(Reuters) - Many European banks need bigger capital cushions to restore market confidence and help reduce the risk of another financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday. Banks globally face a $3.6 trillion "wall of maturing debt" coming due in the next two years. The rollover requirements are most acute for Irish and German banks, the fund said in its Global Financial Stability Report.

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(Reuters) - U.S. retail sales rose modestly in March as auto sales plunged and consumers stretched to pay for pricey gasoline, but upward revisions to the prior months' data pointed to fairly solid first-quarter spending. Total retail sales increased 0.4 percent, the smallest gain in nine months, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday, after rising 1.1 percent in February.

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(Reuters) - Consumer goods giants Unilever (ULVR.L)(UNc.AS) and Procter & Gamble (PG.N) were fined 315.2 million euros ($456 million) by EU regulators on Wednesday for fixing washing powder prices in eight EU countries. Germany's Henkel (HNKG_p.DE), which alerted the European Commission to the cartel in laundry detergents, was not fined. The penalty for Unilever was 104 million euros, while P&G was fined 211.2 million euros.

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(Reuters) - - Japan's government on Wednesday downgraded its assessment of the economy for the first time in six months, saying it is showing weakness after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last month battered the northeast coast. The revision is in line with the Bank of Japan, which also cut its assessment of the economy last week in the wake of the March 11 disaster, saying it would remain under "strong downward pressure" for some time.

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(Reuters) - A growing number of companies are objecting to the role of firms that advise shareholder votes at annual meetings, complaining about conflicts of interest, errors and lack of oversight. With shareholder balloting season well underway, companies have been challenging proxy advisers' opinions, demanding more disclosure about their work and asking regulators to rein in the firms.

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(Reuters) - Rising U.S. bond yields have more to do with improving economic growth prospects and market concerns about inflation rather than Washington's deteriorating fiscal position, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday. Even as investors were selling out of U.S. Treasury positions, resulting in higher yields, there was little change in the cost to insure U.S. government debt from default or restructuring.

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LONDON, April 13 (IFR) - Any fundamental restructuring of Greece's US$350bn of outstanding debt before June 2013 will have severe repercussions across the Eurozone, according to the lawyer who advised Uruguay on the successful restructuring of its sovereign debt in 2003. Lee Buchheit, partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, will warn at a conference in Florence that a "full monty approach" without obtaining voluntary consent from bondholders would provoke "a major tremor...felt in Lisbon, Madrid and elsewhere in peripheral Europe."

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(Reuters) - The Dow and Nasdaq fell 1 percent in morning trading on Tuesday while the S&P added to its losses after a disappointing revenue miss from Alcoa Inc (AA.N) and a sell-off in commodities, coupled with Japan's upgrade of the severity of its nuclear crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 121.47 points, or 0.98 percent, at 12,259.64. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX was down 11.61 points, or 0.88 percent, at 1,312.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was down 27.50 points, or 0.99 percent, at 2,744.01.

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(Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc will shut down its Flip video camera business in an overhaul of its troubled consumer products business, following chief John Chambers' recent admission that the company had lost its way. Cisco's consumer division, in particular, has been a target of criticism by analysts, who have said it strays too far from the company's main business of selling routers and switches to the technology and telecommunications industries.

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(Reuters) - BP's (BP.L) planned $18 billion tie-up with Russia's Rosneft (ROSN.MM) was looking even more uncertain after chief backer Igor Sechin stood down as Rosneft chairman, and sources said BP faced a new legal challenge. Deputy Prime Minister Sechin resigned his position after President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the removal of ministers from the boards of state companies as part of his campaign to separate politics and business.

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