Search Results for: German

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has appointed an insider as its new Internal Auditor, replacing Jules Muis who has been highly critical of the organisation’s accounting practices since leaving his post. Walter Deffaa will now become director general of the Commission’s internal audit service (IAS).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is early days, but the European Union’s (EU) Solidarity Fund, subsidising the costs of large-scale disasters, shows every likelihood of being a permanent feature of the EU risk management scene. We’re not talking small beer here; the fund paid out Euro 104.7 million last year and Euro 728 million the year before that, easing the consequences of disasters such as floods, earthquakes and forest fires.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the acquisition of the Dutch retail company Vendex KBB by US investment fund KKR, ruling it would not create competition problems, despite the Americans already controlling Wincor Nixdorf, a German supplier of electronic retail systems.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GERMAN consortium of RWE Nukem and GNB – Gesellschaft für Nuklearbehälter has been awarded the contract for constructing a spent fuel storage facility helping the decommissioning of Bulgaria’s Kozloduy plant. The Euro 49 million contract is being financed by Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund, which is managed and administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice’s Court of First Instance has cut by Euro 153 million the fines previously imposed by the European Commission on eight American, German and Japanese companies for operating an international cartel in the graphite electrode sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MARATHON by name and nature, the European Commission has closed a gas network access case involving the Norwegian subsidiary of American gas producer Marathon, after negotiations stretching from the 1990’s. The deal, involving French and German gas companies Gaz de France (GdF) and Ruhrgas, allows the Commission to close a competition file that has also sparked pipeline access deals with German companies BEB and Thyssengas, plus Dutch company Gasunie.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CIGARETTE companies can reclaim customs debts created by the seizure in the European Union of smuggled tobacco products in operations involving undercover agents, the European Court of Justice has ruled. In a case brought by the Netherlands’ British American Tobacco Manufacturing BV (taking over from Rothmans in 2000), the court said the DM 1.4 million claimed by German customs on 11 million seized and destroyed Golden American cigarettes could be reclaimed “provided no deception or obvious negligence may be attributed” to Rothmans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EURO 127.7 in German state aid – enabling Theo Müller GmbH & Co to expand a dairy plant in Leppersdorf, Saxony – has been approved by the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN government has banned the sale and distribution of a line of tights – “Strumpfhose Hilka – Passend für alle Größen” (Hilka tights – one size fits all), because of concerns that they contain potentially carcinogenic illegal azo-dyes.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
PAN-EUROPEAN fleet managers and road transport companies will have to closely monitor disqualification histories of their drivers, because of their newly confirmed legal right to secure licences in other European Union (EU) countries after being banned in their home state.…