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Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that, while it was not illegal for the Bundesbank to participate in the the European Central Bank’s Public Sector Purchase Programme, the country's central bank may not participate in it unless the ECB can provide a thorough impact assessment. The decision rejected an earlier verdict by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

BNP Paribas blamed European authorities’ restrictions on 2019 dividend payments for losing it €184m in its equities business, when it released its first quarter results on Tuesday. However, in debt capital markets and fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) it was a more positive picture, as the bank took advantage of a surge in debt origination and electronic trading.

A group of veteran fund managers have launched a new boutique asset manager dedicated to responsible investing in emerging market equities.

Jacques Callaghan, formerly of Macquarie Capital, has joined HSBC as head of UK mid-market M&A, concentrating on a wedge of companies that are important to the bank’s new strategy.

Some banks in the eurozone tightened their lending standards in the first quarter of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe, even as loan demand surged, according to a European Central Bank survey that provides the first systematic evidence on the subject.

While emerging market bond investors are spending their days in the Covid-19 crisis battling with poor liquidity, cash calls from end investors, and even the odd new issue, debt relief has remained a threat, albeit only a vague one. But at policy level the topic is of growing importance, and what began as a matter for official institution creditors took a step closer to embroiling the private sector this week. Ross Lancaster, Phil Thornton and Oliver West report.

As European countries prepare to ease lockdown measures, those in capital markets are well aware that their day-to-day lives will not go back to how they were anytime soon. They have mixed views on working from home, but will an entirely new working culture emerge?

The European Central Bank (ECB) gave lenders even more of an incentive to use its Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTRO) this week, dropping the potential rate of funding down to minus 1%. But the unveiling of a new unconditional lending scheme set tongues wagging, with market participants debating which banks might use the money and what they might put it towards, writes Tyler Davies.

Lee Buchheit is a veteran of sovereign debt restructuring and is considered by many to be a world expert in the field. He has worked on debt restructuring among many of the emerging markets countries, including Argentina, Greece and Venezuela. GlobalCapital caught up with him this week to discuss the debt crisis gripping the EM universe, and how private sector creditors should approach requests for debt standstills.

Lloyds Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland have decided not to charge clients an arranging fee when lending via the UK’s Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS), while HSBC will not charge any early repayment fees.

Deutsche Bank has regained its number one spot in its home market, but it was its traditional investment banking business that shone rather than investments made as part of the firm’s new Germany-focused strategy, writes David Rothnie.

Market participants argued that the European Commission could have gone further this week to ease leverage ratio constraints on banks during the coronavirus crisis.