Canadian women's fashion retailer Laura's Shoppe, which owns Laura, Laura Petites and Melanie Lyne, has filed for creditor protection, CBC.ca reported. The company, with more than 150 stores across the country, said it expects to close some underperforming stores but plans to keep doing business as usual while it restructures. Laura admits it experienced large losses in 2012 and 2013, but president Kalman Fisher said sales have since rebounded. A filing under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act protects the retailer from claims by creditors while it revamps its operations.

Mexico, a middle-income but highly unequal country, is betting on sweeping structural reforms to catapult it into the big league of advanced economies. But it is not winning the battle against poverty and has not been for the past quarter of a century, despite economic growth and its membership of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). That is the stark conclusion to be drawn from a new bi-annual report from Coneval, a Mexican government agency charged with evaluating social policies.

The cost of completing the stalled $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort in the Bahamas has risen to $400 million, according to a letter from the project's developer. Baha Mar Ltd, run by Sarkis Izmirlian, has offered to invest $200 million in the project alongside the resort's main lender, China's Export-Import Bank, according to a letter viewed by Reuters.

A replacement lender for U.S. Steel Canada that will in effect double the cost of keeping two Canadian steel plants afloat was approved by a Toronto court Friday, CBC.ca reported. The application from USSC to replace its parent company, U.S. Steel (USS) with the new lenders, Brookfield Capital Partners, could cost the company $9.25 million, plus administration costs.

The developer of the $3.5 billion Baha Mar mega-resort is willing to commit up to $200 million to jumpstart the stalled Bahamas project, lawyers told a U.S. bankruptcy judge on Thursday. Baha Mar, which will feature a Las Vegas-style casino and more than 2,000 hotel rooms, is nearly complete, but construction stopped several months ago because of a dispute between the developer and the main contractor, Chinese State Construction Engineering Corp Ltd's China Construction America.

A judge in the Bahamas has declined to recognize the U.S. bankruptcy filing by Baha Mar Ltd, the developer of a $3.5 billion mega resort, a source familiar with the ruling said on Wednesday. Recognition of the Chapter 11 U.S. bankruptcy filing would have prevented creditors from taking action against Baha Mar Ltd in the Bahamas. The decision by Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder was the latest snag in the nearly completed project, which is considered vital for the Caribbean country's fragile economy. Baha Mar said in a statement it was disappointed by the ruling.

Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie plans to take control of an unfinished $3.5 billion mega resort, currently tied up in a corporate bankruptcy process, and push it through to completion to help bolster his country's fragile economy, Reuters reported. Christie, in a speech Thursday night, called for liquidators to take control of the Baha Mar resort and casino project. A fully operational resort would employ about 5,000 people and boost the Bahamas' gross domestic product by more than 10 percent.

The troubled $3.5 billion Baha Mar resort project in the Bahamas is preparing to wind down operations and cut more than 2,000 jobs if the developer fails to strike a deal quickly with its main lender, China's Export Import Bank, according to U.S. bankruptcy court filings, Reuters reported. The sprawling Baha Mar resort, developed by Sarkis Izmirlian, the son of an Armenian billionaire, had ramped up hiring earlier this year in anticipation of a March opening.

Canada's central bank cut its key interest rate Wednesday as it slashed its economic outlook and predicted a pullback in the second quarter due to the impact of lower oil prices and weaker demand for exports, the International New York Times reported. The Bank of Canada cut its target for the overnight rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.5 percent. In response, the Canadian dollar plunged to a post-recession low of 77.29 U.S. cents Wednesday afternoon, down 1.2 cents from the previous close.

The wife of bankrupt developer Sean Dunne wants orders permitting her lawyers to cross-examine a US lawyer about his sworn statements in support of Irish proceedings challenging the validity of transfers of valuable assets by Mr Dunne to his wife the Irish Times reported. The Commercial Court will later this month hear Gayle Dunne’s application for orders permitting the cross-examination of Timothy Miltenberger, who has sworn affidavits on behalf of Richard Coan, the US trustee administering Sean Dunne’s US bankruptcy.