Air France-KLM Group, Europe’s largest airline, is getting a makeover ranging from high-end seats to bigger entertainment screens as Chief Executive Officer Alexandre de Juniac attempts a turnaround from near bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. De Juniac, who became CEO in July, is coupling luxury perks such as gourmet meals with a push to trim spending that will erase almost 10,000 jobs from 2011 into 2015. With fliers ready to spend more, investing in the customer experience goes hand in hand with savings, he said.

Leading Dutch bank ING reported on Wednesday a 22.3-percent slump in net profit for 2013, blamed special factors and said it would pursue its deep restructuring programme this year, The West Australian reported on an Agence France-Presse story. Amsterdam-based ING posted 3.2 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in net profit, down from 4.16 billion euros in 2012. Net profit for the fourth quarter of 2013 plunged by 63 percent to 539 million euros. However, this was much better than expected by analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires, who had put forward 351 million euros.

British and Dutch authorities have reignited the controversial dispute over the collapse of online lender Icesave at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 by filing a lawsuit for up to IKr1,000bn (£5.6bn) against Iceland’s bank guarantee fund, the Financial Times reported. Iceland’s guarantee scheme, TIF, said on Monday that the UK was seeking IKr452bn while the Netherlands wanted IKr104bn. Both countries are also seeking interest and costs in the five-year-old dispute.

Dutch smelter Aluminium Delfzijl (Aldel) has applied for bankruptcy after failing to negotiate an energy deal, the company said on its website, the latest victim in a market plagued by oversupply and falling prices, Reuters reported. Aldel, bought by global industrial commodities company Klesch Group in 2009, applied for bankruptcy in a Dutch court on Dec. 30 and had expected a court decision on the same day, it said on its website. Spokespeople for Adel and Klesch Group were not immediately available for comment.

Dutch telecoms group KPN said on Tuesday that it had reached a tentative agreement to pay 50 million euros ($67.6 million) to settle litigation related to the bankruptcy of its former joint venture KPNQwest, Reuters reported. KPNQwest, a wholesale fibre-optic telecoms venture between U.S. phone carrier Qwest, since acquired by CenturyLink, and KPN for corporate customers, was listed in 1999 but went bankrupt in 2002 after the telecoms and technology bubble burst. The trustees accused KPNQwest of mismanagement and held its shareholders liable for damages. It had been seeking 2.2 billion euros.

Top shareholder Air France-KLM refused a plea for cash on Thursday to rescue Alitalia, saying a new business plan was not enough to save the stricken Italian carrier unless its creditors also write off some of its huge debts, Reuters reported. Alitalia, which was privatised in 2008, has been unprofitable for more than a decade and has been stuck in a months-long tussle with Air France-KLM over whether to keep their strategic and financial partnership alive.

Air France-KLM, the French-Dutch airline, said Thursday that it had written off the entire value of its 25 percent holding in its partner Alitalia, raising doubts that it will take part in a plan to inject 300 million euros into the struggling Italian flag carrier, The International New York Times reported.

The Dutch financial services group ING said on Wednesday that it would pay 1.13 billion euros ($1.55 billion) to the Dutch government in November as it moves closer to repaying the state aid it received during the financial crisis, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. As of its next payment on Nov. 6, ING will have repaid €8.5 billion in principal of the €10 billion it received from the Dutch government in 2008, plus an additional €2.8 billion in interest and premiums.

The Dutch lender Rabobank admitted on Tuesday to criminal wrongdoing by its employees and agreed to pay more than $1 billion in criminal and civil penalties to settle investigations by United States, British and other authorities into its role in setting global benchmark interest rates. Its chief executive stepped down immediately, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. The bank is the fifth financial firm to settle accusations that its employees manipulated the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.

The chief executive of Air France-KLM, the largest foreign shareholder in Alitalia, said on Wednesday that he had not ruled out the possibility of participating in a fresh bailout of the struggling Italian flagship carrier as it scrambles to produce a plan to shore up its dwindling cash reserves, the International Herald Tribune reported. But given the weak financial position of the French-Dutch group, which owns 25 percent of Alitalia, any assistance would be subject to strict conditions, he said.