Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is cutting back on its dealings with some German companies amid a diplomatic spat with its top European trading partner, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Government agencies have been told not to renew some non-essential contracts with German firms following comments made in November by Germany’s then-foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, two of the people ...

Bloomberg Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA may have misled regulators in Nigeria by wrongly attributing oil spills to theft and sabotage in order to avoid paying compensation to affected communities, rights group Amnesty International said. “Amnesty International researchers have identified that at least 89 spills may have been wrongly labeled as theft or sabotage when in fact they ...

Reuters Iran has nearly doubled gas production at South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, in the past year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday, according to state media. Gas production at South Pars increased from 285 million cubic meters to 555 million cubic meters in the past Iranian calendar year, which started in late March 2017, Rouhani said, ...

Bloomberg China’s crackdown on financial risks and trade tensions with the US threaten to undermine a stronger-than-expected start to the year for the world’s second-largest economy. Factory output and investment in fixed assets exceeded economists’ expectations in the first two months of this year, climbing 7.2 percent and 7.9 percent respectively from a year earlier as Chinese exports surged. Retail ...

Bloomberg An investor group backed by Bain Capital won the support of Binani Cement Ltd.’s lenders as it seeks to take over the insolvent Indian company. A committee of Binani Cement creditors approved the resolution plan from a consortium led by Dalmia Bharat Ltd., which was competing with billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s UltraTech Cement Ltd., according to an exchange filing. ...

Bloomberg The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating faulty air bags in certain Hyundai and Kia vehicles that have caused four deaths and six injuries. The air bags have failed to deploy in frontal collisions, according to an investigation report posted on the administration’s website. The problems may affect 425,000 automobiles made by the South Korean manufacturers, and ...

Bloomberg The seven-month slide in India’s sovereign bonds has convinced the state-owned banks, the biggest holders of debt, to remain on the sidelines. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co., one of the country’s largest private insurers, sees things very differently. With yields recently nearing 8 percent, Manish Kumar, chief investment officer at the firm, says it’s time to go long. “A ...

Bloomberg The opening of Nirav Modi’s jewellery store on Madison Avenue in the fall of 2015 attracted A-listers from actress Naomi Watts to Donald Trump Jr. It also celebrated the expansion of an Indian business that is now near ruin amid an investigation for an alleged $2 billion fraud. As investigators probe Modi’s alleged use of fake guarantees from the ...

Bloomberg The US economy is beginning the year with a downshift in growth despite $1.5 trillion in tax cuts signed by President Donald Trump in December. Unexpectedly weak February retail sales pushed down forecasts for the annualised pace of expansion in the first quarter, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow tracking estimate at 1.8 percent on March 16, ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. suspended Cambridge Analytica, a data company that helped President Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election and which may have collected data from 50 million Facebook profiles without their owners’ permission. The social-networking company said in a blog post that Cambridge Analytica received some user data through an app developer on its social network, violating its policies. ...