Ontario Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel has handed down a long-awaited ruling in the bankruptcy proceedings surrounding U.S. Steel Canada, Canadian Manufacturing reported. The court battle centred on more than $2 billion in loans paid by Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel to its then subsidiary USS Canada following the Stelco acquisition in 2007. The government of Ontario and the United Steelworkers union have maintained the funds were extended to USS’s Canadian operation as “equity” rather than debt, while USS has said it expected the funds to be repaid.

Google moved €10.7 billion through the Netherlands to Bermuda in 2014, as part of a structure which allows it to earn most of its foreign income tax free, the Irish Times reported. Accounts for Google Netherlands Holdings published on Thursday show the unit transferred almost all its revenue, mainly royalties from an Irish affiliate through which most non-US. revenue is channelled, to a Bermuda-based, Irish-registered affiliate called Google Ireland Holdings. The tax strategy is known to accountants as the “double Irish, Dutch Sandwich’.

More than one-third of oil and natural-gas producers around the world are at risk of declaring bankruptcy this year, according to a new report from Deloitte, The Wall Street Journal MoneyBeat blog reported. Oil prices have plunged from more than $100 a barrel in mid-2014 to about $30 a barrel today. Yet just 35 so-called exploration and production companies filed for bankruptcy between July 2014 and the end of last year, Deloitte says. Most producers managed to stay afloat by raising cash through capital markets, asset sales and spending cuts. Those options are running out.

Mexico’s central bank raised the key lending rate by half a point to 3.75 per cent at an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday in an attempt to nip in the bud the prospect of rising inflation, the Financial Times reported. The bank — which followed the US Federal Reserve in lifting rates in December when it lifted rates by a quart of a point, and had been expected to stay in step with the US — stressed its decision was not the start of a rate raising cycle.

Goodwill Industries of Toronto, Eastern, Central and Northern Ontario says it's seeking bankruptcy protection as it tries to restructure, CTV News reported on a Canadian Press story. CEO Keiko Nakamura said Monday in a statement the Goodwill has filed an assignment under Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The statement says the purpose of the filing is to preserve Goodwill's assets for its principal creditors, who are collectively the former employees of the corporation.

Junior oilsands developer Laricina Energy has been granted a final court order from the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, exiting from protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada), Oilweek reported. The company has paid in full all accounts in respect of its CCAA proceedings and has set aside a reserve of $1.8 million to pay the remaining unpaid proven claims and outstanding disputed claim. Resolution of the disputed claim will continue on a timetable set by the parties or the court.

The uncertain future of Baha Mar, a $3.5 billion mega-resort nearing completion on Nassau’s white-sand Cable Beach, points to the challenges China faces as it finances and builds large-scale construction projects overseas amid language and cultural barriers, lack of regulation and allegations of graft. “The more problems there are and, in a way, the more media attention these problems attract, they erode positive attitudes towards Chinese presence in the region,” said Ariel C.

I refer, of course, to the 2007 takeover of Stelco, just one of a spree of foreign takeovers that substantially contributed to a diminishment of Ontario’s profile on the world economic stage, the Toronto Star reported. (Think Falconbridge, Inco, Rio Algom.) At the height of the foreign takeover mania, the federal government of the day offered repeated assurances that the Investment Canada Act provided all the protections necessary to ensure such transactions would be of “net benefit” to Canada. In remaking Stelco into U.S.

A Calgary-based oilfield services company with 112 employees at six locations as of the end of 2014 has been placed in receivership, an apparent victim of the current drilling downturn prompted by low oil and gas prices, The Calgary Herald reported. Great Prairie Energy Services Inc. announced late Friday that Grant Thornton Ltd. had been appointed receiver by the Court of Queen’s Bench and that all of its directors and officers had resigned.

Policy makers at the Bank of Canada were leaning toward another rate cut when they began their deliberations ahead of Wednesday’s rate announcement, but ultimately decided to stand pat, Governor Stephen Poloz said, The Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank held the key rate at 0.5% after considering expectations for future government stimulus spending and the risks associated with the recent plunge in the value of the Canadian dollar, Mr. Poloz said.