Headlines

Canadians are filing for insolvencies at levels unseen in more than a decade as rising costs and uncertainty around housing and employment put more strain on consumers, according to the latest data from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, The Globe and Mail reported. The number of Canadians who filed for insolvency jumped 8.5 per cent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026 to 37,121, the highest quarterly volume since 2009, the OSB recorded in statistics released on Monday.

Students need better government protection if a university in England goes bust and cannot pay its debts, according to MPs, BBC.com reported. In a report, the Education Select Committee said 24 institutions are now said to be at risk of insolvency within the next 12 months - with many already making job cuts, closing courses and selling off buildings or land. Helen Hayes MP, who chairs the committee, said the priority was to protect students "who have invested time, money and energy" into their studies.

Administrators overseeing the insolvency of Market Financial Solutions have accused the collapsed lender’s owner, Paresh Raja, of misappropriating at least £1.3bn to fund a “lavish lifestyle” that included purchasing a “vast number” of luxury cars, the Financial Times reported. In a lawsuit filed against Raja at London’s High Court, MFS, which has been overseen by administrators acting on behalf of creditors since February, alleged their claim concerned the “systematic plundering of a multimillion-pound property finance business by the very man entrusted to lead it”.

Hundreds of takeaways have collapsed in the last year as soaring employment and food costs push businesses to the brink, The Telegraph reported. More than 500 takeaways went bust in the year to April, according to credit insurer Coface – almost double pre-pandemic levels. The firm blamed a combination of soaring food and labour costs, the latter of which rose sharply following Rachel Reeves’s first Budget, which increased National Insurance for employers.

As tensions in the Strait of Hormuz escalate, global shipping companies are scrambling to keep trade moving by redrawing global trade maps through costly workarounds, EuroNews.com reported. For many industries that have been built on predictability and freedom of navigation, the uncertainty hanging over supply chains has quickly become the world’s most disruptive maritime risk. The current crisis presents less of a temporary shock and more of a unique structural problem for container shipping firms like Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Company and Hapag-Lloyd.

The Trump administration asked the U.S. trade court to pause a ruling that declared the president’s latest 10% global tariffs unlawful while the government appeals, meaning importers would keep paying the levies while the legal fight continues, Bloomberg News reported. In a 2-1 decision last week, a U.S. Court of International Trade panel found that President Donald Trump’s use of Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose the tariffs was invalid, although the court only immediately blocked enforcement for two companies that sued and Washington state.

Australia's centre-left Labor government has rolled out the biggest changes to investment taxes ​this century to help young people break into the housing market, along with cost-of-living relief to cushion the fallout from the Iran war, Reuters reported. Treasurer Jim Chalmers on ‌Tuesday called his fifth budget the most "important and ambitious" in decades, as a landslide election victory last year allowed the government to address the politically thorny problem of intergenerational inequity.

North Korean hackers have stolen $6.75 billion in cryptocurrency across 263 incidents since 2016, establishing state-sponsored theft as the dominant threat to decentralized finance, according to a new report by blockchain security firm CertiK, Decrypt.com reported. The Web3 security firm's Skynet analysis documents how DPRK-linked groups have transformed from opportunistic attackers into the primary force in crypto crime, responsible for some 60% of all theft losses in 2025 alone, amounting to $2.06 billion.

For decades, Sweden was shorthand for the brand of high-tax, high-spend government that managed people’s lives from cradle to grave through state-run hospitals, schools and care homes. No longer. With little fanfare, this Nordic country of 11 million has embraced capitalism, the Wall Street Journal reported. Today, nearly half of primary healthcare clinics are privately owned, many by private-equity firms. One in three public high schools is privately run, up from 20% in 2011. School operators are listed on the stock exchange.