Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY ALAN OSBORN
SIGNIFICANT changes in the international art market, with possibly adverse consequences for European museums, galleries and other art buyers, could follow from a case being brought by the European Commission against the world’s two leading fine art auction houses, Christie’s International plc in London and Sotheby’s Holdings, Inc of New York.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AN INFLUENTIAL environmental group is taking the world’s largest poultry company to court for allegedly failing to quell noxious releases emanating from its contracted farmers’ properties. The Sierra Club alleges that Kentucky-based Tyson Foods failed to report releases of ammonia at four of its suppliers’ chicken houses.…

BY MARK ROWE
Huntsman Corp, the world’s largest privately-held chemical firm, aims to start construction by mid-year of a US$1 billion complex in China that will dramatically increase its production of components for the car industry. The plant, pending approval from China’s ruling cabinet, will make 160,000 tonnes of crude methylene diisocyanate (MDI) and 130,000 tonnes of toluene diisocyanate (TDI) a year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRACTICE of allowing companies to deduct bribes paid to secure contracts overseas from their domestic tax bills is still widespread, with a United Nations report saying it was allowed in 50 per cent of countries surveyed. The paper on how the organisation’s 1996 declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions said that it was however banned in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Nigeria, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SLOWLY but surely, the world is becoming a little more open and honest in its business transactions. Bribery and corruption have existed as long as people have traded with each other and in some parts of the world remain as matter-of-fact as ever.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to seek authorisation from European Union member governments to negotiate the formal accession of the EU to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Brussels said that in spite of the EU’s economic strength and the independent political power of its institutions, it carried little weight in the adoption of essential international rules in the transport sector.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AMERICAN food manufacturers will in the long term see a fall in prices if a US$45.1 billion US farm bill becomes law next week, says the European Commission, but not before world markets are glutted with foods. The bill calls for an increase in crop and dairy subsidies to farmers and for mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat, fruit, vegetables, fish and peanuts.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AMERICA’S National Automobile Dealers Association is applauding a ruling by the country’s Internal Revenue Service that will allow car and truck dealers to use replacement cost to evaluate their year-end parts inventory.

"This is a huge victory for dealers," said Bill Newman, NADA’s chief operating officer of Public and Legal Affairs, who said his organisation had spent eight years lobbying the IRS for the time and money-saving change.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SOME sensible words were spoken recently by the EU’s agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler on the way forward for farmers. His starting point was the quality of farm produce. Noone is going to say that quality has ever been far from farmers’ minds, but until recently it wasn’t really the first consideration.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN OVERHAUL of the judicial system in Serbia is being funded by the European Union, which is spending Euro 3 million on improving caseload management, in a bid to “offer every citizen a trustworthy, accessible and efficient justice apparatus.”…