A U.S. accounting watchdog found unacceptable deficiencies in audits of U.S.-listed Chinese companies performed by KPMG in China and PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong, the government agency said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)published the findings of its inspections after gaining access to Chinese company auditors' records for the first time last year following more than a decade of negotiations with Chinese authorities. That access kept roughly 200 China-based public companies from potentially being kicked off U.S.

A U.S. court of appeals has granted Venezuela a temporary stay preventing six companies from joining a proposed court auction of shares in a Citgo Petroleum parent to enforce judgments for past expropriation of assets, Reuters reported. Since March, creditors including a unit of O-I Glass, Huntington Ingalls Industries, ACL1 Investments, Koch Minerals and mining firms Rusoro Mining and Gold Reserve, have been granted rights to seize shares in the parent of Venezuela-owned refiner Citgo, PDV Holding.

Argentina is seeking new easing of targets in its $44 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund and faster payouts, and is pushing to get key IMF members the United States and Brazil to support it, Reuters reported. The country is expected to return to talks with the IMF on Thursday over amending the deal, which has come under strain amid a historic drought that has battered the country's key cash crops soy and corn, a senior economy ministry official said.

A British Columbia company has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S., GlobalNews.ca reported. Known for creating engineered wood products, also known as mass timber, Structurlam of Penticton announced on Monday that it had entered into a purchase agreement to sell all of its assets in B.C. and Arkansas for US$60 million. Mass timber is wood that’s been glued or laminated together, then digitally cut out in various shapes, sizes and lengths. Those custom pieces are then shipped and precisely assembled on-site.

In the latest official scrutiny of a prominent American business in China, the authorities visited the Shanghai offices of the U.S. management consulting firm Bain & Company this month to question its employees, the New York Times reported. In a written statement, Bain said that it is “cooperating as appropriate with the Chinese authorities,” but declined to comment on the nature of the investigation and whether its employees’ phones and computers had been seized during the visit.

Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc and its subsidiaries in the United States filed a chapter 11 bankruptcy plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, the company said in a statement on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Earlier this month, Virgin Orbit filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after the satellite launch company struggled to secure long-term funding following a failed launch in January.

Credit Suisse has lodged a $440 million claim against Japan's SoftBank Group Corp in London as it presses ahead with formal proceedings in a dispute borne from the failure of Greensill Capital, a finance firm, Reuters reported. The Swiss lender is trying to recover client funds that Greensill had lent to Katerra, a SoftBank-backed U.S. construction group that filed for bankruptcy in 2021. SoftBank has vowed to vigorously fight the claim. The collapse of Greensill, along with a string of scandals, helped dent confidence in the 167-year-old Swiss bank.

SAS will not be using the second tranche of its $700 million debtor-in-possession (DIP) term loan in the second quarter of the year, due to stronger than expected development of the airline's liquidity, the airline said on Monday, Reuters reported. SAS may, depending on the development of its liquidity, continue discussions with Apollo regarding access to the second tranche of the DIP term loan at a later stage of the chapter 11 process.

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said China and the U.S. have a responsibility to set aside their differences and help countries such as his get the debt relief they need to avoid further damage to their economies, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. With finance officials from around the world gathering in Washington this week for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank biannual meetings, Mr. Hichilema’s country is emerging as a focal point of discussions on how to restructure poor nations’ debts. U.S.