Search Results for: France

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S labour costs are rising at a faster rate than those of its key European Union (EU) competitors, Germany and France, figures from the EU statistical agency Eurostat reveal. In the second quarter of 2005, UK nominal hourly labour costs for the whole economy rose by 3.4% compared with the same period in 2004.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has dismissed a bid by Switzerland pharmaceutical manufacturer Alcon Inc. to secure a European Union trademark registration for the brand TRAVATAN to sell medicines and other healthcare products. The court backed France’s Biofarma SA, which claimed the mark would have been confused with its previously registered TRIVASTAN brand, used to sell a medicine treating vascular problems in brains, eyes and ears.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE AQUATIC Animals Health Standards Commission, of the Office International des Épizooties (OIE) is setting up an expert group on improving surveillance of stocks for fish disease outbreaks. The committee is to make recommendations to the next Commission meeting in March, probably in Paris, France.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing a green paper designed to encourage private litigation fighting abuses of European Union (EU) competition law, such as anti-trust offences. The EU competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told a legal conference at France’s Cour de Cassation (court), in Paris, that the existing system created too many hurdles for plaintiffs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced its latest tranche of funding to help European Union (EU) drinks producers sell products outside the EU. Maybe the most significant grant is Euro 1.43 million being paid over three years by Brussels to Lithuania to boost exports of wines and spirits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRENCH regional governments have been given the power to lower excise duty charged locally on diesel and unleaded petrol. Reflecting intense pressure on the French government from lorry drivers, farmers and fishermen, Paris asked permission from the European Union (EU) to derogate from EU excise laws, which generally ban such flexibility.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INDEPENDENT Inquiry Committee into the United Nations’ Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed 14 British companies paid kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime to secure contracts to supply humanitarian supplies. There were also four British companies that paid “surcharges” to secure contracts to lift oil from Iraq to help buy medicines, food and other essentials.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FERROUS and non-ferrous metal companies paid together millions of dollars in kickbacks to the toppled Saddam Hussein regime, the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed. More than 150 suppliers of ferrous metal products ranging from carbon steel plates, steel coil, steel joists, galvanised steel cores, steel bars, steel pipes, fabricated steel and others are named in the report, as are around 50 suppliers of aluminium, copper and lead.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOD companies paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq’s Saddam regime an Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed. Poultry and related production equipment suppliers were amongst those accused of making illicit payments when securing humanitarian contracts.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) management committee for wine has agreed that Hungary be allowed to make a “crisis distillation” of 400,000 hectolitres of table wine, paying subsidies of Euro 1.914 per hectolitre times the percentage of alcohol by volume (abv) and 100,000 hl of quality wine at Euro 2.30 per hectolitre per % abv.…