Beleaguered Italian ferry operator Moby SpA dropped its request for an order blocking Morgan Stanley from trading in the company’s debt or interfering in its restructuring, Bloomberg News reported. Moby told a federal court in New York late Sunday that it was withdrawing its application for a temporary restraining order against the bank, which it accused in a Sept. 27 lawsuit of participating in a secret plan to foil its restructuring in Italy and seize control from other creditors.
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A U.S. judge said Germany's Allianz SE must face investor claims it wrongly "abandoned" the investment strategies it promised to use on hedge funds that suffered massive losses as the COVID-19 pandemic shook markets early last year, Reuters reported. In an 81-page decision, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan said that investors could try to show Allianz was negligent and lacked good faith in managing its Structured Alpha funds. She also dismissed some state law-based claims.
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U.S. stock markets opened higher on Tuesday, rebounding from their worst day in months on Monday as nerves about the Chinese real estate debt crisis eased, Investing.com reported. Better-than-expected data from the housing market also supported the sentiment. Housing starts and building permits for August both came in above expectations, albeit not by enough to cause any acceleration in the Federal Reserve's timeline for running down its asset purchases or raising interest rates. The Fed's latest two-day policy meeting started Tuesday. By 9:45 a.m.
The World Bank is cancelling a prominent report on business conditions around the world after investigators found staff members were pressured by the bank’s leaders to alter data about China and some other governments, Aljazeera.com reported. The bank said on Thursday that it would discontinue “Doing Business” following an investigation prompted by internal reports of “data irregularities” in its 2018 and 2020 editions and possible “ethical matters” involving bank staff.
The prospect of the largest overhaul to the global tax system in a century took a step forward this week as top Democrats introduced a plan to rewrite tax rules for multinational companies in a way that would allow the United States to join the rest of the world in an effort to crack down on tax havens, the New York Times reported. Finance ministers from around the world have been working for months to complete a plan to end what they describe as a race to the bottom on corporate taxation before an October deadline.
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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into German insurer Allianz is looking at possible misconduct by fund managers and misrepresentation of risk to investors, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The probe, disclosed by the company on Aug. 1, is focused on Allianz funds that used complex options strategies to generate returns but racked up massive losses when the spread of COVID-19 triggered wild stock market swings in February and March 2020.
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The $10 billion takeover battle for British supermarket group Morrisons between two U.S. private equity groups looks set to be decided by a rarely used auction process, Reuters reported. Morrisons said on Wednesday that it was in talks with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), Fortress Investment Group and Britain's takeover regulator about an auction to settle its future. Last month, Morrisons agreed a 7 billion pound ($9.6 billion) offer from CD&R, which has former Tesco boss Terry Leahy as a senior adviser.
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U.S. payments giant PayPal Holdings Inc. said it would acquire Japanese "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) firm Paidy in a $2.7 billion largely cash deal, taking another step to claim the top spot in an industry experiencing a pandemic-led boom, Reuters reported. The deal tracks rival Square Inc.'s agreement last month to buy Australian BNPL success story Afterpay Ltdfor $29 billion, which experts said was likely the beginning of a consolidation in the sector.
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The Biden administration has no plans to release billions in Afghan gold, investments and foreign currency reserves parked in the United States that it froze after the Taliban's takeover, despite pressure from humanitarian groups and others who say the cost may be the collapse of Afghanistan's economy, Reuters reported. Much of the Afghan central bank's $10 billion in assets are parked overseas, where they are considered a key instrument for the West to pressure the Taliban to respect women's rights and the rule of law.
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Centerra Gold Inc. is claiming a Kyrgyz open-pit mine it once ran has flooded and poses safety and environmental risks, although the government-appointed administrator says the water has always been there, Bloomberg News reported. There may be at least 40 meters (131 feet) of water at the bottom of the Kumtor central pit, the Canadian mining company said on Tuesday in a statement, citing photos on Kumtor Gold Co.’s website and a company video posted mid August on Facebook.
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