Vancouver may try to integrate Bitcoin into city finances just as the digital token’s value is surging, a rally fueled by US President-elect Donald Trump’s support for crypto, Bloomberg News reported. City council will consider a motion on Dec. 11 from Mayor Ken Sim titled “Preserving of the city’s purchasing power through diversification of financial reserves – becoming a Bitcoin friendly city.” Sim’s ABC Vancouver party has a majority of the 11 votes on council.

Northvolt has held talks with a big industrial company on selling the business that makes electric battery packs for heavy industry, as a lack of funds forces it to try to divest one of its few profitable operations by the year-end, an internal memo shows, Reuters reported. The rush to sell is the Swedish company's latest effort to strengthen its finances and shrink the business to focus on battery cell production, rather than being an all-in-one-shop for making and recycling electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Last month, Europe's biggest hope for an EV battery champion filed for U.S.

The chief content officer of troubled Indian tech firm Byju’s and an ally of the company’s founder face financial sanctions in the US for their roles in stripping software, cash and other assets from businesses under court supervision, Bloomberg News reported. A federal judge is considering imposing millions of dollars in sanctions on Byju’s manager Vinay Ravindra and company ally Rajendran Vellapalath, who founded Dubai-based tech startup Voizzit Technology. At a court hearing yesterday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John T.

The Canadian government rolled out C$49 billion ($34.8 billion) in loans to businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic without “due regard for value for money,” the country’s auditor general said, Bloomberg News reported. About C$3.5 billion was paid out to more than 77,000 ineligible businesses that applied to the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA), Karen Hogan concluded in a report on Monday. That’s 9% of the nearly 900,000 Canadian businesses that received loans through the program, which was introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in 2020.

Electric bus manufacturer Lion Electric Co. is temporarily laying off about 400 workers and halting operations at its Illinois factory to save cash after receiving a short-term lifeline from its lenders, Bloomberg News reported. The Saint-Jerome, Quebec-based company made the announcement after a Saturday deadline to meet its obligations to key creditors passed. The extensions until Dec. 16 apply to a credit agreement with a syndicate of lenders and a loan provided by the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec and Finalta Capital Inc., Lion said in a statement Sunday.

Glas Trust, which represents a group of US entities that lent $1.2 billion to Byju's, on Monday questioned the maintainability of the Indian cricket board’s application to withdraw its insolvency petition against the cash-strapped edtech firm, the Economic Times of India reported. At the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Glas Trust cited procedural lapses for seeking rejection of the application filed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Mexico’s finance ministry is preparing to enlist a consortium of banks to provide financing that Petroleos Mexicanos would use to pay off debt with service providers, according to a recording of remarks made by its CEO, Bloomberg News reported. The state-owned oil company is coordinating with the finance ministry, which would potentially take on debt on its behalf to pay the service contractors, Chief Executive Officer Victor Rodriguez said at a private event on Friday hosted by Mexico’s College of Petroleum Engineers.

Panama’s credit score was cut by S&P Global Ratings, putting the Central American nation a step closer to losing its investment-grade status, Bloomberg News reported. S&P lowered Panama by a notch to BBB-, on par with Mexico and Romania, citing rising government debt levels made worst by sluggish revenue. The outlook is stable. “The downgrade reflects the sovereign’s weaker flexibility that increases the vulnerability to economic and fiscal challenges ahead,” analysts including Karla Gonzalez and Manuel Orozco wrote in a Tuesday statement.

Donald Trump’s new tariff pledges send a clear signal that he wants to rewrite the terms of North America’s free-trade pact and follow through with plans to hit China with tariffs, demonstrating to allies and adversaries alike that he is serious about renewing confrontation over a global trading system that he believes costs the U.S. dearly, the Wall Street Journal reported.