USA – Detroit city council approves bankruptcy related water authority deal

Notícias
  [JURIST] The Detroit City Council [official website] on Friday approved a deal to lease the city's water and sewage department to a new regional authority as part of the city's continuing effort to exit bankruptcy. After a 7-2 vote, the council approved creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority [official backgrounder, PDF], which will allow the city to take steps to fixing its water system which is dated and has seen a great deal of problems. The agreement will allow Great Lakes to work towards fixing the system, while giving the city control over the authority and allowing suburban counties to have more say in how it operates. Detroit will lease the system for the next 40 years at $50 million a year. Council member Andre Spivey stated [Reuters report] after the vote, "When you…
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España – El Gobierno crea una nueva plataforma electrónica común para todo el sector público administrativo estatal

Notícias
  El Consejo de Ministros ha aprobado la creación de una nueva plataforma común del sector público administrativo estatal para la identificación, autenticación y firma electrónica, denominada Cl@ve. Su finalidad es sustituir el actual sistema de acceso electrónico en la red basada en la obtención de un certificado de firma electrónica, por un sistema de claves concertadas más ágil y eficiente de fácil obtención y utilización.   Esta medida se enmarca dentro de las propuestas del informe de la Comisión para la Reforma de las Administraciones Públicas (CORA) en el ámbito de los medios informáticos, destinadas a la racionalización de las actuales estructuras organizativas en el ámbito de las Tecnologías de la Información y de las Comunicaciones (TIC) del Sector Público Administrativo Estatal.   ORIENTADA A LA TOTALIDAD DEL SECTOR PÚBLICO ESTATAL…
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USA – Deutsche Bank Says Currency Trader Dismissed on Misreporting

Notícias
  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…
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UK – West Lothian question: easy to ask, trickier to answer

Notícias
  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…
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España – Cómo evitar la corrupción en el seno de las empresas

Notícias
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…
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USA – Federal appeals court throws out $368 million award in Apple patent dispute

Notícias
  [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…
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España – El TS obliga a la Comunidad de Madrid a pagar los sexenios a los profesores de religión

Notícias
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,…
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USA – AT&T’s DirecTV Deal Draws Antitrust Probe by States

Notícias
  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…
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España – La corrupción y la unidad, protagonistas en la apertura del año judicial

Notícias
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,…
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UK – Nine legal questions if Scotland votes yes

Notícias
  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…
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