Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PHARMACEUTICAL companies paid together millions of dollars in kickbacks to the toppled Saddam regime, the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed. There were more than 250 medicine suppliers, from countries, many from the Middle East, but also a significant number from Europe, named in a report paying Iraq to secure humanitarian supply contracts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) internal market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy has signalled that the European Commission will delay making any decisions on whether US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) can be formally recognised within the EU. He told a Brussels festive cocktail, of the Association of Corporate Treasurers in Belgium, that the Commission was continuing to consider whether GAAP "might be considered equivalent with IFRS", the international financial reporting standards now compulsory for EU listed companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has fired a shot across the bows of European Union (EU) professions that have tough entrance restrictions and limit competition amongst qualified experts, from lawyers, pharmacists and accountants to notaries, engineers and architects. EU competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes’s speech at a British government-organised seminar in London this week (21-11) comes as the Commission is holding a competition review of professional services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERNS about delays in the implementation of a major piece of European Union (EU) environmental legislation have sparked a review by the European Commission, and will encourage it to pursue legal action in the courts. The law in question is the 1996 integrated pollution prevention and control directive, which insists large EU industrial and agricultural installations obtain operating permits – issued only if the best available techniques on controlling emissions are in use.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has welcomed the spread of programmes tackling violence as a public health priority instead of just a crime problem, with the WHO saying such an approach fosters effective holistic policies. A recent conference, the 2nd Milestones of a Global Campaign for Violence Prevention, in San Francisco, co-hosted by the WHO and the California Wellness Foundation, heard of many new national models.…

BY MARK ROWE
IN times of conflict, cultural property, such as archaeological sites, works of art, museums and monuments, can also suffer grievously at the hands of opposing military and guerrilla forces. In recognition of this, such objects are accorded protection by the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
ON July 31 this year the European Union’s (EU) Tobacco Advertising Directive came into effect, making it illegal to advertise tobacco products in the print media, radio and over the Internet within the EU. Also banned was tobacco sponsorship of cross-border cultural and sporting events.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice’s Court of First Instance has cut a Euro 44 million cartel fine levied by the European Commission on French drinks company Groupe Danone, albeit to Euro 42.4 million. The court accepted that the Commission had proved illegal collaboration between Danone and Alken-Maes, the Belgian arm of Inbev (previously Interbew), to divide the Belgian beer market.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s ‘rapid alert system for food and feed’ RASFF has reported a series of salmonella contaminations within pigmeat. Italian authorities have detected it in meat from Germany (three outbreaks), Belgium and Spain. RASFF has also reported salmonella discovered in Estonia within Lithuanian chicken thighs, and in Italy amongst Hungarian frozen eviscerated ducks and chitterlings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 15 million fine imposed by the European Commission on DaimlerChrysler for alleged illegal anti-competitive actions involving Spanish leasing companies has been lifted. The company had prevented German agents and Spanish dealers from supplying Mercedes-Benz cars to leasing companies before they secured customers, something Brussels said broke European Union (EU) competition laws.…