Search Results for: Swiss

BY MARK ROWE
MONEY launderers looking to process their criminal gains look favourably upon south-east Asia. Authorities in the region are under-funded and overworked, while cash-transactions are a cultural norm, making it easy to ensure that money you would prefer not to be traced can simply disappear, with little likelihood that anyone will have the time to investigate the transaction.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND PHILIP FINE

IN the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy, the shocking images of two planes slamming into two of the most famous buildings in the world fuelled a strong desire tighten up security systems around the world, especially in civil aviation.…

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.…

ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the acquisition by the Italian weaving machinery manufacturer Promatech SpA, of Sulzer Textil, the textile machinery division of the Swiss company Sulzer Ltd.

Competition approval was given after Promatech agreed to divest itself of rapier weaving machines operations in Verona in Italy and Solothurn in Switzerland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MOVE to liberalise the global trade in artificially propagated orchids has been made by the USA, which has formally proposed that six species are exempted from controls under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the start-up of inreon, (NOTE: all letters in lower case) an online business-to-business reinsurance trading platform set up by Swiss Re and Munich Re. The service will enable insurers to obtain bids from reinsurers on big property and catastrophic risks and conclude contracts online.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
BIDDERS for the new international airport north of Durban South Africa have begun to stake claims in the project with interest being drawn from Swiss technology group ABB and the investment arm of Australia’s Macquarie Bank.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition of the textile division of the Swiss company Sulzer by Italy’s Promatech SpA, a subsidiary of Radici, the Italian leader in the weaving machines sector. The Commission said the competition authorities of a number of EU countries had requested the probe on the grounds that the deal would create or strengthen a dominant position in the sector, (potentially harming choice) and could affect cross-border trade.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and the UN Conference on Trade and Development are developing a task force helping developing countries establish administrative regimes guarantee that locally produced organic foods were made without artificial aids. UNCTAD promotes organic production as sustainable, because its labour intensity and lack of expensive chemical inputs matches poor countries’ economic realities.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fined eight companies a total of Euro 855.22 million for participating in secret market-sharing and price-fixing cartels affecting the production of vitamins including those sold to the confectionary industry to make nutrient enriched products.…