Qatar National Bank QPSC, the Middle East’s biggest lender, asked a U.S. court to order Eritrea to pay nearly $300 million of debt after the Horn of Africa nation refused to participate in two lawsuits, Bloomberg News reported. The Doha-based bank requested a judgment by default from a federal court in Washington on Friday after Eritrea failed to respond to the bank’s claim seeking to enforce a U.K. ruling in 2019. QNB alleges that President Isaias Afwerki’s government went to drastic lengths to avoid being served with key documents.
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Bayer lost a third appeal against U.S. court verdicts that awarded damages to customers blaming their cancers on use of its glyphosate-based weedkillers, leaving the German drugs and pesticides group to pin hopes for legal relief on the U.S. Supreme Court, Reuters reported. A California appeals court yesterday upheld an $86 million verdict that found Bayer responsible for a couple's cancer after using Bayer's glyphosate-based Roundup against weeds.
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Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. made a new, higher bid for Kansas City Southern, looking to derail the U.S. railroad’s pending merger with rival Canadian National Railway Co. ahead of an important shareholder vote less than two weeks away, Bloomberg News reported. The offer is $300 a share, Canadian Pacific said in a statement Tuesday, or about $27 billion in equity value. While that’s higher than its original $25 billion bid from March, the new price doesn’t match the $30 billion deal that Kansas City Southern’s board accepted from Canadian National in May.
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Bankrupt units of a Mexican and Colombian payroll lender have secured court approval to access part of a $45 million loan to fund operations during their chapter 11 case after agreeing to install a chief restructuring officer, Reuters reported. During a virtual hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kate Stickles in Wilmington, Del., signed off on Alpha Latam Management LLC's request to tap $17.5 million of the full loan. A hearing on the rest of the loan will be held at a later date. ALM is an affiliate of Mexico’s Alpha Holding SA de CV, which is not part of the chapter 11 case.
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Container shipping rates from China to the United States have scaled fresh highs above $20,000 per 40-foot box as rising retailer orders ahead of the peak U.S. shopping season add strain to global supply chains, Reuters reported. The acceleration in Delta-variant COVID-19 outbreaks in several counties has slowed global container turnaround rates. Typhoons off China's busy southern coast in late July and this week have also contributed to the crisis gripping the world's most important method for moving everything from gym equipment and furniture to car parts and electronics.
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The Mexican government on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in the United States against 11 gun manufacturers and suppliers, accusing them of negligently facilitating the flow of weapons to powerful drug cartels and enabling tremendous bloodshed in Mexico, the New York Times reported.
Shareholders in Mallinckrodt, the Dublin-based but U.S.-run drugmaker in the middle of a bankruptcy reorganization, are being urged by a leading corporate advisory firm to vote against some directors as a parting rebuke over its handling of the U.S. opioid crisis and executive pay, the Irish Times reported. Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy in Delaware last October as the company was overwhelmed by lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing opioids. The company is pursuing a U.S.
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The U.S. securities regulator will not allow Chinese companies to raise money in the United States unless they fully explain their legal structures and disclose the risk of Beijing interfering in their businesses, the agency said on Friday, confirming an exclusive report by Reuters. In a statement, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said he had also asked staff to "engage in targeted additional reviews of filings for companies with significant China-based operations." The development underscores U.S.
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There’s still at least one thing Americans do better than anyone else in the world: Corporate bankruptcies, Bloomberg reported. Since 2013, hundreds of foreign businesses have taken advantage of U.S. bankruptcy courts to slash debt and clean up their balance sheets, according to an analysis of legal filings. The reason is simple, lawyers and former judges say: America has the most company-friendly bankruptcy rules in the developed world. “The lawyers and judges know how to move things through the system quickly,” said Prof.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that a compromise deal that will allow the completion of a Russian gas pipeline to Europe without the imposition of further U.S. sanctions is “good for Ukraine,” the Associated Press reported. The U.S. and Germany announced the deal on Wednesday and committed to countering any Russian attempt to use the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a political weapon. They also agreed to support Ukraine and Poland, both of which are bypassed by the project and fear Russia’s intentions, by funding alternative energy and development projects.