New York / AFP European stocks and Wall Street traded nearly flat in a quiet session before Christmas, with banks topping the agenda after huge US fines and a bailout in Italy. London closed marginally higher in a half-day session, as upwardly revised data showed the British economy grew 0.6 percent in the third quarter despite Brexit jitters. In …

  Bloomberg The silence was deafening. On the afternoon of December 9, Marco Morelli, chief executive officer of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, was preparing for a board meeting in the lender’s Belle Epoque-era offices in Milan when the news hit: the European Central Bank had rejected his bid for more time to raise the 5 billion euros …

  Washington / AFP The US Justice Department sued the British financial giant Barclays, accusing the bank of massive fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed securities which contributed to the global financial crisis of 2008. Barclays was one of several major banks implicated in the crisis, along with Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Credit Suisse, that so far …