Canadians are borrowing money across more accounts and at later stages of financial stress as debt balances hit record highs, a new bankruptcy study has found, the Globe and Mail reported. The average insolvent debtor owed $67,496 in unsecured debt, including credit card loans and payday loans, in 2025, Monday’s report from Ontario bankruptcy trustee firm Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc. found. It’s the highest average level the firm has recorded since it began tracking that debt 15 years ago.

A loan deal is turning into a problem for German investor Lars Windhorst: The investment company Istar Capital is accusing him in a lawsuit of failing to pay several million euros. To avoid payments, he allegedly even founded new companies and falsified payment receipts. This is according to court documents that Istar filed in the Southern District of New York at the end of last week , and which t-online has obtained. The documents seen by t-online so far contain no evidence to support Windhorst's claim that the lawsuit will soon be resolved.

The U.S. is moving to reduce its so-called reciprocal tariff on goods from Bangladesh and offering a new exemption for textile products, the White House said Monday, in the latest adjustment for the South Asian country, Bloomberg News reported. President Donald Trump will lower the country’s overall reciprocal tariff to 19%, after previously slashing the rate from 37% to 20% last year. But the deal also includes a mechanism that allows certain textile merchandise to receive a full exemption from the levies, providing a break to Bangladesh’s apparel industry.

With a deal having now been ratified between Laurentian University and its faculty after a strike lasting nearly three weeks, LU says it has yet to be determined when the semester will resume, although it’s looking like Reading Week will be cancelled, Sudbury.com reported. Despite the Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) presenting the university’s offer to its members without a recommendation for rejection or acceptance, they voted 74 per cent in favour at a Feb. 8 meeting. The university’s board of governors also ratified the deal at a meeting on Feb.

The future of Eddie Bauer’s Canadian stores is hinging on whether the company can find a buyer, the Canadian Press reported. The apparel retailer announced on Monday that it is looking to sell the 220 stores it has across Canada and the U.S. after filing for bankruptcy protection south of the border. It said a similar filing was impending in Canada, where its website listed 31 stores, predominantly in Ontario. Eddie Bauer LLC said locations on both sides of the border will remain open, but host liquidation sales as the court processes get underway and the company seeks a potential buyer.

Chinese automaker BYD has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging President Donald Trump's bid to use ​sweeping authority to impose tariffs, and requesting a refund for ‌all levies it paid since last April, court documents show, Reuters reported. The lawsuit, the first by a ‌Chinese carmaker over U.S. tariffs, follows similar complaints by thousands of global companies with U.S. operations challenging Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose border taxes. In the lawsuit filed at the U.S.

President Trump spent much of last year courting foreign investment in U.S. factories, promising to replace jobs lost to the global economy. The rise of a Chinese automotive glass plant in the Ohio heartland shows the risks when America’s biggest rival sets up shop, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ohio’s governor, along with state and federal lawmakers, welcomed Fuyao when the Chinese glassmaking giant took over a closed General Motors factory a decade ago. The project, supported by Ohio taxpayers, was hailed as a step to reviving a battered Rust Belt region. Now, many feel duped.

The Bank of Mexico left its benchmark interest rate unchanged on Thursday, pausing after 12 consecutive cuts to assess the inflationary impact of recent tax and tariff increases, the Wall Street Journal reported. The five-member board of governors voted unanimously to leave the overnight interest-rate target at 7.0% in their first monetary policy meeting of the year. The pause was widely expected. The board “deemed appropriate on this occasion to pause the rate-cutting cycle, consistent with the assessment of the current inflationary outlook,” the central bank said.

The 2025 financial debt of Mexico's state-owned oil firm Pemex, closed at $84.5 billion, the company's CEO Victor Rodriguez Padilla said on Wednesday during the daily morning press conference of Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum, Reuters reported. Pemex's financial debt at the end of 2024 was of $97.6 billion. 2025 marks the fifth consecutive year that the state-owned firm saw a decrease in its financial debt, Rodriguez said. Read more.

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said on Thursday that the concession of contracts to operate two ports held and operated for nearly three decades by Hong Kong's CK Hutchison Holdings will "never again" be issued to a single company, Reuters reported. Panama's Supreme Court last week nullified CK Hutchison's contract to operate two ports along its strategic canal through its Panama Ports Company subsidiary, ruling that the contracts violated the Central American nation's constitution by giving the company exclusive privileges and tax exemptions.