Archive

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has taken an important step towards giving EU water legislation more teeth, by moving against Belgium’s system of “tacit approvals” of pollution. Belgian law allows companies to assume that they have a right to pollute if they make an application to regulators and then receive no reply.…

BY MARK ROWE
VIRGIN Management (Asia) Ltd, the Asian arm of Richard Branson’s empire, is to expand its Virgin Vie cosmetics in Singapore, going head to head in south-east Asia with Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, and Shiseido, Japan’s largest cosmetics company. Branson also plans to spend a further US$2billion expanding his cosmetic and beverage businesses across the Asia-Pacific region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Commission plans to postpone a ban on the marketing within the EU of cosmetic ingredients, that have been tested on animals after July 1 of this year, have sparked fury at the European Parliament, threatening the delicate negotiations over the final shape of Europe’s animal testing legislation.…

BY MATT WELLS, in New York
A NEW survey of business leaders in the United States carried out by the security professionals’ organisation ASIS International, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the US Chamber of Commerce has indicated that around US$59 billion dollars-worth of intellectual property and information were stolen in America over the year to last June.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SMART cards for health are not exactly a novelty but the Prevencard to be launched in the UK next year uses some particularly smart technology.

Prevencard, which is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International, is a commercial application of security research carried out under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

Keith Nuthall
INSURANCE companies will be able to reduce their exposure to natural and technological disasters within the European Union and eastern Europe in the future, assuming EU ministers agree plans to establish a central contingency emergency aid fund commanding between Euro 500,000 and Euro 1 billion; it would be raided by Member States and eastern European countries wanting to join the EU that fall victim to such disasters.…

BY MATTHEW WELLS
A NEW survey of business leaders in the United States carried out by the security professionals’ organisation ASIS International, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the US Chamber of Commerce has indicated that around US$59 billion dollars-worth of intellectual property and information were stolen in America over the year to last June.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW “smart card” for health and safety to be launched in the UK next year could have important implications for insurance companies in the occupational safety and health field. The so-called Prevencard is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International using technology developed under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL community is expected to make solid progress towards the creation of a United Nations Convention against Corruption, during the ongoing third meeting of the ad hoc committee established to draft the treaty.

This session, which lasts until October 11 will especially focus on corruption within the private sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have approved in principle reforms to EU regulations on financial conglomerates, which have been designed to avoid an Enron-style scandal in Europe. They include rules insisting on the creation of national regulators whose job is to supervise conglomerates and help improve the flow of information about their accounts.…