Archive

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is developing standard models for the following-up of divestiture commitments and trustee mandates in merger cases where companies promise to sell interests to get a deal cleared by Brussels competition authorities.

The Commission said that the use of the models, which are based on the 12 years of experience since the EU’s merger regulation was first implemented, would relieve merging companies and its officials of heavy administrative demands during the so-called remedies stage in merger review procedures, where the timing of sell-offs is crucial.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has been censured by the European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, who has called on EU Member States to reconsider their refusal to release a report on business taxation to a firm of consultants, (which has chosen to remain anonymous).…

KEITH NUTHALL
A LEGAL challenge launched by a Norwegian farmed salmon exporter against the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties against its products sold in the European Union has failed at the European Court of Justice.

Dismissing Arne Mathisen AS’s claim and ordering it to pay its costs and those of the EU Council of Ministers, the ECJ backed the European Commission’s decision to ignore promises made by the company to keep is costs high enough to avoid the punishing protective duties.…

KEITH NUTHALL
This is based on a feature I wrote for Geographical Magazine a couple of years ago but which I am now focusing solely on Tasmania rather than nationwide.

Tasmanian aquaculture

Matthew Brace, Sydney

Australia is sold to the world as a vast baking continent with quartzite ridges stretching to the horizon like the fossilised carcasses of fallen dinosaurs.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s general council has been asked to approve global trading laws stating that the drying of fish, fish livers, roes and fish fillets should legally be considered a product of the country where fish is processed, not where it was caught.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWITZERLAND has complained to a key World Trade Organisation committee that its beef imports are being unfairly restricted by the USA because of concerns that they are contaminated with BSE. It has claimed at the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Committee that the US should not, for example, be insisting on the onsite inspection of Swiss meat plants, because the Office International des Épizooties has classified Switzerland as having a low incidence the disease.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A RELAXATION of European Union rules governing British slaughterhouses and processing plants has been agreed by the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health and will enter into force after formal adoption by the European Commission.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed revised European Union-wide rules for health controls on meat as part of a new package of hygiene measures designed to step up food safety in the EU. These would implement a science-based approach to meat inspection, which Brussels said would protect the consumer from all main hazards linked to the consumption of meat.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s general council has been asked to approve global trading laws stating that fresh, slaughtered and butchered meat would legally be considered a product of the country where livestock is processed, not where it was reared.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STANDARDISED European Union-wide safety assessment procedures for authorising manufactured smoke flavourings have been proposed by the European Commission. Brussels considers these flavourings – produced by condensing fresh smoke into water – as safer than traditional smoking techniques for meat and other products.…