Saudi Arabia’s oil officials are working frantically to project how high oil prices might go if the Iran war and its disruption of energy supplies doesn’t end soon—and they don’t like what they are seeing, the Wall Street Journal reported. The base case, several oil officials in the Gulf’s biggest producer said, is that prices could soar past $180 a barrel if the disruptions persist until late April. While that would sound like a bonanza for a kingdom still heavily leveraged to oil revenue, it is deeply concerning.

Europe’s top central bankers warned that the escalating war in the Middle East would drive up inflation and knock growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. The conflict is threatening the global economy, but Europe is seen as particularly vulnerable because of its dependence on imported energy. European-natural gas prices have nearly doubled since the conflict began. “The war in the Middle East has made the outlook significantly more uncertain, creating upside risks for inflation and downside risks for economic growth,” ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday.

Battered by Iranian strikes and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, the United Arab Emirates and some fellow Persian Gulf states have come to view Iran’s theocracy as an existential enemy. They now want the regime they once courted to be neutered, if not dismantled, when the conflict ends—so the ordeal is never repeated, the Wall Street Journal reported. The U.A.E. has borne the brunt of Iranian attacks: More than 2,000 drones and missiles have been fired at the country since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

Europe’s central bankers will be in a familiar but uncomfortable position when they meet to decide policy Thursday: waiting for the fog of war to clear a little before they can pick out a safe path forward, the Wall Street Journal reported. Policymakers at the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, and their counterparts in Sweden and Switzerland are expected to leave their key interest rates unchanged. As the conflict initiated by the U.S.

The conflict in the Middle East may force the hand of Brazil’s central bank, and not in a good way. The central bank has heavily foreshadowed a rate cut on March 18. However, the escalating war in the Middle East may throw cold water on those plans, and Brazil’s market rally, the Wall Street Journal reported. “If oil prices start climbing high or [if] they stay high, then, yes, the central bank might hold,” Juan Egaña, a strategist at BCA Research, said. "Brazilian markets have rallied so much in expectation that monetary easing is coming,” said Egaña.

The Justice Department is investigating Iran’s use of Binance to evade U.S. sanctions, the Wall Street Journal reported. The probe follows the crypto exchange’s dismantling of an internal investigation into more than $1 billion that flowed through the platform to a network funding Iran-backed terror groups, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. Officials have contacted people with knowledge of the Iranian transactions to seek interviews and gather evidence.

Central banks across Europe came under market pressure on Monday to lift interest rates as the war in Iran drove up ​energy costs and revived the spectre of another inflation wave, Reuters reported. Money markets ramped up bets on rate increases by the European Central ‌Bank, the Swiss National Bank and Sweden's Riksbank before year-end, with the Bank of England seen following suit in 2027. The unusually sharp repricing came as major oil producers cut supply and fears grew of prolonged shipping disruptions, pushing crude above $119 a barrel — its highest level since mid‑2022.

A site run by Domo Chemicals, which makes compounds that end up in fuel tanks, swimsuits and food packaging, unexpectedly filed for insolvency after running short on the cash needed to operate equipment to convert benzene into nylon. An uncontrolled shutdown risked leaking toxic substances, threatening nearby operators as well as the 14,000 residents living in the east German industrial town of Leuna.

Leading crypto exchange Binance denied violating Iranian sanctions compliance in a letter sent in reply to U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), who recently launched a probe into the firm following media reports on purported violations, Decrypt.com reported. Blumenthal’s probe followed a Wall Street Journal report that alleged that Binance allowed $1.7 billion worth of transactions tied to Iranian entities and sanction-evading trades from Russia to occur on the platform.

Dubai’s digital asset regulatory body has ordered Kucoin Exchange EU Gmbh—operating as Kucoin—to cease and desist its operations in the emirate, according to a Friday announcement, Decrypt.com reported. The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) said that the cryptocurrency exchange does not hold a license to provide digital asset services within Dubai, and is therefore not authorized to operate there.