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The court-appointed trustee in charge of China Fishery Group Ltd. isn’t backing down in a bankruptcy battle with HSBC Ltd. , which he is investigating for aggressive collection tactics that allegedly had a “severely negative impact” on the fishing enterprise, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In court papers filed on Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, the trustee, William Brandt Jr., asked a bankruptcy judge to reaffirm his power to investigate HSBC. Brandt has been largely successful in the long-running row with HSBC, winning a court order in July from Judge James Garrity Jr. allowing him to investigate the bank for collection efforts that Mr. Brandt said may have stunted China Fishery’s operations. “Some creditors may have overstepped their bounds,” Brandt said last month. China Fishery filed for chapter 11 protection in June 2016. Brandt said that HSBC is now “trying to delay compliance” with the judge’s order, refusing to accept subpoenas for documents or to respond to other requests for information related to the probe. A hearing on the matter is set for Thursday.

Saudi Arabia will begin implementing a new bankruptcy law early next year as part of efforts to attract foreign investment and encourage private sector activity, Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya reported citing the kingdom’s commerce minister, according to Reuters. Under current legislation there is no easy way to wind up the activities of indebted companies in Saudi Arabia and the new law could help with government plans to restructure the economy and make it more attractive to outside investors. “(The) bankruptcy law has been passed to the Shura Council and we expect it to be implemented by the end of the first quarter of 2018,” Commerce and Investment Minister Majid al-Qusaibi said in an interview according to Al Arabiya’s website. Saudi Arabia is also working on new laws regarding commercial mortgages and commercial franchising, Qusaibi said in New York on the sidelines of a business forum. The commercial mortgages measures will be passed to the Shura Council in the next two to three weeks while the commercial franchising regulations should follow soon after, he said. The Shura Council is an appointed body that advises on new laws and functions in place of an elected parliament.

The European Union’s plans to tighten up its oversight of financial firms have come under attack from industry and consumer groups that fear the move could hit businesses without doing enough to prevent misselling of risky funds, Reuters reported yesterday. The criticism comes after the European Commission on Wednesday published proposals aimed at ending national supervision of some financial industries in a bid to strengthen the EU’s common market and increase controls over foreign firms that operate in the bloc. The expanded powers to monitor financial companies from non-EU countries could hurt Britain-based firms after the country leaves the EU and also U.S. businesses, which are among the most active foreign firms in the EU market. Read more. 

International insolvency experts will gather to discuss top issues at ABI’s 13th International Insolvency & Restructuring Symposium on Oct. 19-20. The program will include a keynote by Sir Ivan Rogers, former Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union. Click here to register. 

Brazil’s government is about to submit new bankruptcy rules to Congress, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles said yesterday, Reuters reported. He also reiterated the need for a proposed pension overhaul for greater fiscal discipline. Meirelles said that Brazil has begun to grow after its worst recession on record, but that prices do not yet reflect a full recovery — making this a good opportunity for companies to boost their investments in the country.

Sears Canada Inc.’s top executive is negotiating a private-equity-backed deal for a slimmed-down version of the insolvent retailer, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The proposed offer could be valued at more than 650 million Canadian dollars ($533 million) and would slash the company’s store footprint by more than half. But it could preserve at least 8,000 jobs while paying off bankruptcy loans provided by Wells Fargo Capital Finance Corp. and GACP Finance Co., these people said. The company’s executive chairman, Brandon Stranzl, told employees last month he was preparing an offer designed to save at least part of Sears Canada from liquidation. It filed for protection from creditors in June under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act — Canada’s equivalent of chapter 11 bankruptcy — after operating at a loss since 2014. His deal would be financed partly through private-equity capital sourced by Vadim Perelman, the founder of Los Angeles-based Baker Street Capital Management, and partly with debt financing. The restructured Sears Canada would also assume liabilities associated with employees and retail leases, some of which may be renegotiated.

Small creditors and vendors, previously at the mercy of large debtors, are now using India’s new bankruptcy code as a pressure ploy to secure payment of dues that would earlier have been all but impossible to recover, Reuters reported on Friday. India overhauled bankruptcy laws last year with the main goal of helping banks tackle a $150-billion bad loan issue that is crimping growth in the economy. Less than a year on, insolvency professionals say that it is vendors and small suppliers, also referred to as operational creditors, who are using the new rules as leverage to recover dues much more effectively than banks owed far larger sums. “It is not necessarily a negative thing, but it was not the objective of the new code,” said Ashish Chhawchharia, a partner at Grant Thornton who works on insolvency cases. The new rules give any creditor owed 100,000 rupees ($1,560) the right to drag a multi-billion dollar company to court.

Insolvent German airline Air Berlin said that it has received several offers for its assets which will now be assessed, Reuters reported today. Air Berlin, Germany’s second largest airline, filed for insolvency last month after major shareholder Etihad withdrew funding following years of losses. A final decision on buyers for the assets is due on Sept. 25, the day after Germany’s national election and four days later than previously planned.

The CEO of U.S. nuclear reactor maker Westinghouse said that the company does not expect to come out of chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings before the end of 2017 but hopes to complete restructuring in early 2018, Reuters reported. Cost overruns at four nuclear reactors it was building in the United States pushed Westinghouse, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp, into bankruptcy in March. Utilities in the U.S. state of South Carolina abandoned construction of two of those reactors in July. Asked when the company could emerge from chapter 11 proceedings, Westinghouse Chief Executive Officer Jose Gutierrez told Reuters: “The timeline is complicated, but it will obviously not happen this year.” He said it could happen quickly once a solution was found for the remaining two U.S. reactors under construction in Georgia, adding that the rest of the firm was in good shape. Southern Co, the utility building two reactors at Georgia’s Vogtle plant, has hired Bechtel to finalise work and is in talks with Westinghouse about the nuclear part of the project, scheduled for completion by 2022, six years late.

French investors owning bonds in oil services group CGG, which filed for bankruptcy in June, said they had launched a legal action to protest against the move, Reuters reported today. The legal action was launched by Schelcher Prince Gestion, HMG Finance, La Financiere de l’Europe, Keren Finance and Delta AM. CGG, which has debts in excess of $3 billion, could be one of the biggest corporate restructurings that France has seen in years, and the company was also the subject of bid speculation last month. CGG, which specialises in geo-seismic surveys, struggled to keep up with payments on its debt as the big oil groups that use its services proved reluctant to lift exploration spending despite rising oil prices.

Air Berlin was forced to cancel flights for a second day today after pilots again called in sick in unusually high numbers, potentially complicating efforts to rescue the insolvent carrier, Reuters reported. Air Berlin, Germany’s second-biggest airline, is set to be carved up, most likely among several buyers, with binding offers due this Friday. The airline filed for bankruptcy protection last month after its biggest shareholder, Etihad Airways, withdrew funding following years of losses. However, those losses are mounting as more plans are grounded. Air Berlin said that it had cancelled 32 flights today after around 150 pilots called in sick. On Tuesday, Air Berlin had scrapped about 100 flights. Some short-haul flights at Lufthansa’s budget airline Eurowings are also affected because it leases 33 planes with crews from Air Berlin. Air Berlin has already said the cancellations threatened its existence and could force it to shut down, jeopardising negotiations with potential investors and costing it several million euros a day.