Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) backed research project is promoting the use of hemp and flax to make fibreboard used in car manufacture. Coordinator Helmut Zimmer of Austrian renewable raw materials specialist Funder Industries said the Hi-Fi project would generate an “added-value opportunity” for hemp and flax producers, improving fibreboard door panel production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) backed research project is promoting the use of hemp and flax to make fibreboard used in car manufacture. Coordinator Helmut Zimmer of Austrian renewable raw materials specialist Funder Industries said the Hi-Fi project would generate an “added-value opportunity” for hemp and flax producers, improving fibreboard door panel production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has postponed for two years (until 2005 a quality rule banning hemp or flax fibre production subsidies for product containing over 7.5 per cent impurities and shives. Ministers want six countries producing long flax and short flax fibre and three producing hemp fibre joining the EU in May to fund improvements.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved levying 13.1 per cent definitive anti-dumping duties on Pakistani exports of cotton-type bed linen, pure or mixed with man-made fibres or flax.…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce is assembling a crack anti-fraud team called Fraudnet, tasked with offering advice to victims of commercial deception, money laundering and cybercrime. The chamber’s commercial crime department said it was now identifying and inviting suitable law firms to participate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has tabled a directive that would insist statutory auditors avoid conflicts of interest when carrying out additional work for client companies, although its proposals do not suggest an outright ban on subsidiary contracts. The proposal insists auditors be “independent from the audited entity and not in any way involved in management decisions.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank is lending Peru US$12 million to help it reform its judicial system, making it more efficient and better able to serve poor and isolated communities across the country. The bank’s ‘justice services improvement’ project also aims to help the Peruvian government improve the operation of development of the country’s national judicial council, the judicial academy and its ministry of justice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is assembling a crack anti-fraud team from amongst specialist legal practices worldwide, tasked with offering advice to victims of commercial deception, money laundering and cybercrime. The chamber’s commercial crime department said it was now identifying and inviting suitable law firms to participate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD’S premier anti-money laundering operation has released a detailed report detailing how corrupt lawyers are increasingly using their expertise to help criminals clean dirty money. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that lawyers are not only advising criminals on money laundering, but arranging paperwork and even conducting illicit transactions themselves.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States government will have to reconsider the fate of foreign nationals on death row, after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled it had breached its obligations under the Vienna Convention on consular relations, by failing to inform 51 Mexican convicts of their right to contact diplomats “without delay” after arrest.…