A numbered company is petitioning the B.C. Supreme Court to force Skeena Sawmills and its affiliated entities into bankruptcy, The Interior News reported. According to a Sept. 8 court filing, 1392752 B.C. Ltd., seeks to appoint a receiver and manager of all properties associated with Skeena Sawmills, Skeena Bioenergy and ROC Holdings to sell them and distribute the proceedings. Alvarez & Marsal Canada was named as a potential receiver.

Laurentian Bank of Canada ended its strategic review without finding a buyer and plans to carry on as an independent firm with a slimmer management team. The company’s shares plunged, Bloomberg News reported. The Canadian bank announced in July it was examining its options. It hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to run the process and considered a number of possibilities, including a sale of the whole bank or parts of it. Instead, it will try to ramp up its current strategy, which includes growth in commercial lending and technology upgrades.

The director of a Scottish firm who conned US oil and gas investors to invest through his company has been given a 14-year ban, the International Business Times reported. The Glasgow director took millions from UK investors, assuring them of investing it in American oil and gas companies through a Ponzi scheme. On September 8, the British Insolvency Service announced that 52-year-old Kenneth James Campbell from Glasgow was banned from being the company director of HGEC Capital Limited.

The operator of the Panama Canal said there’s no immediate prospect of relief from the drought that’s reduced water levels and snarled shipping and global supply chains, Bloomberg News reported. Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez Morales said Tuesday that abnormally high ocean temperatures, an unpredictable rainy season and the persistence of the El Niño weather phenomenon mean officials will have to continue restricting vessel traffic into 2024.

Most Canadians are prepared to see home values fall, according to a new poll, suggesting some homeowners are willing to give up a bit of their own wealth to improve affordability for others, Bloomberg News reported. Some 70% of respondents said they would be happy (40%) or somewhat happy (30%) to see home prices go down, says the poll conducted by Nanos Research for Bloomberg News. When asked about solutions to the high cost of shelter, Canadians’ preferred option is to build more homes, faster — including government-subsidized ones. But 12% said the best answer is to curb immigration.

Canadian Housing Minister Sean Fraser is keeping a wide range of options on the table as he looks to make a dent in a national housing shortage, the CBC reported. "There's a range [of incentives] that we're considering right now. Some could include potential tax incentives for builders to build. Some could include other low-cost financing arrangements," Fraser said in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live that aired Sunday.

Argentina suffered a big legal defeat on Friday as a U.S. judge ruled that the country must pay about $16 billion to minority shareholders of YPF arising from the government’s 2012 seizure of a majority stake in the oil and gas company, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan ruled in favor of Burford Capital, which funded the litigation brought by shareholders Petersen Energia Inversora and Eton Park Capital Management LP, and according to court papers was entitled to a respective 70% and 75% of their damages.

Validus Power Corp., which operates a power plant in northern Ontario, has been forced into receivership, CTVNews.ca reported. Validus ran the power plant under an agreement with Macquarie Equipment Finance Ltd. In April 2022, Macquarrie bought the turbines, plant and equipment from Iroquois Falls Power Corp. for $45 million, then leased it back to Validus to operate. Under the lease agreement with Validus, Macquarie was to receive monthly rent payments, with the understanding that the corporation could be forced into bankruptcy if it defaulted.

An agreement between El Salvador and a group of private local banks to reprofile its short-term debt has helped extend a stellar rally in its international bonds, which have returned more than 90% this year, Reuters reported. The government announced last week that it accepted the proposal by eight private banks to extend the maturities of short term local bills into new two, three, five and seven year notes. The size of the operation is approximately $1.45 billion, the finance ministry told Reuters.

The Bank of Canada held its main interest rate steady at 5% after back-to-back rate rises in June and July, saying the economy has shifted into a weaker phase and labor-market pressures have eased, the Wall Street Journal reported. Nevertheless, the central bank Wednesday said it remained concerned “about the persistence of underlying inflationary pressures,” and is prepared to raise rates again should conditions not improve. Along with the U.S.