Back to UK corporate news, and Asia Resources Minerals - formerly Bumi - has won a tribunal case in Singapore against former director, Rosan Roeslani. Roeslani will have to repay the company $173m (£111m), plus interest and legal costs, driving shares in ARMS sharply higher.

The coal producer launched the arbitration a year ago to enforce a previous settlement with Roeslani, the former head of its Berau subsidiary. Without admitting wrongdoing, Roeslani had agreed to pay the sum after ARMS found $201m of spending at Berau that had “no business purpose”.

An ally of the German chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed the eurozone is no longer obliged to rescue Greece.

Michael Fuchs, a senior member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic party, said Greece was no longer of systemic importance to the single currency bloc, leaving Greek politicians unable to “blackmail” their counterparts in the rest of the eurozone.

In an interview with German newspaper the Rheinische Post, he said:

“If Alexis Tsipras of the Greek left party Syriza thinks he can cut back the reform efforts and austerity measures, then the troika will have to cut back the credits for Greece.

The times where we had to rescue Greece are over. There is no potential for political blackmail anymore. Greece is no longer of systemic importance for the euro.

In a clear warning shot to Greek voters that the eurozone will drop its support for the debt-ridden country if Athens fails to stick to the terms of its bailout after elections in January.

Syriza is leading opinion polls after the Greek parliament’s rejection of the presidential candidate nominated by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras triggered a snap election.

Tsipras, Syriza’s leader, has told voters that “austerity will be history” if the party wins.

Fuchs’ comments were along similar lines to those made earlier by Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, who said there was “no alternative” to structural changes in Greece.

Oil is heading for its biggest annual price decline since 2008.

Brent crude oil is down 49% over 2014 on the back of weaker demand and a supply glut. It is currently trading at close to $56 a barrel, after hitting a peak of $115 in the summer.

The annual decline is the biggest since 2008, when the demand plummeted in response to the global financial crisis. Prices at the time were eventually propped up by OPEC’s decision to cut production.

This time around however, OPEC has refused to cut production, opting instead to preserve market share.

The European Central Bank’s chief economist has warned that measures taken so far might not be enough to stimulate the eurozone’s flagging economy.

Peter Praet has stressed in an interview that the battle against deflation and weak growth in the single currency bloc is still very much on.

The ECB took drastic action to pump some life into the ailing economy this year - including charging banks to park cash with the ECB in a bid to encourage lending. However, it stopped short of embarking on full-blown quantitative easing, leaving it some ammunition for 2015 if conditions do not sufficiently improve.

Here is some of what Praet had to say:

We have always emphasised that there are two contingencies for further action: first, our measures taken so far have not been enough to have the intended effect – that is, are not sufficiently sizeable in terms of expanding our balance sheet to provide the stimulus that is necessary in current conditions; and second, the inflation outlook itself has deteriorated since we decided on the measures we took in the past. Now we have a little bit of both.

There is the risk that we won’t have achieved the degree of monetary accommodation that we had intended. And the Eurosystem staff have also substantially revised downwards their inflation projections. This is why we have to be very vigilant and ask ourselves: have we done enough? The sense of urgency was expressed when we said that we would reassess the situation “early next year”.

There is a risk of a real economic vicious cycle: there is less investment which in turn reduces potential growth, the future becomes even grimmer and consequently investment is reduced even further.

This is why we are underlining that urgent action is necessary. There is a need for a comprehensive response now: all the authorities have to live up to their responsibilities – on the fiscal, structural and monetary policy side.

The dollar is on course for its strongest year in almost a decade.

The US currency is likely to end 2014 up more than 12% against a basket of major currencies. It would be the biggest gain since 2005, when the dollar rose almost 13%. Most currency experts at major banks expect the greenback to climb further in 2015.

An improving economy in the US and the prospect that interest rates will rise sooner rather than later has supported the dollar, as has general global economic uncertainty.

Kit Juckes, strategist at French bank Societe Generale:

Recent solid data has reinforced the view that the US economy is improving enough for the Federal Reserve to consider raising interest rates in mid-2015.

If the Fed hikes rates (even once), two-year yields will be a lot higher than this in a year’s time and the dollar will be stronger.

City Link, the collapsed courier firm, is expected to deliver redundancy notices to workers today. More than 3,000 jobs are at risk as administrators - appointed on Christmas Eve - struggle to find a buyer for the business.

Members of the RMT trade union are expected to protest outside the company’s HQ in Baginton, Coventry, as staff await their fate.

Read our full story here.

More on the those weak manufacturing figures from China.

Domestic demand led the slowdown, with new orders shrinking for the first time since April. The report prompted speculation that Beijing will further ease monetary policy in 2015.

Hongbin Qu, chief economist for China at HSBC:

Today’s data confirmed the further slowdown in the manufacturing sector towards year end. We believe that weaker economic activity and stronger disinflationary pressures warrant further monetary easing in the coming months.

Employment in the sector fell for a 14th consecutive month, as factories cut jobs in response to weaker demand.