The trial of a lawsuit by Lyondell Chemical Co. creditors against billionaire Len Blavatnik that claims a 2007 merger drove the company into bankruptcy is set to begin in New York next month, Bloomberg reported. Summonses were filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan listing Blavatnik and 41 other people and companies that allegedly played a role in Lyondell’s takeover by Luxembourg-based Basell AF SCA. A pretrial conference is set for Sept. 13.

Developer Orco Property Group said on Wednesday a Paris court approved a plan exiting the group from its more than year-long creditor protection period, Reuters reported. Orco said the plan's implementation and debt rescheduling will allow it to re-invest in real estate projects. It added the plan includes the repayment of 100 percent of the company's admitted claims over 10 years. Read more.

European finance ministers laid the groundwork for a financial lifeline to debt-stricken Greece, breaking a taboo against aid to cash-strapped governments in order to avert a crisis for the euro, Bloomberg reported. Officials from the 16 countries using the currency worked out a strategy for emergency loans in case Greece’s plan for 4.8 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in tax increases and wage cuts fails to stave off fiscal disaster.

A court ruled Thursday that investors who lost money in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme through funds set up by UBS AG can't sue the Swiss bank and its adviser Ernst & Young for the losses they incurred, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a test case before a chamber of judges specialized in hearing commercial cases, the Luxembourg court found the investors had no grounds for individual claims against the bank. Instead, they must rely on the fund liquidator to obtain compensation for them from UBS.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said that European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker see “no possibility” of a Greek default. Papandreou was speaking to reporters at a European Union summit in Brussels, Bloomberg reported. “There is no possibility of a default for Greece,” Papandreou said today. He also said there was no possibility of Greece leaving the euro area.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, says Belgian-French financial services group Dexia's restructuring plan could distort competition and does not guarantee recovery for the group, Reuters reported. The Commission said certain measures the group had proposed could distort competition, and questioned whether Dexia would be able to obtain sufficient long-term funding.

London or Paris may become the hub for the resolution of dozens of lawsuits related to banks’ and investment funds’ exposure to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Luxembourg’s Treasury and Budget Minister Luc Frieden said. The nation’s courts have dealt with more than 20 lawsuits and will get hundreds more in the coming months from investors seeking compensation from banks, funds and auditors for losses.

Europe’s economy contracted at the fastest pace in at least 13 years in the first quarter as companies cut output and jobs to survive the worst global slump in more than six decades, Bloomberg reported. Gross domestic product in the 16-member euro region dropped 2.5 percent from the fourth quarter, when it fell 1.6 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That’s the biggest drop since the euro-area GDP data were first compiled in 1995 and exceeded the 2 percent decline economists expected in a Bloomberg News survey.

The Dutch government may have offered too much help to an arm of Fortis NV when it nationalized the financial-services company last year, the European Union's competition regulator said, announcing that it was opening a formal investigation into the bailout, The Wall Street Journal reported. EU rules meant to ensure that foreign companies can compete with domestic ones in the common market restrict how governments can provide aid to businesses.

The trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC said he needs to hire attorneys in Luxembourg to help recover customer assets in that country, Bloomberg reported. Irving Picard, the lawyer appointed by the Securities Investor Protection Corp. to unwind the now-defunct firm of convicted fraud mastermind Bernard Madoff, is responsible for conducting a broad investigation of Madoff’s assets and actions. Picard has said he’s already recovered about $1 billion to repay Madoff clients. In court papers filed yesterday in U.S.