Search Results for: Portugal

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has blocked a bid by Mexico’s Cervecería Modelo’s to secure European Union (EU) trademark protection for its beer Negra Modelo. This has been opposed by Portugal supermarket group Modelo Continente Hipermercados, which secured its own EU rights to the trademark ‘Modelo’ in 1995, for goods including “syrups, beers, refreshing drinks and non-alcoholic beverages”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved a new fishing access deal with Madagascar, allowing Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese to catch tuna in its Indian Ocean waters until December 2006. The EU will pay Madagascar Euro 825,000 this year and next to compensate it for the loss of fish.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has blocked a bid by Mexico’s Cervecería Modelo’s to secure European Union (EU) trademark protection for its beer Negra Modelo. This has been opposed by Portugal supermarket group Modelo Continente Hipermercados, which secured its own EU rights to the trademark ‘Modelo’ in 1995, for goods including “syrups, beers, refreshing drinks and non-alcoholic beverages”.…

BY LIZ HALL, in Alicante

SINCE March 2005, Operation White Whale, an extensive international anti-money-laundering operation spearheaded by the Spain’s National Police (the Policia Nacional), has produced the arrest of 57 people and the laundering of at least Euro 250 million euros obtained through illegal drug trafficking, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry (Ministerio del Interior).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINANCIAL professionals such as accountants are becoming increasingly important to European organised crime groups, European Union (EU) police agency Europol has warned.

Calling for a “risk analysis of this phenomenon at an EU level…to identify appropriate countermeasures”, Europol’s latest annual report on organised crime suggests that corrupt professionals are freelancing for criminals as a career choice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INSTITUTIONS of the European Union (EU) always say they are getting a handle on the fraud that riddles their operations, but are they? Keith Nuthall looks at the latest annual report from EU fraud-fighters OLAF.

MEASURING fraud is notoriously difficult, given that the aim of this crime is to be as undetectable as possible.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CIGARETTES continue to be a key source of revenue for fraudsters and smugglers in the European Union (EU), with the EU institutions’ anti-fraud unit OLAF saying they have generated more criminal money than anything else in investigations open this June.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LAST people most farmers would like controlling European agricultural policy are glib public relations experts, armed with palm-top digital personal organisers and a sheaf of focus group studies. Such complaints have often been levelled at the Blair government, accused of bending with the wind of public opinion.…

Keith Nuthall
THE CREATION of a new ground-handling joint venture for Portuguese airports has been approved by the European Commission; it has authorised the merging of the groundhandling division of private airline Portugália into the service offered by national carrier TAP (Transportes Aereos Portugueses).…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a formal inquiry into a levy on wines sold in Portugal financing its Instituto da Vinha e do Vinho (IVV), which provides expert help to the country’s wine industry. The charge was introduced in 1995 and because it is also levied on wine imported from other European Union (EU) member countries, Brussels is concerned that this “wine promotion parafiscal charge” may effectively involve imports subsidising the Portuguese wine industry.…