U.K. home repossessions rose to the highest since 1996 last year and may almost double in the next 12 months as Britain’s recession deepens, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said. Banks took possession of 40,000 properties last year, a 54 percent increase from 2007, the London-based group said in an e- mailed statement today. It predicted the total will reach 75,000 this year. Ministry of Justice data showed 142,626 repossession proceedings began in courts in 2008, the most since 1991.

Pioneer Corp., the electronics maker that’s forecasting its fifth year of losses, fell to the lowest in more than 34 years in Tokyo trading after the company projected a record full-year deficit as sales slumped. Pioneer lost 20 percent to close at 142 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, its lowest since at least September 1974, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 1 percent. Nomura Holdings Inc. withdrew its rating on the stock, saying there is “no sign” Pioneer can make a profit.

Flash memory maker Spansion Japan filed for protection from creditors to give it time to restructure its operations, parent company Spansion said Monday. It's the second major event in a bid for survival on the part of the parent company, Network World reported. Spansion's former president and CEO Bertrand Cambou resigned last week as the company sought a possible sale or merger to raise funds to pay off the interest on debt that has come due.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has asked the bankruptcy court to let it retain Jones Day as special counsel to help the former financial services company with issues that have arisen in the Asia-Pacific region related to its Chapter 11 case. In a motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Lehman said the law firm would help it in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and Australia with matters related to its bankruptcy filing.

Japanese apartment developer Japan General Estate Co said on Thursday it has filed for bankruptcy protection with debts of 197.5 billion yen ($2.2 billion), Reuters reported. Hit by a slump in sales and a credit crunch sparked by U.S. subprime loan problems, nearly 600 real estate companies collapsed in Japan in 2008 after failing to make debt repayments.

Japanese police have arrested the chairman of a bedding company on suspicion he swindled investors out of $2.5 billion, in what local media said would be the biggest financial scam in Japanese history, Bloomberg reported. Officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan and Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectural police departments converged on the home of Kazutsugi Nami, 75, chairman of L&G KK, this morning, arresting him and 20 other people, said an official in the Metropolitan Police Department who declined to give his name citing policy.

The Japanese government said it is considering supplying public funds to companies hurt by the global financial crisis, using the Development Bank of Japan and other state-owned organizations, The Wall Street Journal reported. Tuesday's statement by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry shows that Japan, like other crisis-hit nations, is thinking of channeling public money into its battered and credit-short private companies.

Three Japanese auto makers slashed their earnings and production plans Friday on the back of prolonged weakness in demand, with Honda Motor Co. implementing another cutback in domestic output for this fiscal year, The Wall Street Journal reported. Due to the continued slump in auto sales, Honda said that it will reduce production in Japan for the current fiscal year through March by 56,000 vehicles. The latest cutback follows a domestic output reduction by a combined 86,000 vehicles that it already announced for the second half through March.

Japan’s corporate bankruptcies rose the most in eight years in 2008 as a deepening recession weakened sales and made it harder for businesses to get funds, Bloomberg reported. Bankruptcies climbed 11 percent from a year earlier to 15,646 cases last year, the fastest pace since 2000, Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. said in Tokyo today. A total of 33 publicly traded companies went out of business in 2008, the most in the postwar period, the report said. Japanese companies have struggled to find investors willing to purchase their debt since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September.

According to a recent study conducted by Asian Banker Research, Malaysia is listed fourth in the Asia Pacific region's most creditor-friendly bankruptcy regimes where creditors can expect to recover more than 80 cents in the dollar of assets they are owed, the Malaysian national news agency reported. The findings of the study released today said Singapore and Japan were Asia Pacific region's most creditor-friendly bankruptcy regimes where creditors could expect to recover more than 90 cents in the dollar. Taiwan came third with a similar rate of recovery with Malaysia.