Headlines

French hauliers are scrambling to recover unpaid invoices after Ziegler France entered court-supervised restructuring, Trans.Info reported. With offers from potential buyers due before a 31 March court hearing, the fallout is already spreading beyond the company itself. The scale of the exposure is already substantial. According to FNTR Bretagne, around 40 member companies have reported roughly €3 million in claims linked to Ziegler France, with some individual operators allegedly exposed for more than €1 million.

The U.K.’s annual rate of inflation was unchanged in February, but is set to rise over the coming months as energy and food prices jump in the wake of the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices rose 3.0% on year, in line with January’s rise, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. Services inflation was 4.3%, down 0.1 percentage point on month, marking its lowest level since March 2022. But the inflation outlook has soured since the war in Iran caused energy prices to rise.

Headline inflation in the Irish economy could double to 4.2 per cent in the coming months if there is a prolonged conflict in the Middle East, the Central Bank has warned, the Irish Times reported. In its latest quarterly bulletin, the regulator said the current spike in oil and gas prices would lead to lower growth and higher inflation and that lower-income households would be “disproportionately” impacted. The bank’s central projection, based on where oil and gas prices were on March 11th, sees inflation averaging 2.9 per cent this year.

The escalating conflict in the Middle East has knocked the ‌global economy off a stronger growth path, the OECD warned on Thursday, as a near-halt in energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz threatens to push inflation sharply higher, Reuters reported. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said the global economy had been on course for stronger-than-expected growth before the war in Iran erupted, but that prospect has now all but disappeared.

Europe's retailers warned on Thursday that a prolonged Middle East conflict could push up sticker prices in Europe and ‌dent consumer demand for companies from clothing giant H&M (HMb.ST), opens new tab to British supermarket chain Co-op, Reuters reported. The cautions are the bluntest from the sector so far as companies feel the ripples of the month-old war's impact, with crude prices shooting above $100 per barrel, raising transportation costs and disrupting global trade flows.

The WTO chief called on countries on Thursday to overhaul global trade rules, telling them the old world order had gone for ‌good, following a year of turmoil sparked by U.S. tariffs and wider geopolitical tensions, Reuters reported. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala set ‌out a list of problems facing the World Trade Organization - including the paralysis of its dispute-settlement mechanism - at the start of ​a four-day meeting of the body in Cameroon. "The world order and multilateral system we used to know has irrevocably changed. We will not get it back ...

The Mexican government announced measures on Thursday to support the country's motor transport ​industry, especially manufacturers and owners ​of heavy vehicles, Reuters reported. The program includes tax ⁠incentives for local producers and ​also seeks to protect and promote ​Mexico's motor transport industry against imports, Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a press conference. "It ​has an initial budget of ​2 billion pesos ($112.41 million) in tax deductions and ‌250 ⁠million pesos in direct investment," he added.

A key gauge of Japan's service-sector inflation rose 2.7% in February from a ​year earlier, data showed on Thursday, reinforcing the ‌central bank's view that a tight labour market is pushing firms to pass rising costs on to consumers, Reuters reported. The ​Bank of Japan has stressed the need ​to see inflation durably hit its 2% ⁠target driven by rising wages and services ​prices, rather than higher raw material costs, to proceed ​with further interest rate hikes.

The Kingdom of Bhutan transferred another 519.707 BTC worth $36.75 million to external addresses on Wednesday, accelerating a sovereign Bitcoin liquidation that has seen its BTC holdings plummet 66% from late 2024 peaks, Decrypt.com reported. The Royal Government of Bhutan now holds 4,453 BTC worth approximately $315 million, down from nearly 13,000 BTC in late 2024, according to on-chain data. The latest transfer continues a drawdown that began after October 2024, with total year-to-date outflows exceeding $150 million.

The clues started emerging in November 2024, a trail of evidence that pointed to possible financial crimes involving a vendor for Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Some clues were in plain sight, found in public business records in Singapore and Hong Kong, on a U.S. trade blacklist, and in Binance transaction logs that showed hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the account of a 78-year-old Chinese man.