Headlines

If Laurentian University is required to submit privileged information to Ontario's Legislative Assembly, it would cause "irreparable harm," argue legal counsel for the Sudbury university, CBC.ca reported. During court proceedings Tuesday, Laurentian's lawyers asked Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz of the Superior Court of Justice to stay the execution of a Speaker's warrant against the institution. The Ontario Legislature voted unanimously on Dec. 9 to issue a Speaker's warrant that would compel Laurentian to provide the province with privileged documents related to its insolvency.

The United Arab Emirates and Turkey agreed to a currency swap equivalent to nearly $5 billion that reinforces an economic partnership between two Middle Eastern rivals and provides Ankara with a badly needed infusion of foreign funds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal, announced Wednesday, deepens the detente between Turkey and the U.A.E., powers that until recently were on opposite sides of a Middle Eastern cold war and remain at odds over conflicts in the region.

The European Central Bank is facing an intensifying stand-off with financial markets over when it will begin raising one of the world’s lowest interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Despite insistence by officials that a hike is very unlikely in 2022, money markets now see a 10-basis-point increase to the deposit rate to minus 0.4% as early as September. They’re also betting borrowing costs exit sub-zero territory by the end of next year for the first time since 2014. After the ECB last met in December, euro-area inflation numbers for that month came in stronger than expected.

Europe’s biggest satellite companies are soon to be armed with a massive warchest and are expected to play a major role in the continuing wave of satellite deals, Bloomberg News reported. Intelsat SA and SES SA, both headquartered in Luxembourg, are set to receive as much as $8.8 billion over the coming years for selling airwave rights to the U.S. government for 5G wireless communications. The first tranche of that money is due imminently.

Prices in Britain rose at their fastest pace in 30 years in December, according to the national statistics agency, stoking concerns about the strain on household budgets with inflation still months away from its expected peak, the New York Times reported. The annual rate of inflation was 5.4 percent, up from 5.1 percent in November. That’s the highest since March 1992, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, based on data modeling for the period before official records were collected.

The U.K. audit regulator said it expects to pursue more enforcement cases and increase its budget as it looks to tackle new responsibilities and fold into a new regulatory body, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Financial Reporting Council on Tuesday unveiled a three-year plan covering its strategy and priorities during a pivotal transitional period. The FRC is in the process of folding into the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority, which the U.K. government announced in 2019. The new regulator is expected to begin its work in 2023. The U.K.

Investors have long been confident about at least one thing in wild and unpredictable Argentine markets: A big peso devaluation was coming, and the best place to take refuge was dollar-linked bonds. Now, after piling into the trade for two straight years, they are throwing in the towel, Bloomberg News reported. They were so surprised that the devaluation didn’t come in the immediate aftermath of November congressional elections -- politically, the most logical time to do it -- that they have begun to give credence to the government’s pledge that there’s no such plan in the works.

Tayo Rolls, a Tata group firm, has not generated any revenue since FY18 and is currently undergoing the corporate insolvency resolution process. That has not stopped a section of market punters from trading vigorously in its stock, which has soared nearly 230% since October 1, the Economic Times of India reported. In the absence of a running business operation, analysts said the trading frenzy in the stock could be part of a 'pump and dump' strategy by operators. Tayo Rolls, which suspended its operations in May 2016, is owned by Tata Steel and Japan's Yadogawa Steel.

Moby SpA, the ferry company that connects Italy’s mainland with its islands, filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. as it seeks to complete a troubled restructuring process at home, Bloomberg News reported. Moby, owned by the Onorato family, has been under pressure from increasing regulation, tougher competition and weak freight traffic volumes in the last years, and was further hit by the pandemic travel restrictions. In June 2020, the company petitioned a court in Milan for a court-supervised restructuring procedure, but its revenue grew above expectations this summer.

China’s economy slowed markedly in the final months of last year as government measures to limit real estate speculation hurt other sectors as well, the New York Times reported. Lockdowns and travel restrictions to contain the coronavirus also dented consumer spending. Stringent regulations on everything from internet businesses to after-school tutoring companies have set off a wave of layoffs. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that economic output from October through December was only 4 percent higher than during the same period a year earlier.