rules were proposed by the European Commission earlier this year and would be applied to around 13,000 large companies, requiring them not just to identify impacts but also take measures to mitigate or end them.