EU finance ministers backed new rules for hedge funds and private equity groups on Tuesday, spelling defeat for Britain's new coalition government at its first European Union meeting, Reuters reported. "We can basically say that we have the agreement we need to take a general approach (to tighter restrictions),” Spain's finance minister Elena Salgado told reporters as EU colleagues discussed the issue in Brussels.

The number of company winding-up petitions and individual bankruptcy petitions presented in courts in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2010 increased on the previous quarter, ministry of justice statistics showed Thursday, Dow Jones reported. In total, 2,777 winding-up petitions to dissolve a company that can't pay its debts were presented in the first quarter, 4% up from the 2,670 presented in the fourth quarter of 2009. This compares with the 3,461 winding-up petitions filed in the first quarter of 2009.

U.S. navigation device maker Garmin said it would raise its bid for debt-laden Raymarine by more than 16 percent, topping a third-party offer, if the British marine navigation supplier were to enter into administration, Reuters reported. Garmin said it would pay more than 17.5 pence for each share in Raymarine, representing a premium of at least 21 percent to Raymarine's Thursday close. Earlier on Friday, Raymarine said an unnamed third party had walked away from a potential deal but remained willing to reconsider a transaction if Raymarine placed itself with administrators.

One of Scotland’s oldest housebuilders has been forced into receivership by the Bank of Scotland, The Herald reported. Renfrewshire-based John Dickie Group, founded in 1880, was told at the beginning of the month that the bank was not prepared to continue its support, and the directors were asked to call in administrators. They resisted, and yesterday the bank called in receivers, whose appointment is likely to be announced today.

Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. has succeeded in its quest to raise GBP105 million ($156 million) to stave off a bank foreclosure on EMI Group, people familiar with the situation said, giving the private-equity firm leverage in its battle with lender Citigroup Inc. over the fate of the legendary music company, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. EMI has until Friday to inform Citi that it has come up with the cash necessary to stave off default in mid-June.

How will we catch something so virulent from as far away as Greece? In the same way as we caught our last economic illness, through an intensely integrated international financial system, The Independent reported in a commentary. British banks have lent money to Greece, both to her government and to private companies and individuals, but not that much in the big scheme of things – perhaps $15.4bn (£10.4bn), according to the Bank for International Settlements. But the European banks own much more.

The number of people in England and Wales entering into insolvency rose to a new high in the first three months of the year, figures from the Insolvency Service showed today. A total of 35,682 people became insolvent during the period, equal to 566 people a day. This was the fifth consecutive quarter during which the total has hit a record level, as increasing numbers of consumers struggle to keep up with their debts, The Guardian reported. But there was better news on the corporate front, with total company liquidations falling by 4% compared with the previous quarter to 4,196.

Barclays Plc, in the midst of a bitter fight with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. over claims it received a secret multibillion dollar windfall when it purchased some of the investment bank's assets, is suing a group of Lehman's former private-equity real-estate funds now controlled by a real-estate investment firm, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Lehman's bankruptcy case, Barclays says PCCP Mezzanine Recovery Partners II owes its wealth management business $16 million in unpaid management fees.

A former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executive on Tuesday disputed a central claim in Lehman's bid to recover billions of dollars from Barclays Plc, saying there was no secret $5 billion discount in the sale of Lehman's core business, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Lehman and its creditors claim that Barclays reaped a $5 billion windfall in the deal because as part of the transaction, the bank paid $45 billion in cash in exchange for $50.6 billion in securities.

Barclays Plc had “a right to walk away” from a 2008 deal to buy bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit and would have if certain assets had been left out, the U.K. bank’s top in-house lawyer said, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. “That was clearly in Barclays’s mind at that point in time,” Jonathan Hughes, Barclays’s global general counsel, told a bankruptcy judge in New York today, referring to the bank’s discovery during the negotiations that Lehman couldn’t deliver all the promised assets.