Archive

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
THE LATEST provisional figures from Britain’s Department of Transport show that road casualties for the 12 months ending June 2002 were down three per cent compared with the previous 12 months, while the number of people killed and seriously injured was down one per cent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WAY back when….last December….the International Maritime Organisation agreed a compulsory maritime security code for its member countries, covering ships and ports involved in international trade. Governments have to write the code into their laws by December 31 and shipping companies and port authorities are supposed to comply by June 2004.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane, EDWARD PETERS, in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg, MARK ROWE, in London, SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal.
BRITAIN’S National Health Service (NHS) is exposed to an estimated annual fraud loss of pounds 2 billion each year.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane, EDWARD PETERS, in Hong Kong, RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg, MARK ROWE, in London, SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo and MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal.
FRAUD is fraud, jurists might say. And although jurisprudence generally has a universal flavour and there are frauds that are committed the world over, it would be a travesty of the truth to say that crimes involving deception uniform by nature.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has disbanded its Directorate General for Financial Control, as part of its root-and-branch reform of its accounting controls, aimed at wrestling with reports claiming that European Union institutions continue to be riddled with fraud. The EU anti fraud office OLAF said in its latest report that 552 new cases were opened from last May to this June, with its caseload increasing by 30 per cent compared to the two first years of its existence, for instance.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union’s financial watchdog, the Court of Auditors, has released its 2003 work programme. Its key priority will be to improve its Statement of Assurance, an auditing tool it uses to assess the management and scrutiny of EU spending, said court president Juan Manuel Fabra Vallés.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is moving towards a deal with Switzerland over the payment of a withholding tax to avoid releasing information about EU citizens owning Swiss bank savings accounts. It wants avoid exposing these clients to tax demands from their home countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that three Norwegian companies be exempted from the European Union’s (EU) anti-dumping and countervailing duties on farmed Norway salmon, agreeing that they are new exporters untainted by past allegations of dumping. They are Vestmar AS, Gaia Seafood AS and Polar Quality AS.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has backed the Austrian government’s zero-tolerance policy regarding the contamination of smoked fish with listeria monocytogenes, ruling that Council Directive 91/493/EEC on placing fish products on the market allows such strict measures. The court rejected arguments that it and associated legislation banned a zero contamination rule as excessively tight.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FISH Diseases Commission of the Office International des Epizooties has confirmed an outbreak of Epizootic Haematopoietic Necrosis on a Finland fish farm. The international organisation has warned of 2,600 possible cases of European Sheatfish Virus on the farm, in south-eastern Finland, near the Russian border, on the River Vuoksi.…