French government demands ban on guaranteed bonuses November 5, 2009 FRENCH banks – including those based in England and English banks based in France – have been banned from offering guaranteed bonuses. The only exception in the rule, announced yesterday, is for signing bonuses for new employees, and they are limited to a one year maximum. The government decree, which takes effect immediately, says that [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 20, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES GALLEONMOVINGASSETS INTO CASHBrokers to the Galleon Group – the hedge fund whose founder and president, Raj Rajaratnam, is at the centre of insider trading charges – report it is rapidly liquidating its investments in anticipation of a wave of investor redemptions. $12.9BN VALEPUSHTOENDDISPUTE Vale, the Brazilian mining group that is the world’s biggest [...]
BNP Paribas plans 4.3bn rights issue September 29, 2009 FRENCH banking giant BNP Paribas is to raise €4.3bn (£4.1bn) as it joins the global rush by lenders to pay back state bailout money. The bank said the underwritten issue, at a discounted €40 per share, would help it repay €5.1bn in non-voting shares taken by the French government at the end of March, as [...]
USand EU closer to bonus deal September 20, 2009 A RADICAL plan by the Federal Reserve to regulate USbank bonuses has made a deal at this week’s G20 summit much more likely, analysts said last night. The US shift has significantly reduced the gap with the EU’s position, but other nations and national parliaments would still have to endorse any agreement. The Fed now [...]
Sarkozy issues plan for happiness September 14, 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for the nation’s economic success to be calculated using new measures including “happiness”. Sarkozy yesterday announced a “revolutionary” plan to shift the focus away from economic growth towards issues like work-life balance, traffic congestion levels and household chores. He said there is too much focus on growth measures like [...]
Anti-bonus witch-hunt has gone too far September 1, 2009 NONSENSEon stilts: that is the only way to describe the anti-bonus hysteria gripping governments worldwide. Gordon Brown weighed in to the cacophony again yesterday, though he has fortunately not gone as far as the French, who want to impose quantitative limits on payouts. The prime minister did float the possibility of limiting the share of [...]
French government to push for overall limit on bonuses at G20 September 1, 2009 THE FRENCH government will later this week urge the Group of 20 (G20) leaders to consider strict curbs on banking bonuses, including a mandatory limit, ahead of their summit later in the month. French finance minister Christine Lagarde will outline Paris’s proposals this Friday, when she meets with fellow G20 finance ministers in London. The [...]
MARTHA LANE FOX REVEALS SHE COULD HAVE BEEN A PRISON GUARD July 15, 2009 GORDON Brown’s new digital inclusion tsar Martha Lane Fox has had a stellar career to date, but it’s reassuring to learn that she could happily turn her hand to something else should she tire of running Lucky Voice and charitable foundation Antigone. Because Lane Fox has revealed that, in another life, she would have been… [...]
Brown and Sarkozy team up to tackle oil price volatility July 6, 2009 PRIME Minister Gordon Brown joined French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday in an attempt to curtail oil price volatility, as part of a move towards tougher global governance to prevent a return to problems that existed before the financial crisis. Speaking at a Franco-British summit ahead of a meeting of G8 leaders in Italy this week, [...]
Iran in protest blackout June 16, 2009 PROTESTORS took to the streets of Iran again yesterday, as the nation’s top legislative body stood by a disputed president poll that claimed incumbent premier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by a landslide. But a ban on reporting from the streets of Iran, and arrests of protest ringleaders, meant any further clashes were kept off the world [...]