Sweden’s financial watchdog has closed its long-running investigation into Alecta’s loss-making investments into three US niche banks, which tipped the pension fund into crisis in 2023, saying it found no breach of the rules, IPE.com reported. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen, FI) announced this morning: “The investigation has not shown any violations of the rules in the risk management system Alecta has had for assessing investment risks.

Canada and the U.S. will launch formal discussions to review their free trade agreement in mid-January, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said, the Associated Press reported. The prime minister confirmed to provincial leaders that Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for U.S-Canada trade relations, “will meet with U.S. counterparts in mid-January to launch formal discussions," Carney’s office said in a statement late Thursday. The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, is up for review in 2026. U.S.

Canada’s federal banking regulator says it is keeping its domestic stability buffer unchanged at 3.5 per cent as it judges major vulnerabilities in the banking system remain elevated but are stable, the Canadian Press reported. The buffer is the amount of money Canada’s big banks must keep on hand in case of economic shock. It applies to Canada’s six largest, or systemically important, banks.

There were 3.3 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in October, Statistics Canada revealed Thursday, BNNBloomberg reported. The ratio, which the department calls unemployment-to-job vacancy, increased by 0.5 year-over-year. That’s due to a decrease in job vacancies (-64,800 or -12.2 per cent, excluding the territories) and an increase in unemployed people. October’s unemployment rate was 6.9 per cent. In October, job vacancies in Canada decreased by 19,100 (-3.9 per cent) to 467,000, offsetting the uptick in September when the country logged 11,000 additional openings.

Lured by the promise of richer margins, a wave of Chinese consumer brands is making deeper inroads into American retail to offset sluggish spending at home, Reuters reported. Throughout 2025, companies including Labubu-maker Pop Mart trinket purveyor Miniso sportswear giant Anta and fast‑fashion label Urban Revivo have announced new U.S. stores or retail expansions, trying to establish a foothold in the world’s richest consumer market despite harsh U.S. tariffs and talk of economic decoupling.

Despite a sharp rise in food prices, inflationary pressures in Canada appear contained, Bank of Canada Gov. Tiff Macklem said Tuesday, adding that policymakers remain focused on keeping inflation at or near 2% to preserve households’ purchasing power. In a year-end speech in Montreal, Macklem said he expects the upheaval in global trade, fueled by President Trump’s tariffs, and the restructuring of Canada’s economy to dominate again in 2026.

The U.S. Trade Representative on Wednesday announced the implementation of tariff-related ​elements in a trade agreement framework reached ‌with Switzerland and Liechtenstein in November, Reuters reported. The tariff rates announced on ‌November 14 will be retroactive to that date, according to a post in the Federal Register. The notice amends the U.S. tariff schedule to apply either ⁠the most-favored-nation tariff ‌rate or a 15% rate, whichever is higher, to goods from the two ‍countries.

The decade-plus American bankruptcy of property developer Sean Dunne took a major step toward final resolution on Tuesday, after a U.S. judge allowed payments to his two ex-wives, the Irish Times reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Julie A. Manning approved, pending the filing of revised paperwork, more than $2.8 million in payments to Mr Dunne’s two ex-wives. She added she would also rule by Friday on distribution of the remainder of the more than $16 million in the estate.

Chris Johnson Associates Ltd, a long-standing local recovery and insolvency firm, has filed a legal action challenging a decision by the Work Permit Board to impose the conditions of an employee’s permit and a ruling by the Immigration Appeals Tribunal to uphold the decision, CaymanNewsService.com reported. In the writ, CJA claims the board and tribunal were erroneous in law, unreasonable and breached natural justice when they decided the permit would be granted for just six months but could not be renewed, and the firm must train a Caymanian for the position.

Inflation held steady in Canada last month as consumers paid less at the pumps and saw rent rise less steeply, though food prices continue to put pressure on wallets, the Wall Street Journal reported. The country’s consumer-price index rose a modest 0.1% in November and was up 2.2% on a year earlier, Statistics Canada said Monday. That was slightly softer than the 2.3% annual rate economists expected.