Search Results for: Netherlands

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GENERAL Motors BV (formerly General Motors Nederland BV and Opel Nederland BV), of the Netherlands, has lost a second appeal against being fined for preventing their dealers exporting to other European Union (EU) member countries. The European Court of Justice has confirmed GM BV must pay Euro 35.47 million.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

DUTCH coatings giant Akzo Nobel NV has taken over Canadian paintmaker Sico Inc. for approximately CDN$284 million.

Akzo based in Arnhem, the Netherlands, will acquire all of Sico’s outstanding common shares at a cash price of CDN$20 per share and will also offer to buy Sico’s class B preferred shares for CDN$3.8 million in total.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is to stage negotiations with the Peruvian government on forging a fishing access agreement with the European Union (EU), its first struck with a South American country. If successful, a deal would be a rich prize for EU fishermen, given the plentiful stocks that teem Peru’s deep Pacific Ocean territorial waters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Commission conference designed to ease the damage caused by bankruptcy has heard how most European Union (EU) countries are already reforming their insolvency laws. Speaking at a Commission conference on ‘Insolvency and Fresh Start’ in Brussels, 120 legal experts from 24 countries were told last year 140,000 corporate insolvencies in the old 15-member EU, risked 1.5 million jobs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DEBATES are continuing within EU institutions over whether vaccination is a safe response to bird flu. The EU’s standing committee on the food chain and animal health has approved limited vaccination in France and the Netherlands. But this was resisted by Austria, Denmark, Germany and Portugal, who fear vaccination’s potential cost, damage to consumer confidence and resulting overseas import bans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce survey has concluded that most developed countries are responding to high oil process by improving energy efficiency. Especially good performers included Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium. The US had also made progress "to a lesser degree".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Oil and gas companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and at December 2005, MIGA had supported 13 oil and gas projects, with guarantees totalling US$707 million, with a standard leverage of five-to-one, so investments covered are actually five times larger.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DEBATES are continuing in European Union (EU) institutions over whether general vaccination is a safe response to Europe’s growing bird flu problem. With Germany, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy all reporting new cases, the EU’s Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has approved the first vaccination campaigns.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

There were about 41,600 road deaths in the 25 EU countries in 2005, down from around 50,000 in 2001 reports the European Commission. This is progress "but not enough" says Brussels which wants member states to halve the rate to 25,000 by 2010 under the EU’s Road Safety Action Programme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A PRACTICAL and regional initiative to remove barriers in trading electricity between neighbouring European Union (EU) countries has been launched by the European Regulators’ Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG). It is grouping states’ regulators and utilities together to focus on regulatory and technical difficulties impeding cross-border sales of electricity for countries sharing frontiers.…