End our smoke and mirrors economy March 15, 2010 AMERICANS are great at producing lengthy, blow-by-blow investigations into crises, debacles and disasters. Last week’s 2,200 pager into the Lehman Brothers collapse from US examiner Anton Valukas is a case in point. His revelations about how Lehman was able to downplay the size of its balance sheet are especially riveting. It is clear that the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 15, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES RBS eyes £10bn debt buy-back as it plans balance sheet shake-up Royal Bank of Scotland is planning a vast balance sheet restructuring in an attempt to boost its capital strength and its standing with bond investors. The move could involve at least £10bn (€11bn) of the bank’s £28bn of debt being bought back [...]
PartyGaming hit by US legal settlement March 4, 2010 ONLINE gaming group PartyGaming slumped to a loss in 2009 after paying costs for a deal with US authorities that will protect it from being prosecuted over its past trading activities there. It posted a loss of $26.5m (£17.6m) in the year to 31 December – down from a profit of $66.1m in 2008. The [...]
Mick’s Wolves lack the bite to frighten United March 4, 2010 WOLVES vs MANCHESTER UNITED TOMORROW – 5.30PM ESPN THE relationship between the red and blue sides of Manchester has been especially hostile this season thanks mainly to the Carlos Tevez saga. However, the little Argentinian did his old teammates a huge favour by inflicting Chelsea’s first home league defeat since November 2008 last Saturday. That [...]
CITY BROKER ISN’T JUST HORSING AROUND WITH NEW POLO VENTURE March 3, 2010 IT’S SET to be a good year for Daniel Fox-Davies, the jovial boss of City stockbroker Fox-Davies Capital. Foxy, you see, is a bit of a dark horse when it comes to his extra-curricular hobbies – along with running his oil and gas-focused brokerage, he spends much of his free time flying jets and helicopters, [...]
Autonomy builds a £500m war chest for acquisitions February 10, 2010 AUTONOMY was back on the acquisition trail yesterday, raising £500m in a convertible bond issue to snap up a target in the US. Chief executive Mike Lynch said: “We’ve got our eye on a couple of potential targets, but we need to get the cash before we can start having proper conversations.” He said Autonomy [...]
Business must get prepared for new bribery laws January 28, 2010 BRIBERY and corruption is big business. Just ask a lawyer. With anti-bribery legislation passing through Parliament, a raft of corporate investigations, litigation support and crisis management specialists are gearing up for a flood of new cases in the City. Among these, the most colourful must surely be Daniel Nardello, chief executive of Nardello & Co, [...]
An oath can’t make lawyers more honest January 25, 2010 BIG changes are afoot in the legal world, not least those arising from the reforms which the profession is going to see under the Legal Services Act. This will include the introduction of so-called Tesco Law, which will see non-lawyers increasingly involved in the provision of legal services. In the face of this brave new [...]
FOOTBALL | IN BRIEF January 25, 2010 Laws warns of derby destruction BURNLEY boss Brian Laws has warned his players against letting “all hell break loose” when his team visit former boss Owen Coyle’s new side, Bolton, tonight. More than 5,000 Clarets fans are expected to make the short trip across Lancashire to let their feelings known over Coyle’s defection earlier this [...]
Nokia win proves that IP is taking centre stage January 19, 2010 EARLIER this week, mobile phone maker Nokia won a legal case against German intellectual property company IPCom in the High Court in London. The court ruled that Nokia does not have to pay IPCom to use the technology for which it owns patents. IPCom is one of the intellectual property (IP) companies known as “patent [...]