Archive

BY ALAN OSBORN
WITH international financial institutions being firmly in the mainstream of the world financial system, they can no more ignore the presence of money-laundering than they can that of poverty or hunger. We are talking here of global aid and development agencies like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the regional development banks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union (EU) funded report has called on the European Commission to push the idea of a compulsory patent litigation insurance scheme for companies seeking legal protection for their inventions.

The paper, written for the Commission by Britain’s CJA Consultants Ltd, following interviews with innovative companies and insurers, says: “Provision of readily available and cost-effective patent litigation insurance is highly likely to improve the value of patents to users.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PHD in rocket science is not required to understand that corruption is a problem worldwide. But such a qualification – and more – would be required to devise an effective plan to fight this financial plague. The United Nations’ (UN) is drafting an international convention on corruption and asked a string of experts to write reports to illuminate some issues.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STREAMLINING, multi-tasking and flexible posting of employees may be important weapons in the arsenal of a personnel team looking at getting the most efficiency out of their company, but managers had better make sure that their policies are legal, not only under national laws, but European law too.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF has been called in to investigate financial corruption at the EU’s Committee of the Regions, the Brussels body representing local governments across Europe.

Its investigators are checking allegations made by Dutch socialist MEP Michiel van Hulten to the European Parliament that the record of financial probity at the CoR “can only be described as alarming.”…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON, in Newcastle, England, MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane and RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
ASK a human to find a needle in a haystack and they would probably spend five minutes at the most sifting through the stalks, then get bored and walk away.…

Keith Nuthall
Mr Neil Kinnock, vice-president of the European Commission, appears

likely to escape any censure by the European Parliament over the so-called

Andreason affair and the matter is now expected to be put finally to rest

next week. Mr Kinnock has come under fire over attacks on the Commission’s

accounting procedures by its former chief accountant Marta Andreason who

was suspended from her post by Mr Kinnock last year.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE THREAT to the political future of Neil Kinnock seemed to have ebbed last night, with the author of a memorandum highly critical of the European

Commission’s accounting system saying (on Tuesday) that there had been

a “paradigm shift” to improve the system since he reported last year.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is seeking opinions on a proposal to adapt

the International Accounting Standards system, which many European Union (EU) companies are obliged to use from 2005, as a “starting point” for an EU-wide consolidated tax base.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission vice president Neil Kinnock can breath a sigh of relief after yesterday’s (Monday24) vote by the European Parliament’s budget control committee to recommend the discharge of the European Union’s year 2001 accounts. The decision brings to an end concerns that the committee would withhold consent because of revelations about mismanagement that Kinnock is alleged to have ignored, notably those made by whistle-blower and former chief accountant Marta Andreason, now suspended from her job.…