Ernst & Young LLP has resigned as Sino-Forest's auditor, days after a Canadian court granted creditor protection to the embattled Chinese forestry company and months after fraud allegations triggered a stampede out of its stock, Reuters reported. Sino-Forest's Toronto-listed shares tanked last June after a short-seller accused it of exaggerating the size of its forestry assets. The company says the allegations have paralyzed its business.

The Quebec government is threatening legal action against Air Canada over its alleged failure to comply with a federal law that requires the continued operation of maintenance services in Montreal, CanadianBusiness.com reported on a Canadian Press story. Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier told a news conference in Quebec City that the carrier had previously given assurances that its heavy maintenance operations would be continue to be performed in Montreal — effectively by Aveos Fleet Performance, the sucessor to a former subsidiary sold off by the airline.

Richard Chandler, the New Zealand billionaire and biggest shareholder of Sino-Forest, has hired a team to plan a rescue restructuring of the Chinese timber group after it filed for bankruptcy protection last week, the Financial Times reported. Richard Chandler Corporation, his investment vehicle, said on Monday that it had assembled a group including David Walker, an expert in the Asian forestry sector, to lead its proposal for the restructuring of Sino-Forest. “Sino-Forest faces a range of complex problems,” Mr Walker said.

Sino-Forest Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection as part of a plan that may see the Chinese timber grower company sold to bondholders, nine months after it was accused of fraud by short seller Carson Block, Bloomberg reported. The company obtained an initial order for creditor protection in the Ontario Superior Court under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, Sino-Forest said yesterday in a statement.

Toshiba Corp has decided to join the bidding race to sponsor Elpida Memory Inc's turnaround from bankruptcy, setting stage for a battle with U.S.-based Micron Technology, the Nikkei business daily said, Reuters reported. Toshiba, which believes adding Elpida's cell-phone-use DRAMs to its offerings is crucial for its survival in the chip industry, might seek financial assistance from the government-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan, the newspaper said. Elpida Memory will soon stop accepting applications for the first round of bidding, Nikkei said.

Singapore's privately held PhillipCapital Group said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy a majority stake in defunct broker MF Global's Indian unit, Reuters reported. PhillipCapital, which runs brokerage and asset management business across 13 countries, said it would plan to rename the business Phillip Securities India. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed and the transaction is still subject to regulatory approval. PhillipCapital said it will buy a majority stake in the joint venture between Sify Technologies and MF Global and has also agreed to buy the rest of the bankrupt U.S.

A new wave of scandals involving Chinese companies listed overseas could hit New York and Hong Kong in the coming weeks as the annual results season get under way with auditors on high alert for fraud, the Financial Times reported. Auditors are under great pressure this year to detect discrepancies in their clients’ results, having faced embarrassment and legal action in 2011 following dozens of accounting scandals at Chinese companies listed in North America.

The parent of an aircraft maintenance company spun off by Air Canada is expanding in El Salvador even as its Canadian arm liquidates its assets after terminating more than 2,600 employees, Reuters reported. Aveos, which shut its doors in Canada earlier this week, has corporate ties with El Salvador's Aeroman, with Aero Technical Support & Services Holdings, a closely held company domiciled in Luxembourg, owning both of them. While Aveos may count the Salvadoran unit as part of its network, the two operations are independent of each other, said Ernesto Ruiz, chief executive of Aeroman.

Bahraini investment house Arcapita's move to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States, while a milestone for debt restructuring in the Gulf, is unlikely to prompt other regional firms to follow suit, Reuters reported. Arcapita became the first Gulf Arab firm to file for Chapter 11 in the U.S. on Monday, under pressure from hedge funds which demanded full repayment ahead of the maturity of a $1.1 billion Islamic finance facility on March 28.

Air Canada is obliged by law to keep operations going at facilities that service its planes in the Canadian cities of Winnipeg, Mississauga and Montreal, Canadian Transport Minister Denis Lebel said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Lebel said the government was receiving advice about Air Canada's legal obligations with regards to Aveos, once part of the carrier's own maintenance unit. Aveos obtained bankruptcy protection on Monday, but it has since ceased all operations in Canada.