EU proposals target radical audit revamp October 13, 2010 “BIG FOUR” accountancy firms could be forced to scale back their audit activities in the future, if a European Commission consultation on shaking up the industry finds that the scale of individual players poses a systemic risk. The EU’s internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier yesterday launched the wide-ranging consultation to examine whether the role of [...]
Rivals circle Turkey’s Dogan October 13, 2010 Germany’s RTL Group and US-based Time Warner are believed to have submitted bids for assets belonging to Turkey’s largest media company Dogan Yayin. Dogan Yayin, which owns Turkey’s largest broadcasting network as well as several newspapers and magazines, is valued at around $2bn (£1.25bn). News Corp had submitted a bid but pulled out yesterday because [...]
GEKKO IS GOOD FOR BOX OFFICE October 13, 2010 Cinema-goers have proved high finance is still a firm favourite by sending financial drama “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” to the top of the UK box office. The movie, starring Michael Douglas in a reprise of his role as corporate raider Gordon Gekko, took £1.8m, easily beating romantic comedy “Life As We Know It”.
Drinks sales see faltering recovery October 13, 2010 NEW figures show that the alcohol industry in the UK is experiencing an “unsteady and uneven” recovery. Latest HMRC figures show beer sales fell in July, adding to publicans’ woes. The volume of beer released for UK consumption was down 1.7 per cent compared to the figure in June and 5.1 per cent year-on-year. The [...]
Microsoft looks to deepen ties with Facebook October 13, 2010 Microsoft deepened its ties with social networking company Facebook yesterday, bolstering its fledgling Bing search engine to catch up with Google. Starting yesterday, Bing will integrate content from the world’s leading social network, tailoring search results to users’ preferences based on information from their network of Facebook friends — which Google does not do. Microsoft [...]
EU plans to tighten rules on offshore oil drilling October 13, 2010 The European Commission will propose tougher rules on offshore oil and gas drilling in the first half of 2011, but will not demand a temporary halt to new drilling operations, the EU’s energy chief said yesterday. The plans are intended to guard against a repeat of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, [...]
Liberia seeks trial of UK national over carbon deal October 13, 2010 Liberia is seeking to prosecute a British citizen for bribery in a proposed carbon deal that would have given him control of a fifth of the West African country’s rainforests, the government said yesterday. Liberia began investigating the accord to grant 400,000 hectares of rainforest to British firm Carbon Harvesting Corporation in July after governance [...]
Hedge fund growth begins to slow in 2010 October 13, 2010 GROWTH in hedge fund assets slowed during the first half of 2010, climbing two per cent to reach $1.87 trillion (£1.18 trillion). This was a marked slowdown from the second half of 2009, when the industry bounced back 10 per cent following the financial meltdown, according to data by HedgeFund Intelligence The incremental growth means [...]
State cuts to hit 50,000 firms October 13, 2010 More than 100,000 companies in Britain are in financial distress, with a combined debt pile of £58bn, according to insolvency group Begbies Traynor. The company’s Red Flag Alert report on troubled companies said around 50,000 business are likely to be hit by the government’s looming spending cuts. The report said construction, IT, recruitment and advertising [...]
SocGen to fight price-fixing fine October 13, 2010 Société Générale will challenge a fine by the French competition regulator for fixing the price of clearing cheques electronically. L’Autorite de la Concurrence fined the bank and 10 others a total of €384.9m (£338m) last month for colluding to charge unjustified fees on cheques and other interbank services when they switched to a new digital [...]