The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday directed to initiate insolvency proceedings against debt-ridden Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, admitting the plea filed by private lender ICICI Bank.

Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL), which is the flagship firm of Jaypee Group, is mainly into construction, cement and hospitality businesses. JAL has sold many cement plants in the last few years to reduce its debt.

A two-member bench at NCLT, Allahabad, comprising Members Praveen Gupta and Ashish Verma pronounced the order on Monday…

US corporate bankruptcy filings reached a new high in March as companies continue to battle high interest rates and lingering operational challenges.

S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 59 new bankruptcy filings in March, up from a revised total of 48 in February. While year-to-date corporate bankruptcies are below the previous year’s total by the end of the first quarter, they are above the comparable totals for much of the past decade.

With corporate borrowing under pressure, bankruptcy cases have steadily increased since the beginning of the year and are likely to remain elevated as expectations of near-term rate cuts appear increasingly improbable.

Notable filings

Fabric and crafts retailer JOANN Inc., which operates…

Alton worked in corporate insolvency in Australia for seven years prior to moving to Singapore in 2014, where he worked on several of Singapore’s high-profile corporate insolvency and restructuring engagements. Notable assignments Alton has worked on include the receivership of Singapore Flyer Pte Ltd, liquidation of the California Fitness Clubs in Singapore, and restructuring of Hyflux Ltd, a Singapore-listed water and energy conglomerate with over USD 2.24 billion debt.

Alton joined Kroll in 2022, where he has worked on the receivership of a Singapore-headquartered global logistics group with operations throughout Southeast Asia, China, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand and over SGD 400 millon debt. Alton has also worked on the…

Allowing the plea of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Insolvency Appellate Tribunal NCLAT has set aside the order passed by NCLT, which had restrained the Japanese multinational engineering from encashing the Performance Bank Guarantee submitted by its contractor Punj Lloyd.

NCLAT said NCLT “committed an error” by allowing a plea filed by the RP of Punj Lloyd to restrain Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, State Bank of India and other banks who have given counter guarantee to invoke the Bank Guarantee.

“Order passed by the Adjudicating Authority (NCLT), thus is unsustainable,” said a National Company Law Appellate Tribunal bench.

The NCLAT also said that it is well-settled law that Section 14 “in no manner impact the right of the Appellant…

As consumers struggle to cope with mounting debt, a new economic report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York includes an unprecedented glimmer of hope. Although debt for mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and more increased by billions of dollars in the second quarter of 2024, student loan debt decreased by $10 billion.  

According to the New York Fed, borrowers ages 40-49 and ages 18-29 benefitted the most from the reduction in student loan debt.  

In a separate and recent independent finding, 57% of Black Americans hold more than $25,000 in student loan debt compared to 47% of Americans overall, according to The Motley Fool’s analysis of student debt by geography, age and race. Black women have…

Andhra CM Naidu held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Capital for the first time since his state got a major boost in the Union Budget.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday appealed to the Centre to consider rescheduling of loans taken during the previous YSR Congress party government to ease the burden on the debt-ridden state.

Naidu held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Capital for the first time since his state got a major boost in the Union Budget. The TDP, a…

At least 26 councils in some of Britain’s most deprived areas are at risk of effective bankruptcy within the next two years, according to a leading local government group, which says many authorities simply have “nothing left”.

Britain’s local government network has been shaken by a string of financial collapses in the past two years, starting with Slough and followed by Croydon, Thurrock and most recently Woking, which announced a deficit of £1.2bn in June after a risky investment spree.

The quartet could be only the tip of the iceberg, according to a survey of 47 councils in northern England, the Midlands and on the south coast, which revealed mounting anxiety that rising costs will blow irreparable holes in budgets that fund…

Birmingham city council, the largest local authority in the country, has in effect declared itself bankrupt after issuing a section 114 notice, signalling that it does not have the resources to balance its budget.

The notice, preventing all but essential spending to protect core services, was issued on Tuesday with council leaders blaming a £760m bill for equal pay claims, problems installing a new IT system and £1bn in government cuts over the past decade.

The council said “it does not have the resources” to fund its equal pay liability, and has a gap in its current budget of £87m.

In a statement, the leader and deputy leader of the Labour-run council, John Cotton and Sharon Thompson, said: “Like local authorities across the…

Metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s efforts to sell his troubled Liberty Ostrava steelworks hit a setback as the Czech government said potential buyers had lost interest in taking over the company.

Gupta’s Liberty Steel has been looking to divest its Czech operations after a court declared the dormant unit with about 5,000 employees insolvent and an overhaul strategy failed. But late on Thursday Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura said there were no takeover offers for the company’s main business and that the state wouldn’t provide further major financial aid.

Aug 13, 2024

The Federal Reserve has held the federal funds rate, which is the interest rate at which commercial banks lend to one another overnight, steady since July 26, 2023. The federal funds rate is used by the Fed to help control inflation, but the rate also has implications for the federal government’s borrowing costs and therefore the nation’s fiscal picture.

The federal funds rate is the benchmark for Treasury bills and other short-term securities. Adjusting the rate is an important tool for the Federal Reserve to help achieve their statutory mandate, which is to promote the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. Expectations about the short-term rates,…