Canada saw a steep rise in insolvencies in 2023, particularly in Q4 and in Ontario and Quebec, and small businesses bore much of the brunt, according to a report from Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, CanadianLawyerMag.com reported. Rising by 41.4 percent compared to 2020 and 30.7 percent higher than 2019, the firm said its analysis of business openings, closings, and repayment requirements of government-subsidized loans indicated that smaller businesses largely drove rising filing rates.

Canada's inflation rate surprisingly cooled in February to its slowest pace since June, and closely-watched core inflation measures eased to more than two-year lows, data showed on Tuesday, prompting investors to increase their bets for a June rate cut, Reuters reported. Annual headline inflation cooled to 2.8% last month, beating analyst expectations for a 3.1% rise, and below 2.9% increase in January. On the month, the consumer price index rose 0.3%, less than a forecast 0.6% rise, Statistics Canada said.

The profits were multiplying at a dizzying clip: 50%, 100%, then suddenly almost 200%. Even for long-time veterans at Attestor Ltd., a boutique London firm that specializes in trading distressed assets, this had the makings of a score to remember, Bloomberg News reported. The trade — targeting the remains of Sam Bankman-Fried’s once-vast cryptocurrency empire — became a popular one in distressed investing circles last year.

An underachieving comedy festival in England and attempts by Facebook and YouTube to compete with the increasingly popular TikTok are among the factors that led revenue to plummet at the Just for Laughs festival parent company last year, a Quebec Superior Court filing suggests, the Canadian Press reported. The report on Thursday from insolvency trustee PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, lists the circumstances that left Groupe Juste pour rire inc. unable to pay its debts.

Indian tech firm Think & Learn Pvt must freeze $533 million in order to protect the money for disgruntled lenders who claim the cash should only be used to pay them, a U.S. judge said yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. The decision by US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey was a mixed victory for lenders. They earlier demanded the money be placed under the control of the federal court to prevent the cash from being spent by the Indian education-tech firm, which operates under the name Byju’s.

The highest bid received in a U.S. auction of shares that will decide the fate of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum was $7.3 billion, enough to cover only a third of court-approved claims, Reuters reported. A federal court in Delaware is auctioning the shares of a parent of Venezuela's foreign crown jewel, Houston-based Citgo, that it found liable for the South American country's debt defaults and expropriations. Creditors have flocked to Delaware to press claims totaling $21.3 billion in a case first brought nearly seven years ago by miner Crystallex.

SaltWire Network, the largest newspaper business in Atlantic Canada, has filed for creditor protection, the Globe and Mail reported. Documents filed in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia on Monday say the company, which runs 23 titles including its 150-year-old flagship newspaper, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, is more than $94-million in debt. Private debt firm Fiera, SaltWire’s largest creditor, also filed an application in court Monday, saying the media company owes it more than $32-million.

Bank of Mexico Deputy Governor Omar Mejia argued in a podcast published on Wednesday that it is not premature to consider lowering the bank's benchmark interest rate, though he cautioned that any future cuts should remain restrictive, Reuters reported. The bank's interest rate currently stands at a historic high of 11.25%, and the monetary authority is set to meet later this month.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd. has filed bankruptcy in its home country and the U.S. and said that it intends to restructure, Bloomberg News reported. The Calgary-based oil and gas production company said its existing lenders have offered to provide as much as US$11 million in financing to fund its proposed restructuring. COPL said it has requested the immediate suspension on trading of its shares on both the London Stock Exchange and the Canadian Securities Exchange. COPL has sought a form of chapter 11 protection in Canada and filed for bankruptcy in Delaware to protect its U.S.

Deutsche Bank's chief executive officer said on Tuesday that he expects the current crisis in commercial real estate to continue in 2024 and that provisions for loan losses will be at the upper end of its projected range, Reuters reported. There won't be "overall big relief" to the challenges facing commercial real estate in 2024, CEO Christian Sewing said. Deutsche Bank is Germany's largest lender and also has the most in outstanding loans to the commercial real-state sector among its domestic competitors, data show.