Search Results for: Sint Maarten

EUROPEAN Union (EU) heads of states and governments have urged their ministers to agree important pieces of draft EU legislation that could potentially curb tax evasion in the bloc.

Meeting during a European Council meeting in Brussels last week (May 22), leaders were under pressure to act from media reports revealing how much untaxed incomes politicians, companies and rich business owners have stashed in tax havens.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

Discord has hit the usually placid calm of European Union (EU) financial watchdog, the Court of Auditors: a dissident ex-member says EU fraud and mismanagement is even worse than we think. Keith Nuthall explains.

It was something of a surprise when Dutch auditor Maarten Engwirda marked his retirement from the Luxembourg-based court with what amounted to an accounting kiss-and-tell exclusive in the Netherlands’ De Volkskrant newspaper.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and KEITH NUTHALL

UKIP MEP and former European Commission chief accountant Marta Andreasen wants the European Union (EU) to use external audits following claims from a former EU Court of Auditors member that irregularities are swept under the carpet.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, KARRYN MILLER, GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE, KEITH NUTHALL

FOR niche spirits, obscure can be good – and so products made in countries not renowned for their spirits production can gather export market cache. Latin America and the Caribbean are regions where effort by buyers can pay dividends.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

DEFINING a niche drink is an arbitrary matter and what may pass as niche today may well be considered mainstream tomorrow. Flavoured vodka, for instance, had a relatively specialised following in Europe until a few years ago – now it is classified as an official spirit drink under European Union (EU) regulations.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

A decade ago, Latin America was considered to be one of the beer industry’s toughest markets, due to frequent bouts of economic uncertainty and political turmoil. But a lot has changed in the region since the year 2000, and recently instead of recoiling from this region, the biggest beer companies in the world have been fighting tooth and nail for shares of it.…

BY MARVIN HOKSTAM

WHEN aviation executives gathered in Sint Maarten for the eighth Airports Conference of the Americas (July 20-22, 2008), not even the cosy Caribbean atmosphere could change their gloomy disposition on their industry. With rising fuel costs, out-of-control energy bills, airline capacity shortages and the effects of terrorism’s relentless onslaught in travel, aviation has no shortage of challenges; the officials acknowledged that there is no quick fix to their problems, so their discussions centred on alternatives.…

BY SUZANNE KOELEGA and JUHEL BROWNE

"CASINOS are an important part of the development of the Caribbean tourist sector, yet they hold a particular attraction to money launderers. Casinos provide the venues for large flows of cash, which launderers can utilise to disguise the true origins of their criminal proceeds."…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London, and SUZANNE KOELEGA, in Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies

AS with much of life today, the future of gambling is closely tied to the Internet, and this development of an international industry based on instant cross-border cash flows has raised understandable concerns about money laundering.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN EXPERT scientific report from the European Commission has suddenly made it respectable to talk once again about lifting the European Union (EU) ban on snus, the smokeless tobacco product from Sweden whose sale in other member states has been prohibited by an EU directive since 1992.…