Archive

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
BMW is developing a new high-tech system to prevent drivers falling asleep at the wheel, after research by the German Insurance Association (GdV) revealed that tiredness caused a quarter of all fatal accidents on autobahns.

BMW’s “driving alertness assistant” operates using a small camera fitted inside the car, which examines eye blinking patterns to assess how watchful or tired the driver is.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPECIAL exemption for the insurance sector from European Union laws insisting on free and unfettered competition between companies in Europe is to be extended, albeit with changes improving the rights of policy-holders and other consumers.

This ‘block exemption’ from EU competition legislation is due to expire next March 31, and the European Commission is now consulting the industry on reforms to the system that it wants to put in place on its renewal.…

BY MARK ROWE
INTERNATIONAL organisations are supposed to help business fight off sophisticated crime networks, but now the fraudsters are turning the tables and using the good name of these institutions as part of their scams. Mark Rowe reports.

IT STARTED with a fax from a Chinese businessman to the Vienna headquarters of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE SRI Lankan government has announced that it is to furnish its cabinet and junior ministers with 115 new photocopiers, bought in a multi-million rupee deal from John Keells Office Automation (JKOA), part of the John Keells Holdings group, one of the country’s largest companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LONDON-based CVC Capital Partners and Cinven Group Ltd have been moving ahead with the acquisition of Sweden’s AssiDomän AB’s container board and corrugated business units company, Alpha, following approval of the deal by the European Commission. The buyers are investment companies jointly controlling Kappa Holding BV, which is already involved in the manufacture and sale of paper products.…

BY RICHARD HURST
SOUTH Africa’s Sappi Adamas paper mill, which produces 35,000 tonnes of paper per annum for export and local markets at Deal Party, near Port Elizabeth, recently celebrated its 50th birthday by gaining ISO 14001 working practice accreditation. Dave Glazebrook, Adamas general manager said it was the first step in reducing the mill’s environmental impact.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PLANS to impose 100 per cent retaliatory duties on US exports of ball-point, felt-tipped, fountain and stylograph pens, as well as propelling or sliding pencils, pen-holders, pencil-holders, plus caps and clips have been postponed from June 18 to September 30 after Washington started backing down and removing a number of its steel tariffs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has imposed protective anti-dumping duties of 32.3 per cent and countervailing duties of 10 per cent on Indonesian supplies to European Union companies of certain ring-binder mechanisms. The Council however scrapped plans to impose such protective duties on Indian ring-binder exports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission says that in 2001, 95 million counterfeit or pirated goods worth Euro 2 billion were intercepted at EU external borders, up 900 per cent on 1998. Brussels said that there had been customs improvements, but “it is becoming more and more difficult to establish the real origin of counterfeit and pirated goods.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce is appealing for help to help it track down the perpetrators of a fake share-offering that has left European businesses out of pocket. Its Commercial Crime Bureau wants to hear from victims of a scam, where investors have been offered bargain prices for stick of companies that were supposedly about to go public, but which actually did not exist.…