The news at a glance

Euro crisis: Euro zone economy slumps

The euro zone edged closer to its second recession in three years this week, said James Fontanella-Khan in the Financial Times. After zero growth in the first quarter of the year, GDP in the euro zone shrank by 0.2 percent between April and June. Though two consecutive quarters of negative growth define an official recession, “the euro zone is to all intents and purposes” already there, said financial analyst Howard Archer. Germany and France were two relative bright spots. Exports and domestic spending pushed Germany to a 0.3 percent expansion, while France narrowly escaped “a highly anticipated contraction” by posting zero percent growth. But that modestly encouraging news was offset by sharp contractions in Greece, Spain, Italy, and Finland.

With the economic malaise spreading, the German economy “can defy gravity” for only so long, said Alex Brittain in WSJ.com. Germany’s growth rate, while positive, was half what it had been in the previous quarter, and business confidence is falling. Such signs of weakness in Europe’s biggest economy put pressure on European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi to stimulate the euro zone economy, but he’ll have to set tough conditions to avoid “throwing money to the wind.”

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Banking: Goldman avoids charges

Goldman Sachs won’t face penalties for allegedly misleading investors in the run-up to the financial crisis, said Phil Mattingly in Bloomberg.com. A Senate subcommittee concluded last year that Goldman had sold complex mortgage securities to its clients while secretly betting that those securities would lose value. But the Justice Department said last week that it would not pursue criminal charges against the bank because the “burden of proof” had not been met.

Markets: Low score for Man United IPO

The world’s most popular soccer club failed to excite investors last week, said Mae Anderson in the Associated Press. Shares of Manchester United made a “disappointing debut” on the New York Stock Exchange, barely budging from their $14 opening price. Analysts said club fans were right to be wary, since proceeds from the IPO went to pay down club debt and fund a dividend for the team’s American owners, the billionaire Glazer family. The stock offering still raised $233 million, making it the biggest sports IPO ever.

Debt: Errors rife in credit card lawsuits

Credit card companies are taking consumers to court over debts “without regard for accuracy,” said Jessica Silver-Greenberg in The New York Times. In a worrisome echo of the robo-signing foreclosure scandal, lenders eager to get billions of dollars worth of bad loans off their books are churning out lawsuits based on erroneous documents and incomplete records. “I would say that roughly 90 percent of the credit card lawsuits are flawed and can’t prove the person owes the debt,” said Judge Noach Dear, who hears as many as 100 such cases a day in New York state court.

Tech: More stumbles for Groupon

Investors continue to sour on Groupon, said Sayantani Ghosh in Reuters.com. Shares of the daily-deals purveyor sank to a record low this week, after dismal quarterly results suggested that the company’s expansion into new business areas wasn’t working as planned. The company blamed “a flagging European business” for missed revenue expectations, and pointed to growth in its new goods business, which sells discounted consumer products like jewelry. That sector, however, has low profit margins and is unlikely to replace lost revenue from the slowing daily-deals market.