Headlines

A leading care association in the west is warning some residential homes may go under due to rising costs such as National Insurance (NI) and the national living wage, BBC.com reported. David Smallacombe, chief executive of not-for-profit organisation Care and Support West, says many care home operators will be forced to raise prices for vulnerable residents. He is calling on the government to exempt social care providers from the NI hike, as it already has for the public sector and NHS.

The volume of claims against bankrupt Estonian state-owned airline Nordica has risen sharply since bankruptcy was declared last fall, reaching €85 million, News.err.ee reported. Most of Nordica's assets consist of a claim against its subsidiary, Regional Jet. When the Harju County Court declared Nordic Aviation Group bankrupt at the end of January, claims were initially estimated at €34 million. By the end of March—the deadline for submitting claims — that figure had more than doubled.

Restart Energy One, a Romanian provider of renewable energy solutions with two bond issues listed at the Bucharest Exchange, announced in a note to investors that it is entering into a preventive arrangement to avoid insolvency, Romania-Insider.com reported. Its bonds were recently temporarily suspended from trading amid an investigation conducted by prosecutors involving the company's founder, Profit.ro reported. As of April 22, both bonds are again traded at the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

A U.S. federal judge on Monday confirmed a $3.7 billion offer by Contrarian Funds' affiliate Red Tree Investments as the starting bid in an auction of shares in the parent of Venezuela-owned refiner Citgo Petroleum to pay creditors and bondholders, according to a court filing, Reuters reported. The offer had been recommended by a court officer overseeing the auction due to its certainty of closure. Read more.

The U.S. set new duties as high as 3,521% on solar imports from four Southeast Asian countries, delivering a win for domestic manufacturers while intensifying headwinds already threatening the country’s renewable power development, Bloomberg News reported. The duties announced Monday are the culmination of a yearlong trade probe that found solar manufacturers in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand were unfairly benefiting from government subsidies and selling exports to the US at rates lower than the cost of production.

Greece’s prime minister on Tuesday announced 1 billion euros ($1.15 billion) in financial benefits for lower-income households and the public investment program, after the country became one of the few European Union members to post a budget surplus in 2024. Only six of the EU’s 27 member nations posted a surplus for 2024, figures released by Eurostat showed.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its 2025 growth outlook for emerging economies including Mexico and China, warning that tighter funding conditions and a scarcity of development cash could inflict pain on developing nations, Reuters reported. Waves of tariffs announced by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and policy uncertainty are expected to stymie global growth just as the world economy emerged from major shocks such as the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The United States sells more soybeans to China, by value, than any other single product. Last year, that amounted to more than 27 million metric tons, worth $12.8 billion, or about 9 cents of every dollar of goods the United States sold to China, the New York Times reported. But with the enormous tariffs erected between the two countries over the past two weeks, those sales are likely to suffer soon. That is bad news for the American farmers who grow soybeans and the Chinese chicken and hog farmers who buy them — and potentially very good news for the nation ready to step in: Brazil.

Vietnam's trade ministry has issued a directive to crack down on illegal transhipment of goods to the United States and other trading partners as it tries to avoid steep U.S. tariffs, according to a document reviewed by Reuters. The ministry in the directive, which was dated and effective April 15, said trade fraud was likely to increase amid growing tension caused by U.S. tariffs. That in turn would make it "more complicated to avoid sanctions that countries will apply to imported goods" if fraud is not prevented, it said.

Shivinder Mohan Singh, former promoter of Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises, has filed for personal insolvency before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Delhi, reported Bar and Bench. The matter was briefly heard on April 21 and is scheduled to resume in May. Singh has invoked Section 94 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which allows individuals to file for insolvency if they are unable to repay debts. In his plea, Singh stated that his liabilities now exceed the value of his remaining assets.