Oceania

Up to 250,000 workers could lose their jobs when the JobKeeper wage subsidy ends this month as insolvency data reveals just three companies have used the Australian federal government’s new rules to help struggling employers restructure to avoid shutting down, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The end of the $90 billion JobKeeper program on March 28 is expected to result in thousands of businesses failing, pushing 125,000 to 250,000 people out of work, University of Melbourne Professor Jeff Borland estimates.

Lex Greensill’s ambitious plan to transform his arcane trade-finance business into a global lending force is rapidly falling apart, Bloomberg News reported. From Credit Suisse Group AG to SoftBank Group Corp., Greensill’s most ardent supporters have signaled doubts about the loans made by his supply-chain finance business, upending his multi-billion dollar empire. Greensill Capital, which as recently as last year was seeking a valuation of $7 billion and planning to eventually go public, is now discussing options including insolvency.

Member countries of the World Trade Organization are aiming to resurrect a dormant system for resolving trade disputes that has been a point of friction between the U.S. and other nations, the Wall Street Journal reported. The WTO’s Appellate Body, the apex of the Geneva-based group’s dispute-settlement system, has been effectively shut down since 2019 after the Trump administration blocked the appointment of new judges. U.S. complaints about the system, which predate the Trump presidency, center on Appellate Body rulings against tariffs and other remedies, limiting what U.S.

A 70-year-old New Zealand planemaker has had its Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certificates suspended after declaring it’s now insolvent, Australian Aviation reported. Pacific Aerospace, which employs 100 people in Hamilton on the North Island, manufactures aircraft popular for skydiving and the aerial application of fertiliser.