Headlines

Austrian former property tycoon Rene Benko will appeal against his second conviction for insolvency-related fraud, his lawyer Norbert Wess said on Friday, Reuters reported. A court in his home city of Innsbruck handed Benko a 15-month suspended prison sentence and fined him 4,320 euros ($5,100) on Wednesday for hiding two luxury watches and four pairs of cuff links from creditors by keeping them inside a safe in the basement of a relative's house. However, the prosecution had sought a conviction based on 11 watches and 120,000 euros in cash found in that safe along with the cuff links.

A fund run by life sciences venture firm Apple Tree Partners filed for bankruptcy months after alleging that its Russian billionaire backer, Dmitry Rybolovlev, hasn’t met financing commitments because of liquidity problems at his family office, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. New York-based Apple Tree Life Sciences filed for chapter 11 reorganization Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., with assets of more than $1 billion and liabilities of less than $500,000.

Russia’s Central Bank has filed a lawsuit against Belgian financial institution Euroclear, the Brussels-based clearing house that holds most of Moscow’s frozen assets in Europe, the bank said Friday, the Associated Press reported. It wasn’t immediately clear what the lawsuit could achieve since it was filed in Moscow. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, estimates that 210 billion euros ($247 billion) worth of frozen Russian assets are held in Europe. At the end of September, Euroclear held around 193 billion euros ($225 billion) of the money.

Do Kwon, a crypto entrepreneur who created two virtual currencies that spectacularly melted down, prompting a market crisis in 2022, was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday, the New York Times reported. Kwon became a cautionary tale of crypto hubris when the digital currencies he designed — TerraUSD and Luna — lost all their value practically overnight. The crash caused a chain reaction that led to the collapse of a string of major crypto companies. Mr.

A cross-party coalition of U.K. lawmakers has called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to step in and ensure Britain’s regulatory framework for stablecoins doesn’t stifle innovation or drive capital overseas, warning that the Bank of England’s current proposals risk risks undermining the City of London's appeal as the global financial hub, CoinDesk.com reported. In a letter dated Dec.

For the past three decades, as China’s economy has developed into a global powerhouse, investment has grown reliably each year. That is about to change, the New York Times. This year, China’s investments in assets like new factories, public infrastructure and housing are expected to fall for the first time since the late 1980s, ushering in a more conservative era for an economy that has reshaped the global order with years of robust growth.

Canada logged its first trade surplus in eight months in September as exports rebounded and domestic demand showed signs of softening, the Wall Street Journal reported. The country recorded a small merchandise-trade surplus of 153 million Canadian dollars, the equivalent of about $110.9 million, Statistics Canada said Thursday. That was essentially a balanced trade position, as exports jumped even as imports pulled back. The shift in the balance from a revised C$6.43 billion deficit in August was considerably stronger that the C$4.5 billion shortfall that economists expected.

Mexico’s automotive industry posted sharp declines across cars, light trucks and heavy-duty commercial vehicles in November, as road blockades, labor stoppages and softer global demand disrupted factory operations and slowed exports, Freight Waves reported. The country’s heavy-vehicle manufacturers — tractor-trailers, trucks and buses — recorded significant declines in November, according to data from Mexico’s National Association of Bus, Truck and Tractor Producers (Anpact).

Many of China's newly merged small banks have seen profits fall and capital buffers shrink over the past year, a Reuters review of data showed, testing Beijing's record consolidation drive designed to avert risks in its $8 trillion small banking sector. China's bank consolidation has accelerated, with at least 350 banking licences cancelled in ​2025 as of November, up from 198 in 2024, according to a report by Chinese investment bank China International Capital Corp.

Nationwide has been hit with a record fine after failing to spot a customer’s £27.3m furlough fraud, The Telegraph reported. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has ordered the British lender to pay £44m as a result of its failings, which included the incident during Covid. The City watchdog revealed in a ruling on Friday that a Nationwide customer deposited £26m into their current account over the space of eight days, having received 24 furlough payments totalling £27.3m over 13 months. HMRC was able to recover £26.5m from the fraud, but roughly £800,000 remains unaccounted for.