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Almost a decade after the Irish economy was crippled by a banking catastrophe, the country is reopening its arms to banks to take advantage of shifts in Europe’s finance industry triggered by Brexit, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Take Bank of America Corp. Once Ireland’s biggest bank by assets, the U.S. lender shifted billions of dollars’ worth of derivatives out of Dublin to London following the financial crisis. But after Britain voted to leave the European Union, it is now planning to move some of those assets back across the Irish Sea, according to people familiar with the matter. Financial centers across Europe are competing to lure London-based banking operations that need an EU base once the U.K. leaves the bloc. But for Ireland, there is an added urgency: the U.K. is its biggest trading partner. Brexit may hit some 40,000 Irish jobs, mainly in manufacturing and agriculture if exports to the U.K. fall, according to the Irish Central Bank. So the Irish government is hoping to lure 10,000 financial services jobs to soften the blow. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Insolvency experts will gather at ABI’s 13th International Insolvency Symposium in Dublin on Oct. 19-20 to discuss top international restructuring issues. Click here for more information and to register. 

Sears Canada on Friday won court approval to begin liquidating all its remaining assets starting Oct. 19, putting the retail chain with 12,000 employees on a path to closure after 65 years in the country, Reuters reported. The approval was granted by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which also extended creditor protection for Sears Canada to Jan. 22. The public liquidation sales are set to end on Jan. 21. The end comes after years of falling sales and sliding market share for Sears Canada, whose beginnings as a catalog company seemed to make it ideally suited to take advantage of consumers’ shift to online shopping. Weighed down by over C$1.1 billion ($879 million) in liabilities, almost matching its assets, and falling sales every quarter since it was spun off from Sears Holdings Corp in 2012, Sears Canada filed for creditor protection in June. It laid out a restructuring plan that included cutting 2,900 jobs and closing roughly a quarter of its stores. Last week, it won court approval to close 11 more stores and sell some businesses, and to extend creditor protection to Nov. 7. Read more. 

Don’t miss speakers discussing today’s most relevant cross-border cases and topics at ABI’s Cross-Border Insolvency Program in New York on Nov. 7. Click here for more information and to register. 

A group of bondholders that are Oi SA’s largest creditors demanded yesterday that the company’s top executives meet them as soon as possible to renegotiate a debt plan, Reuters reported. In a letter viewed by Reuters that was addressed to top Oi executives and board members, Oi’s two biggest bondholder groups demanded the carrier’s executives meet in New York to “negotiate in good faith and on an expedited basis the terms of an acceptable plan(s) of reorganization.” The letter was sent by the main advisors of the International Bondholders Committee the Ad Hoc Group of Oi Bondholders. The Oi restructuring, which started in June 2016 and remains Latin America’s largest bankruptcy protection case to date, has been marked by a series of disputes between creditors and shareholders. Read more. 

Insolvency experts will gather at ABI’s 13th International Insolvency Symposium in Dublin on Oct. 19-20 to discuss top international restructuring issues. Click here for more information and to register.