United States

The chairman of General Motors Argentina, Edgar Lourencon, confirmed that the automaker would not lay off personnel in the country, a day after its mother company in the United States filed for bankruptcy protection, the Buenos Aires Herald reported. Dismissing any rumours about the future of the company, the head of the local branch of GM meanwhile announced that the company is currently developing a new model to be produced in a plant in Santa Fe, which will be exported to the rest of the countries of the Mercosur.

Hundreds of unionized employees at AbitibiBowater will likely soon be able to take long-planned early retirements after a Quebec judge ruled illegal the company’s unilateral plan to amend their labour contracts, The Canadian Press reported. Justice Clement Gascon said the insolvent forestry company couldn’t prevent eligible workers from exercising their right to retirement. "None of the arguments (by AbitibiBowater) justify the illegality of the gestures it made," Gascon said Monday in a scathing verbal ruling.

Kentucky-based R.J. Corman Railroad Group has a deal to buy Quebec’s ailing Railpower Technologies, a maker of “clean” locomotives and other products, and then sell back some pieces to a group of Railpower managers, The Journal of Commerce reported. The companies said they have a binding agreement, under which Corman obtains the Canadian firm that is operating under court protection and its U.S.

Canada's government will take an ownership stake in troubled automaker Chrysler in exchange for more than $2 billion in loans, under a sweeping North American rescue plan, government officials said on Thursday. Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States earlier in the day and also entered into an alliance with Italian automaker Fiat SpA. Ottawa and Washington demanded the Detroit company partner with Fiat by Thursday as a condition for funding.

Fiat quietly ended its effort to market cars in the United States a quarter-century ago when the last of its vehicles to carry the Fiat nameplate, the 1983 Brava sedan, drove off a dealer lot. They had stylish exteriors and responsive handling, but Fiats were notoriously unreliable. This time around, the Italian automaker is hoping to make a more favorable and lasting impression on American consumers, with much-improved, fuel-efficient cars that could roll off the assembly lines of its new partner, Chrysler, in as little as 18 months, The New York Times reported.

Chrysler LLC is expected to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States by the end of the week and the Canadian and Ontario governments will jump in to help backstop the company with financing that will enable it to keep making and selling cars while it restructures, sources said. The bankruptcy filing is expected even though a deal by Fiat SpA to create a strategic alliance with the No.

Nortel Networks Corp. needs its protection from bankruptcy extended to July 30, says the court-appointed monitor in the telecom equipment maker's Canadian insolvency proceedings. The current extension of Nortel's stay under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act ends May 1, and Nortel is seeking a further 90-day period of shelter from creditors, The Canadian Press reported.

The Canadian unit of Chrysler may not need to seek bankruptcy protection, even if the company does so in the United States, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Saturday. Flaherty said the automaker's cost-cutting agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers union, announced late Friday, represented a "fundamental change" in the company's efforts to qualify for emergency government loans, Reuters reported. The company must also clinch a partnership with Fiat SpA. "The legal situation may be different in Canada than in the United States.

AbitibiBowater Inc. tried a creative debt-restructuring process out of court, but in the end filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States and the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada, the Financial Post reported. "This was not the path that was preferred," said company spokesman Seth Kursman, "but we had exhausted all other options." He said the company's liquidity positions were severely constrained by more than $6 billion of debt. AbitibiBowater tried to keep the company out of the bankruptcy courts.

Fiat's chief executive has returned to the United States for talks as pressure builds to seal a partnership deal with Chrysler before the end of the month, sources at the Italian car maker said on Monday. Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne is going to Detroit and Washington, where the government has given Fiat and Chrysler an April 30 deadline to get the U.S. car maker's unions and bondholders to agree the deal, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.