Headlines

Laurentian University president Robert Haché is sticking to his guns, saying that the university did what it could to advocate to government for financial support, and only turned to filing for creditor protection as a last resort, Sudbury.com reported. This in the wake of the release of a scathing preliminary report examining Laurentian’s financial crisis, which was released by Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk on April 13. Lysyk said she believes the data shows Laurentian University did not have to file for creditor protection under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act (CCAA).

The International Monetary Fund said discussions with Sri Lanka on a potential IMF loan program are at an early stage and any deal would require "adequate assurances" that the island country's debts can be put on a sustainable path, Reuters reported. In a statement emailed to Reuters, IMF Sri Lanka Mission Chief Masahiro Nozaki said that IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva discussed lending options and policy plans with a Sri Lankan delegation on Tuesday.

Debt-ridden Supertech Ltd, which is facing insolvency proceedings, should come up with a settlement plan that entails "definite upfront payment" of dues, according to one of its lender Union Bank of India, the Economic Times of India reported. The bank on whose application the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) decided to initiate insolvency resolution proceedings against Supertech Ltd has made the submissions before appellate tribunal NCLAT.

Greece will raise the minimum wage from May 1 for a second time this year, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday as rising inflation takes a toll on household incomes, Reuters reported. "The global surge in inflation is hitting low incomes. From May 1 the basic wage will rise by 50 euros a month to 713 euros a month," Mitsotakis said in a televised address. The conservative government raised the monthly gross minimum wage by about 2% to 663 euros in January, meaning that with the new increase the minimum wage will go up by 9.7%.

European companies are forecast to have coped with record inflation in the first quarter, but the big question for investors during the reporting season which begins in earnest next week will be their outlook for the rest of 2022, Reuters reported. Profits are expected to have grown by 25% in the three months to end-March, a much lower pace compared to the 60-150% rates of 2021 but possibly solid enough to reassure markets.

The Insolvency Service has successfully secured restrictions against a roofer after he falsely applied for a bounce back loan designed to help companies survive the pandemic, the Construction Enquirer reported. David Michael Godderidge falsely applied for £13,000 from the Bounce Back Loan scheme which blew on gambling in just three weeks. Godderidge applied for his own bankruptcy in October 2021 and declared himself as a self-employed roofer.

Differing views between two departments of the Indian government have turned one of the biggest sales of steel mills under the reformed bankruptcy law into a litigation worth $6.3 billion and delayed the entire process. “You purchased a litigation that costs 480 billion rupees,” India’s Chief Justice N.V. Ramana told the lawyer for tycoon Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel Ltd.. The top court gave another week to government’s lawyer to sort out the differences between the country’s anti-money laundering agency Enforcement Directorate and corporate affairs ministry.

Canada sanctioned Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and 13 other “close associates of the Russian regime” in a fresh round of penalties related to the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. It marks one of the first instances where Nabiullina has shown up on a country’s sanctions list since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February. Australia previously sanctioned her and the central bank itself has been sanctioned.

The heads of the world’s biggest international finance institutions sounded the alarm about record global debt levels, with the International Monetary Fund’s chief saying options to deal with the billions owed by poor nations are disappearing, Bloomberg News reported. “We see the problem for many countries getting worse and the tools to deal with this problem are disappearing,” Kristalina Georgieva said in an online discussion with World Bank President David Malpass on Tuesday.

Britain faces the worst inflation shock of all major advanced economies over the next two years, the International Monetary Fund warned as it slashed its growth forecast, Bloomberg News reported. The global watchdog said the U.K. economy will be around 1% smaller in both 2022 and 2023 than it forecast in January. It blamed the downgrade on the cost of living crisis and slowing investment as interest rates rise to tackle rocketing consumer prices. No other Group of Seven nation had its outlook lowered across the two years by as much. In 2023, the U.K.