Search Results for: Greece

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

Greece is perhaps the best example of how a corrupt political and commercial system can undermine an economy and prevent it recovering from recession. The country has a patent and overwhelming corruption problem that weakens efforts to reduce its huge debt burden, expected to reach almost 190% of GDP in 2012.…

BY MARK ROWE

ANYONE looking for straightforward conclusions about the impact of the recession on eastern Europe’s cosmetics market is likely to be disappointed. Some countries, such as Poland, fared relatively well in the crisis, while others such as Latvia faced punishing economic contraction, therefore signals coming from the region in these uncertain and ever-changing times, are hugely varied.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS

IT is now 10 year since the launch of Eurojust, the European Union’s (EU) judicial service coordination body, yet official figures still value fraud against EU spending and revenue programmes at for than EUR600 million (USD 800 million) each year.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS, ALAN OSBORN, IN LONDON, LEE ADENDORFF, IN LUCCA, ITALY; MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS; DAVID HAYHURST, IN PARIS; ANDREW KURETH, IN WARSAW; AND JOHN PAGNI, IN HELSINKI

THE POTENTIAL of micro-CHP (combined heat-and-power) for industrial businesses, residential complexes and individual homes is becoming increasingly clear across Europe.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

THE GREEK economic crisis may provide the perfect backdrop for money laundering. Dr Ioannis Filos, professor of Auditing at Panteion University in Athens and director of the Greek chapter of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN) told the Money Laundering Bulletin that "it is obvious… that the financial stress is a big threat for someone to get involved in wrong actions/fraud/corruption."…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, in ATHENS

CORRUPTION in Greece stems from the top and is still played down by the country’s main media, recently arrested Greek editor Kostas Vaxevanis told Fraud Intelligence after being acquitted November 1 of data protection charges. This followed his Hot Doc magazine’s naming of 2,059 Greeks with Swiss bank deposits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE BRITISH government will have to carefully assess whether its feed-in tariff system gives unfair advantages to UK-based utilities and their suppliers, following a new World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes case brought by China. It has argued that Italy and Greece have broken WTO fair trading laws by unfairly favouring local companies in contracts securing subsidies under feed-in tariff systems.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

GREECE has clamped down sharply on movements of livestock on the Aegean island of Kos, to prevent bluetongue virus spreading to other islands and the Greek mainland. It follows reports of 10 cases being discovered in sheep and one in goats on the eastern Aegean island, which is just 4km from the Turkish coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s energy committee has rejected attempts to introduce a moratorium on offshore gas drilling in the Arctic, overruling a contrary vote by the EP’s environment committee last month. Instead, the committee proposed new amendments to a proposed law on European Union (EU) oil and gas exploration, ensuring that companies have ‘adequate financial security’ to cover liabilities from any drilling accidents in all EU waters.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS

Greece implemented for the first time in September a law that allows the freezing of assets in cases of large scale tax evasion, with sources at the Greek finance ministry assuring Fraud Intelligence these measures "will most certainly be implemented in all other future cases of tax evasion."…