Search Results for: International business

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is slowly moving towards the setting up of a compulsory insurance scheme that would support inventors and innovators in pursuing legal claims against patent infringers. At present many patents, especially those taken out by individuals and small companies, are openly violated by companies who gamble that the holder has neither the resources nor expertise to mount the necessary legal challenge.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A GERMAN research group has been awarded an EU European Business Award for the Environment for developing technology to produce fibre-board from the residue wood of palm oil plantations. The Fraunhofe Institute for Wood Research’s system will help Malaysian producers create a marketable product from the 40 million tonnes of biomass waste produced annually, which is usually either burnt or stored in poor conditions.…

BY MARK ROWE
TONGA’S venture into the world of shipping registries appears to have ended in the farce that many industry experts long predicted. The registry was closed earlier this year in the face of international criticism but Tonga now believes it has lost the money it made during the registry’s controversial two-year period.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A GERMAN manufacturer of brewery equipment has joined with a Luxembourg beer brewer to commercialise a technique that they claim can save 55 per cent of the energy required for boiling wort, a major process in beer production.…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Maritime Bureau is warning cargo owners to beware of two growing threats posed by pirates, to small tankers and barge-towing tugs. The IMB has warned of an increase in attacks on tugs and barges, reporting two hijackings of these vessels in Indonesian waters alone since early September.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A TAIWANESE flower producer seeking permission to grow orchids on 112,000 hectares of land to the north of Bangkok has been told by the Thai government that it will have to find a majority Thailand business partner to proceed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the acquisition by US office supplies firm Staples of the office supplies distance-selling business of French company Guilbert. Brussels agreed that the take-over did not pose competition problems, because, although it would boost Staples’ position in Europe, the giant would still face strong rivals, notably the US-based Office Depot.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FUTURE of US tariff preferences for Cambodian clothing exports looks guaranteed for another year, after an International Labour Organisation gave the country another relatively clean bill of health regarding working standards in its garment industry. While stressing problems regarding wages, overtime and unions, the UN agency concluded improvements were made to working conditions in various factories following earlier reports.…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Maritime Organisation (IMO) is considering changes to its conventions that would broaden the range of offences against which signatory countries are bound to take action, to ensure that legal commitments to fight terrorism are harmonised and toughened.…

BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.

Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…