Blog

  A Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) currency trader was dismissed earlier this year after internal checks uncovered irregularities around how he recorded trades, the bank said.   Andy Donaldson was suspended in June and dismissed shortly after, Sydney-based Adrian Cox, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, confirmed by phone today. Donaldson didn’t immediately respond to voicemails left by Bloomberg News. He caused the bank as much as A$5 million ($4.5 million) in losses, the Australian Financial Review reported earlier today, without saying where it got its information. The sum involved wasn’t material to the bank and didn’t have an external impact, Cox said by e-mail.   The trader’s activities had no connection to any global probes into currency markets, Cox said. Regulators in countries including the U.S. and U.K. are investigating allegations that dealers…

  The West Lothian question is easy to ask and almost impossible to answer. As posed in 1977 by Tam Dalyell, former MP for the Scottish constituency, it demands to know why MPs from Scotland (and now Wales and Northern Ireland) should be able to vote on issues such as health and education that affect England when English MPs have no power to vote on social and other policies that are devolved to the parliament in Edinburgh (and now also the assemblies in Cardiff and Belfast).   Because welfare issues are devolved, members of the Westminster parliament elected from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have no power to decide how these policies should affect their constituents; ironically, they can vote only on welfare issues as they affect constituencies in England.   Scotland's…

Si una empresa quiere evitar conductas corruptas en su seno debe tener en cuenta tres claves. En primer lugar, la ejemplaridad, que tiene que venir de la cúpula de la compañía para poder concienciar y potenciar una cultura empresarial ética. En segundo lugar, hacer un uso eficiente de las herramientas de cumplimiento normativo, evitando que, como sucede a veces, la mayor parte de los recursos estén en la empresa matriz, en lugar de en algún otro punto geográfico donde sean más necesarios. Y, por ultimo, la prevención con una due diligence ética y de anticorrupción, adicional a las clásicas legales, financieras o reputacionales. Éstas son las recomendaciones de Frank Holder, presidente de FTI Consulting en Iberoamérica, que acaba de publicar el libro Integridad en los Negocios, sobre la ética y…

  [JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] on Tuesday overturned [opinion, PDF] an order requiring Apple [corporate website] to pay $368.2 million to VirnetX Holding Corp. in a patent dispute. The case was originally heard in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which found that Apple infringed upon VirnetX's patents for their virtual private network (VPN). VirnetX claimed [Reuters report] that Apple was illegally applying its VPN within the FaceTime application found on Apple's recent generation products. On appeal Apple was still found to be infringing on VirnetX's patent for VPN, but the court determined that the jury was improperly instructed on how to calculate the damages. Chief Justice Sharon Prost stated in the opinion, "[t]he law requires patentees to apportion the royalty down to a reasonable estimate…

El Tribunal Supremo ha rechazado el recurso de casación presentado por la Consejería de Educación, Juventud y Deporte de la Comunidad de Madrid y confirma la sentencia del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid que declaró el derecho de los profesores de religión que prestan servicios en centros públicos de Madrid a la retribución del complemento específico de formación permanente en las condiciones y cuantía que les corresponda a los funcionarios interinos docentes de la citada comunidad autónoma. De esta forma, el Supremo obliga a la Comunidad de Madrid a pagar los sexenios a los profesores de religión de los centros públicos y se les reconoce el derecho a cobrar dicho complemento en idénticas condiciones y cuantía que los funcionarios interinos docentes de la Comunidad de Madrid, según la sentencia,…

  A group of state attorneys general is examining whether AT&T Inc. (T)’s proposed takeover of satellite-television provider DirecTV violates antitrust laws, the Florida Attorney General’s Office said.   State attorneys general were already working with the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division in a review of Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) Those states included Florida, Connecticut, Maryland and Ohio.   The states’ investigation expands regulatory scrutiny of AT&T’s $48.5 billion deal for DirecTV, which would combine the nation’s largest satellite-TV company with AT&T’s existing packages of wireless, phone and high-speed Internet service. The states’ examination is in addition to reviews by the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.   Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is part of a group of states reviewing the AT&T-DirecTV (DTV) merger, according to her…

En presencia del Rey Felipe VI, el presidente del Tribunal Supremo y el fiscal general del Estado han mostrado su firme intención de seguir luchando con fuerzas contra la corrupción, auténtica lacra que socava la credibilidad de las instituciones y la democracia. Además Carlos Lesmes y Eduardo Torres-Dulce han apelado a la defensa de la unidad de España. La corrupción y la defensa de la unidad de España han centrado los discursos del presidente del Tribunal Supremo y del Consejo General del Poder Judicial, Carlos Lesmes, y el fiscal general del Estado, Eduardo Torres-Dulce, hoy en el acto de apertura del Año Judicial presidido por el Rey Felipe VI en la sede del Tribunal Supremo y que ha contado con la flor y nata del mundo judicial. Cada uno en su estilo,…

  What happens if Scotland votes yes next week? Scotland would not become independent overnight. The Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013  merely makes arrangement for the referendum to be held. As an act of the Scottish parliament, it cannot change the status of Scotland within the United Kingdom.   But surely the referendum is more than an opinion poll? Indeed it is. It was established as part of an agreement between David Cameron and Alex Salmond, signed in October 2012 and made on behalf of their respective governments.   The Edinburgh agreement  was designed to produce a "decisive and fair outcome". It ends: "The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of…

  [JURIST] The UN Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) [official website] last week overturned [ruling, PDF] a decision in favor of a whistleblower involved with the UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. James Wasserstrom, a US diplomat currently serving as an anti-corruption officer at the US embassy in Kabul, accused high-level colleagues of retaliating after he suggested that they had been involved in corruption during the mission. In its decision the UNAT applied previous rulings to find that their tribunal only has jurisdiction over certain decisions by specific UN bodies. This does not include decisions made by the UN Ethics Office [official website], the entity established to protect UN whistleblowers. Whistleblowers have expressed concern because the UN Ethics Office has not historically protected the whistleblowers who have sought their support.   Wasserstrom's case has been ongoing for quite some…

  A U.S. probe into alleged money laundering by Zalmay Khalilzad has led Austrian authorities to freeze a Vienna bank account linked to the former presidential envoy to Afghanistan.   Khalilzad, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, allegedly transferred $1.4 million to his wife’s bank account in Vienna, Austrian magazine Profil reported today, citing court documents. The money came from oil and building contracts in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates that allegedly violated U.S. laws, U.S. investigators told their Austrian counterparts, according to the papers cited by Profil.   Austrian court spokeswoman Christina Salzborn confirmed the documents’ authenticity in a telephone interview. Christian Bielesz, the lawyer of Khalilzad’s wife, Cheryl Benard, confirmed that the account was frozen and an investigation under way.   The U.S. had asked Austrian authorities…