Search Results for: Germany

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A COMPREHENSIVE report from a European Union (EU) think-tank has indicated that Britain’s new Pounds 2,000 scrappage scheme may not work, because of high levels of UK personal indebtedness.

The paper ‘Recent restructuring trends and policies in the automotive sector’ by the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has shown how Germany’s scrappage scheme has been markedly successful – in contrast to those in other EU member states, such as France and Italy.…

BY MARK GODFREY

ONE might wonder why Chinese car makers would want to go abroad: China’s auto sales are up by as much as 40% in the first half of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Statistics here. Yet Chinese car firms have been gunning hard for sales in the UK and western Europe, both deemed as vital to global expansion plans developed by automakers BYD and Chery, explained Yale Zhang, a Beijing-based auto analyst at CLSA, an investment bank.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London; RUSSELL BERMAN, in Washington DC; JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi; BY WANG FANGQING, in Shanghai; EMMA JACKSON, in Ottawa; KARRYN MILLER; and KEITH NUTHALL

THE AUTOMOBILE sector maybe one of the most globally integrated manufacturing industries on the planet, but national governments (or continental bodies in Europe) still hold sway regarding regulation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SENIOR official from Germany’s renowned Max Planck Institute has warned that Europe is "lagging behind" Japan and the United States regarding innovation, especially in the pharmaceutical sector. Ivan Baines, the institute’s head of technology transfer warned a Brussels conference that tough European Union "gold standard" health regulations were deterring research into new medicines.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, LUCY JONES, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, JULIAN RYALL, and KARRYN MILLER

THERE are 108 recognised Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) throughout the world and more are being created every year as the fight against international money laundering becomes ever more global.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) consumer alert network RAPEX has released a series of warnings about north American personal care products. Notably, it has told of seizures in Italy of a Canadian talcum powder called ‘Spring Fresh’ that contained arsenic, which is banned under the EU cosmetics directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) heads of government have agreed to establish a new Europe-wide system of financial supervision, imposing arbitration on national regulators disagreeing over controls of cross-border banks and other financial organisations. The decision follows tough bargaining at Friday’s EU summit in Brussels between Britain – which wanted to minimise EU controls over its financial sector – and France and Germany, which favoured a strong European financial watchdog.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BELGIUM – the host of Europe’s de facto capital – has long been regarded as being flawed as regards corruption – but now the Council of Europe’s GRECO watchdog is on its case. Keith Nuthall reports.

GRECO – the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption – acts like its MONEYVAL committee does as regards money laundering.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ABILITY of perfume companies to trademark a distinctively shaped bottle or other packaging has taken a knock at the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Its Court of First Instance has rejected a bid by Germany’s ars Parfum Creation & Consulting (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT ‘ars’), of Cologne, to gain European Union-wide trademark rights for a three-dimensional sign consisting of the shape of its spray bottle.…

BY ESTRID STROLL, in Leingarten, Germany, and KEITH NUTHALL

JAPAN and Germany are maybe the world’s top ranking electrical engineering companies, so it is no surprise that the Baden-Württemburg-based and Japanese-owned Hosokawa Bepex GmbH has a solid reputation for producing confectionary manufacturing machines.…