With just days remaining in 2025, the wave of airline bankruptcies affecting small and mid-sized carriers shows no sign of slowing, AirGuide.info reported. Over the past several months, multiple airlines across Europe and North America have collapsed or entered insolvency proceedings. Icelandic low-cost carrier PLAY Airlines and Sweden’s Braathens Aviation both shut down operations during the fall after filing for bankruptcy within weeks of each other. Flag carrier Air Albania has also suspended all flights since early December, following Turkish Airlines’ decision to sell its 49% stake.

Venezuela started shutting wells in a region that holds the world’s largest deposits of oil in the face of a blockade by the Trump administration meant to financially squeeze the nation, Bloomberg News reported. Petroleos de Venezuela SA began shuttering wells in the Orinoco Belt on Dec. 28 as the state-run refiner ran out of storage space and inventory swelled. PDVSA aims to reduce Orinoco Belt production by at least 25% to 500,000 barrels a day, the people said. The decrease represents a 15% cut of Venezuela’s overall output of 1.1 million barrels a day.

Bankrupt Irish property developer Sean Dunne has filed a fresh objection to the distribution of $3.8 million (€3.24 million) of the remaining assets in his dozen-year-old U.S. bankruptcy case, the Irish Times reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Julie A Manning, sitting in Bridgeport, Conn. last week ordered payment of $2.8 million to his two ex-wives and about another $1 million in legal fees to the US bankruptcy trustee and his lawyers.

Azul has received U.S. bankruptcy judge approval for its chapter 11 plan, clearing the way for a balance-sheet overhaul less than seven months after the Brazilian airline sought court protection, the Wall Street Journal reported. Judge Sean H. Lane of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York approved the largely consensual plan, overruling objections from the U.S. Trustee related to third-party releases, exculpation provisions and certain fees.

Gifts, grocery bills, travel expenses: holiday spending can cause many surprises and headaches for Quebec households when credit card bills arrive in January, the Canadian Press reported. The beginning of the year is a busy time for licensed insolvency trustees, as shown by statistics compiled by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada. In January 2025, the number of consumer insolvency filings in Canada increased by 20 per cent compared to the previous month.

When President Trump began raising tariffs earlier this year, government officials and economists feared Mexico’s export-led economy would take a devastating hit. Instead, Mexican exports to the U.S. have grown, the Wall Street Journal reported. Because Mexico’s ultimate tariff rate ended up lower than for most other countries, the disparity has helped Mexican exports fill some of the gap left by Chinese products subject to higher levies. Producers seeking a foothold in the U.S.

Canada is in a unique position to leverage America’s need for lumber as officials review the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in the New Year, according to a trade expert, BNNBloomberg.com reported. U.S. President Donald Trump claims the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada yet Canada produces about 25 per cent of all U.S. lumber demand. Nearly 90 per cent of softwood lumber is exported to the American market. “The good news is they need our wood. We think that there’s an ability to make a deal at some point,” Daryl Swetlishoff, head of research at Raymond James Ltd.

China Vanke, the latest developer to teeter in the country’s long-running real estate crisis, said bondholders had agreed to a plan that gave the company a 30-day grace period to negotiate repayment of a $285 million bond issue, the New York Times reported. Approval from bondholders after a vote on Monday provided Vanke with a temporary lifeline, preventing the company from immediately tipping into default for failing to repay bonds that matured on Dec. 15. However, the bondholders again rejected Vanke’s proposal to delay repayment by one year.

Klöckner Pentaplast announced yesterday that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas has confirmed its reorganization plan, PlasticsToday.com reported. The plan, according to the company, was developed and financed with the support of an ad hoc group of its first-lien lenders and noteholders. Upon completion of the restructuring, Klöckner Pentaplast said it will reduce approximately €1.3B ($1.5B) of funded debt.

Brazilian airline Azul SA is the latest in a string of overseas carriers turning to chapter 11 in the US, becoming “bankruptcy tourists” to access legal protections largely out of reach in their home countries, according to a Bloomberg Law commentary. Azul’s bankruptcy plan, approved this month, slashes more than $2 billion in debt and allows it to reject aircraft leases it couldn’t easily shed at home. Other foreign carriers seeking chapter 11 in the US over the past five years include Avianca, LATAM, Grupo Aeroméxico, and, more recently, Brazil’s Gol Linhas Aéreas.