One year after its spectacular bankruptcy filing, Japan Airlines on Wednesday faced a lawsuit from 146 former pilots and cabin attendants calling for their jobs back after being made redundant, Agence France-Presse reported. The case, filed with the Tokyo District Court, claims JAL management did not do enough to avoid the layoffs. The company's court-approved rehabilitation plan calls for cutting about 16,000 jobs.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Japan is in a “crisis” comparable to the bankruptcy that Japan Airlines Corp. faced a year ago, Bloomberg reported. Kan spoke after meeting with JAL chairman Kazuo Inamori, whose airline filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 19, 2010. The carrier is shrinking overseas routes and cutting aircraft, having eliminated about 14,500 jobs to lower costs. Japan Air had a third-quarter operating profit of 110 billion yen ($1.3 billion), compared with a 96 billion yen loss a year earlier.

China went from scooping up the most Japanese debt in a year to selling the most, exiting the world’s lowest yields as forecasters expect the yen to retreat further from the 15-year high seen in November, Bloomberg reported. The country sold a net 81.3 billion yen ($979 million) of Japanese bonds in November, Japan’s Ministry of Finance said yesterday. China had been set for the biggest yearly increase since at least 2005 before unwinding with net sales in three of the four months through November.

Five candidates, including midsized domestic non-bank financial institutions and foreign investment funds, are being considered for the role of rehabilitation sponsor for failed consumer lender Takefuji Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported. Candidates are to submit offer prices and final business plans by end February and the sponsor is expected to be finalized in March, the paper added. The five candidates have been selected from 14 in the first round of bidding in December through an examination of their submitted business plans, the business paper said.

Resona Holdings Inc., Japan’s fourth largest bank, will sell about 600 billion yen ($7.2 billion) of shares in a public offering this month to help repay government bailout funds, a person familiar with the situation said, Bloomberg reported.Resona will approve the plan at a board member meeting and announce the details of the sale today, the person said. Nomura Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co. unit will underwrite the offering, the bank said in November when it registered to sell the shares.

Japan Airlines Corp is privately placing stock with its top executives as the bankrupt carrier looks to boost accountability and reduce its tax burden, the Nikkei business daily reported. About two dozen top executives, including President Masaru Onishi, took part in a recent offering, with each investing several hundred thousand yen. The combined stake comes to less than 1 percent, the paper reported. JAL needed to have multiple shareholders since a wholly owned subsidiary cannot adopt consolidated taxation, it said.

Japan Airlines Corp. is privately placing stock with its top executives as the bankrupt carrier looks to boost accountability and reduce its tax burden, the Nikkei reported today, according to Reuters. About two dozen top executives, including President Masaru Onishi, took part in a recent offering, with each investing several hundred thousand yen. The combined stake comes to less than 1 percent. JAL needed to have multiple shareholders since a wholly owned subsidiary cannot adopt consolidated taxation, it said.

The Bank of Japan said that it will “steadily” provide liquidity, as a climb in short-term borrowing costs posed a risk to the nation’s expansion, Bloomberg News reported today. “The bank will steadily purchase various financial assets and provide longer-term funds” so that “the effects of comprehensive monetary easing spread,” it said in the statement in Tokyo today. It left the size of its asset-buying fund and credit programs at 5 trillion yen ($60 billion) and 30 trillion yen respectively and kept the key interest rate unchanged.

Japan Airlines Corp. said Tuesday that a court had approved its restructuring plans—more than 10 months after the struggling airline filed for Japan's biggest-ever nonfinancial bankruptcy protection, The Wall Street Journal reported. JAL will now move to implement steps toward its lofty goal of posting its highest-ever operating profit within three years as set under the restructuring plan. "We are grateful to be given the opportunity to rehabilitate," said JAL President Masaru Onishi, apologizing to investors for the inconveniences of bankruptcy and share delisting.

A cabin crew union of Japan Airlines Corp decided against a strike, despite being granted the right to strike by its members in a vote that began as a protest against planned layoffs, the Nikkei business daily reported. Of the 870 union members, 97 percent cast votes, out of which 89 percent supported a strike, the report said. JAL has about 5,400 flight attendants and most of them belong to a different union that is the airline's largest, the Nikkei said. The union contends that members were able to express their collective will through the vote itself, the daily said.