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Two banker groups sued the U.S. challenging rules that require financial institutions to report information on accounts held by nonresident aliens that may be shared with 72 foreign governments, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Texas Bankers Association and the Florida Bankers Association, in a lawsuit filed yesterday against the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, said that the rules are discouraging investment in the U.S. by nonresidents who fear their information may be shared with the governments of countries including Egypt, Pakistan and Venezuela. “Security concerns over the potential leakage and abuse of personal asset information from this sweeping international exchange with many countries that have unstable governments and porous law enforcement systems has led many non-resident aliens to withdraw money or transfer money held in interest bearing bank accounts in the United States,” James Butera, a lawyer for the groups, said in the complaint. The regulations, which took effect in January, are part of the government’s efforts to work with other countries on tax evasion. Treasury and the IRS say that the U.S. should ask its banks to report information just as it is requiring overseas banks to provide information on U.S. account holders.

Libya's sovereign-wealth fund said that it is cooperating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in its ongoing investigation into Goldman Sachs Group Inc. over the securities firm's dealings with the fund when Col. Moammar Gadhafi was in power, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Libyan Investment Authority said that it also hired a law firm to discuss possible actions to recover losses it suffered from investments made in structured-finance products. Before the financial crisis, Goldman and other financial firms sold complex investments to Libya as officials there looked for ways to put some of the fund's $50 billion in assets to work. Many of the investments plunged in value during the crisis. The SEC has been scrutinizing Goldman's dealings with Libya's sovereign-wealth fund since the middle of 2011 over possible violations of U.S. anti-corruption laws. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act bans U.S. companies from offering or paying bribes to foreign government officials or employees of state-owned companies.

China's largest auto parts maker won U.S. government approval to buy bankrupt A123 Systems Inc., a maker of electric car batteries, despite warnings by some lawmakers that the deal would transfer sensitive technology developed with U.S. government money, Reuters reported yesterday. The sale of the lithium-ion battery maker to a U.S. unit of Wanxiang Group was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a government body led by the Treasury secretary. Last month, Wanxiang's U.S. unit agreed to pay $257 million for A123's automotive battery business and related assets in a bankruptcy auction, beating U.S. rival Johnson Controls Inc. of Milwaukee.

The stock of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc fell 6 percent, the most in four months, as U.S. authorities push for criminal charges in the probe into allegations that Britain’s biggest publicly owned lender tried to rig interest rates, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The U.S. Justice Department has extended talks to press the Edinburgh-based bank for a guilty plea in any settlement. RBS may pay about 500 million pounds ($786 million) to U.S. and U.K. authorities to settle the claims as soon as next week. The fine would be the second-largest levied by regulators in their investigation into allegations that traders at the world’s biggest lenders manipulated submissions used to set the London interbank offered rate. UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest lender, paid a $1.5 billion fine in December and its Japanese unit pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the U.S. in its December settlement.

The bankruptcy trustee for three Mocksville, N.C., tobacco companies is defending the pending compensation for him and other officials in response to an objection from an association of state attorneys general, the Winston-Salem Journal reported on Friday. The fate of Renegade Holdings Inc., Renegade Tobacco Co. and Alternative Brands Inc. could be determined at a Jan. 8 hearing in front of Hon. William Stocks, whose ruling has the potential to force the liquidation of the companies as soon as early next year or allow the companies to emerge from chapter 11 protection with an approved reorganization plan that could be presented at the hearing. The National Association of Attorneys General requested on Dec. 5 the holding back of at least 10 percent of the fees and expenses due for the third quarter until the judge decides whether to approve the plan. Trustee Peter Tourtellot is to be paid $105,972, while Northen Blue LLP of Chapel Hill, which serves as special counsel for the case, is to be paid $66,009. The companies already have paid $1.77 million in professional fees since they went into bankruptcy in January 2009.

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday that it has completed its final sale of common stock in American International Group (AIG), reducing its shares in the insurer to zero four years after a massive government bailout, Reuters reported on Friday. The Treasury said it received $7.6 billion in proceeds from the sale of its remaining 234 million shares at $32.50 per share. Overall, the Treasury and Federal Reserve received a $22.7 billion positive return on their combined $182.3 billion bailout, the department said. The sale is part of Treasury's efforts to wind down its Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). AIG was rescued just before it would have been forced to file for bankruptcy, as losses on risky derivatives mounted. It was bailed out as the financial system stood at the brink of disaster.

A debt-laden natural gas drilling company that had counted on tapping the riches of New York's part of the Marcellus Shale has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while the state's four-year-old moratorium on hydrofracking remains in place, The Associated Press reported Saturday. Norse Energy Corp., based in Oslo, Norway, has 130,000 acres under lease for natural gas drilling in New York. But the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has had a moratorium on drilling permits since it launched an environmental impact review in 2008. The DEC is developing new regulations for fracking, or high-volume hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technology used to free natural gas from shale. "It isn't just regulatory delays. We had debts incurred outside of New York that we're paying back," said Dennis Holbrook, Norse's Buffalo, N.Y.-based chief legal officer. "But clearly the regulatory delays in New York have had a negative impact on this company." Norse has been selling off assets, primarily oil and natural gas leases and some production properties, to pay debts and meet operating expenses. The chapter 11 filing may "likely constitute an event of default" on a $21 million bond, the company said. Norse has been operating in central New York since 1996 and has drilled hundreds of vertical gas wells in sandstone formations. It had applied for dozens of permits to drill in the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich region underlying southern New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. New York has had a moratorium on permits while its DEC studies environmental, health and safety concerns related to shale natural gas development.

China's government has approved a plan by Wanxiang Group Corp, a major Chinese auto parts maker, to acquire bankrupt U.S. battery maker A123 Systems Inc., although a deal still hinges on the outcome of an auction next month and U.S. government approval, Reuters reported today. A123, a maker of lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for chapter 11 protection in October with a plan to sell its battery business to Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls for $125 million. The planned sale will depend on whether better bids are received at next month's auction. Wanxiang has said it intends to make a bid. Any deal for A123 must receive the blessing of the U.S. government, however, as the company has received a $249 million grant from the Energy Department.

Government attorneys say that failed battery maker A123 Systems Inc. needs the government's consent in order to sell its assets, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The Justice Department told a bankruptcy judge on Tuesday that any sale of A123's assets must protect the government's interests. The Department of Energy gave the Waltham, Mass., company a $249 million grant three years ago. A123, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, grid storage and commercial and military applications, is in the process of selling its assets. The DOJ says those assets include some $120 million that was not handed over yet under the DOE grant, A123's cost-sharing obligations under federal assistance programs, and property and equipment purchased with government funds.