The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has suggested the government is looking to reduce the rate of student debt indexation in response to debts growing by more than 4% this year.

Albanese said on Thursday that “there’s a range of areas we need to do much better for the younger generation and Hecs is one of them” and that announcements would be made “pretty soon” on changes to make the student loan “simpler and fairer”.

Higher Education Contribution Scheme (Hecs) debts, now known as Higher Education Loan Program (Help), are broadly indexed to inflation, which resulted in an eye-watering 7.1% increase in the amount of debts last year.

According to parliamentary library research for the Greens, released on Thursday, debts will…

EY-Parthenon teams were appointed as insolvency administrators in March 2021. From the start, a unique aspect to this engagement was the media attention. Given the size and impact of this bankruptcy, this was a hurdle both Abengoa and EY-Parthenon had to overcome and engage with regularly throughout the process.

Loan requests

Initially, the EY-Parthenon teams were asked to advise the bankruptcy of the parent company, with the ambition to find an alternative way ahead for the subsidiaries of Abengoa, where the majority of employees and debt were housed.

With support from EY teams, the subsidiaries requested help from the state-owned company SEPI, who are often used as a tool to implement government policy.

The requested…

A company director who ran “female empowerment” festivals in two states last year is potentially facing criminal charges for running events despite the company becoming insolvent at least a year beforehand.

Liquidators Jirsch…

The Dodgers fired Shohei Ohtani’s longtime friend and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara on Wednesday amid allegations of Mizuhara engaging in a “massive theft” of Ohtani’s funds to bet on sports.

Mizuhara’s firing came on the same day the Los Angeles Times dropped a bombshell report detailing his alleged ties to Mathew Bowyer, a Southern California bookmaker under federal investigation. More than a dozen people have been charged as part of a wider probe into illegal sports gambling by the same prosecution team, including former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig.

Ohtani’s representatives inquired into Mizuhara’s actions after the Times discovered that Ohtani’s name had surfaced in the investigation into Bowyer.

“In the course of…

Reported today by mtb-news.de, Internetstores GmbH, a subsidiary of Signa Sports United (SSU), has declared insolvency as it filed with the Stuttgart District Court. The latest filing follows news last Friday that one of SSU’s major subsidiaries Tennis-Point GmbH also declared insolvency with the warning from SSU that “other legal entities of the SIGNA Sports United group, including SIGNA Sports United N.V. as ultimate parent company of the SIGNA Sports United group, are currently in the course of preparing similar filings.”

The SSU subsidiary of Internetstores GmbH was made up of a collection of mainly cycling-based brands with…

Online book retailer Booktopia has appointed voluntary administrators after it failed to secure enough funding to avoid collapse.

The Australian online business has appointed Keith Crawford, Matthew Caddy and Damien Pasfield from McGrathNicol to oversee a sale, or the selling of parts.

“The Administrators are undertaking an urgent assessment of Booktopia’s business while options for its sale and/or recapitalisation are explored,” an ASX statement reads.

“The shares of Booktopia Group Limited (Administrators appointed) will remain suspended from trading during the administration process. Shareholder updates will be uploaded to the ASX platform as required.”

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Last month, Booktopia entered a sudden trading halt…

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to make the student loan system “simpler and fairer” to address the growing debt burden on recent graduates.

Mr Albanese on Thursday conceded high rates of indexation on student loans and increased student contributions for some areas of study such as arts and law have sent average student debt skyrocketing in the past three years.

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Former glamour model Katie Price has been declared bankrupt for a second time over an unpaid tax bill of more than £750,000.

Ms Price, who was previously declared bankrupt in 2019, owes £761,994.05 to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), a court was told on Monday.

At a short hearing at London’s Rolls Building, Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Sebastian Prentis said Ms Price had not responded to HMRC over the debt, and declared her bankrupt.

“There has been no response from the debtor. The papers are in order,” he said.

“There is a substantial debt due from Ms Price to HMRC, and therefore I will make a bankruptcy order.”

The judge said the bill “derives from self-assessments from the year 2020-21 and from the year 2021-22″…

(Bloomberg) — Beauty brand Avon Products Inc. should slow down its bankruptcy case so that people who allegedly got cancer from the company’s products have time to study any potential payout plan, a lawyer said in court Wednesday.

Victims deserve a special committee to represent them in the Chapter 11 case, said Todd Phillips, a lawyer for people who claim Avon’s talc products are responsible for their health problems. The company faces nearly 400 lawsuits alleging that some Avon cosmetics contained asbestos, a toxic substance that was once used in everything from automobile brake pads to ceiling tiles.

“It all seems to be moving very quickly,” Phillips told US Bankruptcy Judge Craig Goldblatt during Avon Products’s first…

Shohei Ohtani’s former interpreter pleaded guilty Tuesday to bank and tax fraud in a sport betting scandal in which he is accused of stealing nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers star over several years.

Ippei Mizuhara appeared Tuesday morning in federal court in Orange County for the change-of-plea hearing. The hearing comes…

Work has halted on 21 building projects in Queensland and NSW after construction firm St Hilliers called in administrators over the weekend, a casualty of the flagging building sector where insolvencies last year hit an all-time high.

Administrators WLP Restructuring partners Glenn Livingstone and Alan Walker said they have secured sites and paused work on all of St Hilliers’ active construction sites while they do an urgent assessment of the business’s financial position and operations.

Gates were locked at some sites in Brisbane on Sunday after the voluntary administrators were appointed to seven construction businesses within the St Hilliers group.

The firm’s…