European Union finance ministers on Wednesday reached a compromise on a new supervisory framework for the bloc's financial markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under the plan agreed by the ministers, the EU will create two new supervisory groups for financial markets: a "macro-prudential" body to study big-picture risks to stability and three "micro-prudential" groups to look at specific issues in the banking, securities, and insurance and pension sectors.

U.S. carmaker General Motors' decision to keep its European unit Opel will benefit European taxpayers, especially in Britain, Germany and Spain, British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said on Thursday, Reuters reported. He said he believed workers at GM's Vauxhall unit in Britain would prefer to keep the same management rather than have new owners, but gave no details of how the restructuring of the company would be financed.

Initial data on British third-quarter growth showed the economy there remained mired in recession, while releases from the euro area Friday presented a picture of steadily improving activity, The New York Times reported. The large debt burden on British consumers is the main reason for the divergent performance, analysts said. A preliminary release from the Office of National Statistics in London showed gross domestic product contracted by 0.4 percent between July and September from the previous three months and shrank by 5.2 percent compared with a year earlier.

More than $3 billion can be paid back to hedge fund clients of Lehman Brothers, a London judge ruled on Wednesday, the latest in a string of court cases triggered by the investment bank's failure, Reuters reported. Administrators of Lehman Brothers' London operations, PricewaterhouseCoopers, asked the London high court for a ruling on how to treat cash raised after Lehman collapsed.

Canadians are being urged to pay close attention to the plight of workers from bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp. because it could some day be their own story, The Toronto Star reported. With many company pension plans across the country underfunded, workers could easily see their pensions and other benefits reduced dramatically or disappear if their employer closes the doors for good. Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, predicted that pension and benefit protections will be front and centre in the next federal election.

Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz, battered by higher gas import prices and the country's deep recession, said on Monday investors in its $500 million Eurobond had agreed to its restructuring terms, Reuters reported. The company, often at the centre of energy rows with Russia that have previously led to supply cuts to Europe, wants to swap its entire foreign debt -- including the Eurobond -- for a new 5-year issue worth $1.65 billion. Bondholders gathered in London in Monday after weeks of consideration and overwhelmingly approved the new terms.

The administrator for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's European unit on Monday unveiled a new plan to dole out the collapsed investment bank's assets directly to creditors, Reuters reported. The administrators, said they would put forward a "contractual solution" that would allow them to distribute "a very significant portion" of the $8.9 billion in securities assets currently under their control, according to a statement published on the administrators' website.

Many struggling British retailers are facing a worse Christmas than last year, when 15 major chains failed, according to insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor, Reuters reported. The company said rising unemployment and fragile consumer confidence would result in many companies entering formal insolvency proceedings within a year.

An international adoption agency that collapsed this summer, stunning hundreds of would-be adoptive parents who had put up thousands of dollars, was moved out of bankruptcy yesterday, The London Free Press reported. The proposed restructuring of Imagine Adoption was approved by a Kitchener court yesterday. Its new directors can take control from bankruptcy trustees who had been running the organization since mid-July. The Cambridge-based agency, which facilitated adoptions largely from Ethiopia, went bankrupt in mid-July amid questions from its then-board about staff spending.

Ukrainian officials held talks in London with investors in hopes of winning a reprieve on $500 million worth of Eurobonds issued by the state energy company Naftogaz that mature Wednesday, Newsday reported on an Associated Press story. The debt-laden company, a crucial link for supplies of Russian natural gas to Europe, is seeking to restructure $1.65 billion in foreign debt coming due this year, including the Eurobonds.