A Japanese cruise operator filed for bankruptcy on Monday after its restaurant ship Luminous Kobe 2, which offered buffets and night views of the western port city of Kobe, was hit by cancellations amid concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reported. Luminous Cruise said it had already been struggling with rising fuel costs and setbacks from recent typhoons before the coronavirus outbreak on the Diamond Princess, an unrelated cruise ship now docked at Yokohama. “Since February 1, we have had many cancellations which appear connected to the coronavirus.

Japan’s government stuck to its view the economy is recovering despite the sharpest contraction in more than five years last quarter and forecasts from private sector analysts that the coronavirus epidemic will trigger a recession, Bloomberg News reported. In it’s monthly report for February, released Thursday, the Cabinet Office maintained its stance the economy is “recovering at a moderate pace” amid continued weakness in manufacturing and exports.

Japan’s struggling regional banks face their biggest shake-up since the 1990s under plans outlined by the country’s top financial regulator, as weak profitability and years of zero interest rates loom over the long-term stability of the industry, the Financial Times reported.

Nemaska Lithium, a Canadian lithium producer backed by SoftBank, has filed for bankruptcy protection as it scrambles to raise emergency funding to keep its flagship project alive, the Financial Times reported. The Toronto-listed company has been struggling to finance development of Whabouchi, a lithium mine and processing facility in Quebec, amid a cost blowout and a steep fall in the price of the metal, a constituent of electric car batteries. Nemaska on Monday said it was seeking protection from its creditors to give it sufficient time to complete a refinancing.

Japan needs to remain vigilant about its banks’ overseas investments in bundled credit products because the underlying loans may be less spread out across industries or individual companies than they appear, a senior regulatory official said, Bloomberg News reported. ‘’Even if banks individually think they are well-diversified, it is possible that overall risks in the market are concentrated in the same sector or the same debtors,” said Tokio Morita, director-general of the Financial Services Agency’s Strategy Development and Management Bureau.

Carlos Ghosn, the longtime head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA, is preparing for the first of two trials in 2020 for what prosecutors and his former colleagues at Nissan call a pervasive pattern of financial misconduct and raiding of corporate resources for personal gain, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported. He denies wrongdoing, saying that he’s the victim of a plot by Nissan executives and Japanese government officials to prevent further integration with Renault. A guilty verdict in either case could put the 65-year-old in a Japanese prison through the 2020s.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe has launched Japan’s first fiscal stimulus since 2016 with a larger-than-expected ¥13.2tn ($121bn) package to repair typhoon damage, upgrade infrastructure and invest in new technologies, the Financial Times reported. Described as a “15-month budget”, the spending package is one of the largest since the 2008-09 financial crisis as Japan seeks to fend off weakness in the global economy, drag from a recent rise in consumption tax and the risk of a slowdown after next summer’s Tokyo Olympics.

Nissan’s new chief executive has shelved talks on levelling the ownership structure on its alliance with Renault, saying the two carmakers will focus on reviving their struggling businesses, the Financial Times reported.

Japan Post Bank Co. said it would be cautious about future investment in bundled corporate loans after raising holdings last quarter, as financial authorities increase scrutiny of the practice, Bloomberg News reported. The postal savings giant boosted its holdings of collateralized loan obligations by 15% from June to 1.52 trillion yen ($14 billion) as of Sept. 30, an earnings presentation showed Thursday.