Companies News

By Carmel Crimmins and Padraic Halpin DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's finance minister said the country would not be the "whipping boy" for what he called a flawed U.S. Senate report that said Irish loopholes helped technology giant Apple shrink its tax bill. Ireland has been forced to defend its corporate tax rate after the …

ROME/MILAN (Reuters) - Milan prosecutors are investigating the chairman of Italian steel group Riva for tax evasion and police have seized 1.2 billion euros of cash from a tax haven, judicial sources said on Wednesday. Emilio Riva, whose company controls Europe's largest steel plant in southern Italy (ILVA), is being probed …

By John O'Donnell and Martin Santa BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe edged closer to lifting banking secrecy on Wednesday after Austria said it was ready to share data on foreign depositors but Vienna's support could fade should efforts to strike a similar deal with Switzerland fail. Austria's dropping of objections allowed EU …

PARIS (Reuters) - Smartphone users in European countries served only by large groups such as Vodafone Group Plc and Telefonica SA pay twice as much for services as consumers in more competitive markets with an independent "challenger" operator, according to research. The wide divergence in prices revealed in the study by …

By Jonathan Gould FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Regulators are expected to go easy on the life insurance industry in the wake of a study by EU insurance watchdog EIOPA on long-term savings guarantees made to life insurance policy holders, credit rating agency Moody's said. Insurance products with guaranteed returns are popular …

By Joseph Akwiri Mombasa (Reuters) - Kenyan truckers blocked the only highway from the port city of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi on Wednesday, threatening to choke the main trade artery to east Africa unless officials reverted to the old way of weighing cargo. The east African nation is the world's largest exporter of …

MILAN (Reuters) - A board member at Italy's troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena is being investigated over allegations of breaking insider trading rules and has been suspended, the bank said on Wednesday. The bank's statement confirmed an earlier story by Reuters based on a judicial source. ...

GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - The UK and French governments are set to join a global initiative that will require oil and mining firms to comply with new disclosure measures aimed at reducing corruption, sources involved in the process said on Wednesday. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has stakeholders …

By Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - Dish Network Corp has rolled out an advertising campaign suggesting a deal by a Japanese company to acquire Sprint Nextel Corp could threaten U.S. national security, hoping to sway MPs and win support for its rival offer. The campaign, which so far appears on the Internet and in Washington-area …

By Barbara Lewis and Peter Griffiths BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European leaders discussed the region's reserves of shale gas at a summit on Wednesday, but the prospect of the continent enjoying a U.S.-style shale boom that drastically cuts energy costs remains elusive. Arriving at the summit, British Prime Minister David Cameron, …

By Conor Humphries and Padraic Halpin CORK/DUBLIN (Reuters) - Until this week, Richard Bruton enjoyed the sweet spot in Irish government. While cabinet colleagues rolled out spending cuts and tax hikes, Bruton got the photo opportunities with foreign CEOs investing in their favourite corner of Europe. Now the strategy that …

By Steve Gutterman MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government will decide soon whether to take part in peace talks with the opposition, a senior Syrian diplomat said after talks in Moscow. Asked whether Damascus had committed to joint Russian-U.S. efforts to hold a peace conference, Syrian Deputy Foreign …

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's finance minister said on Wednesday the country did not want to become the 'whipping boy' for what he called a flawed U.S. Senate report into the level of corporate tax Apple Inc pays in Ireland. Ireland was forced to defend its corporate tax rate after the U.S. Senate said on Monday that Apple …

By Andrew Osborn and Costas Pitas LONDON (Reuters) - Google Inc's tax affairs came under renewed scrutiny in Britain on Wednesday when the leader of the opposition Labour party accused the Internet company of wrongly going to "extraordinary lengths" to avoid paying tax. In comments designed to politically outflank Prime …

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German software company SAP is looking to recruit people with autism as programmers and product testers, drawing on skills that can include a close attention to detail and an ability to solve complex problems. SAP has asked start-up Danish recruitment company Specialisterne to help it find, train and …

By Matt Scuffham and Steve Slater LONDON (Reuters) - State-backed British lenders Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland have agreed plans to shore up their capital with the financial regulator, removing a barrier to the government offloading its shares. The regulator said on Wednesday it had finalised capital …

MILAN (Reuters) - The Italian government is committed to safeguarding jobs and the security of Telecom Italia's fixed-line phone network, Industry Minister Flavio Zanonato said on Wednesday. The minister's comments come ahead of a board meeting on Thursday to decide on spinning off fixed-line network assets, thousands of …

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland proposed on Wednesday a new law to make it easier to freeze assets stolen and salted away by foreign leaders and return them to their countries of origin. The draft law would allow Switzerland to freeze the assets of so-called politically exposed persons, or PEPs, as a preventative measure …

By Alistair Smout LONDON (Reuters) - Growth sensitive sectors drove FTSE 100 to fresh 13 year highs, receiving a boost after the top U.S. central banker reaffirmed his commitment to continued stimulus. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said that central bank needs to see further signs of traction before taking its foot …

LONDON (Reuters) - State-backed Lloyds Banking Group said it intends to sell 15 percent more of wealth manager St. James's Place to boost its capital by about 500 million pounds under incoming capital rules. After placing a 20 percent stake in St James's Place in March, Lloyds had agreed not to sell any more shares in the …

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European leaders meet on Wednesday to discuss tax policy and specifically their concerns over how a number of high-profile international companies have managed to pay next to no tax on their vast sales revenue generated in Europe. Following is a summary of several recent cases and links to the Reuters …

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will ensure big companies pay more taxes in the countries where they are based, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday. "We will work towards ensuring companies have to pay more where they are based," she said in Brussels at the end of an EU summit, adding that this would …

By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) - European Union regulators have proposed tighter safeguards on sales of the type of securitised debt that became untradable in the financial crisis, forcing taxpayers to rescue banks. Securitisation is the consolidation of loans such as mortgages and credit cards and selling them as bonds …

DUBAI (Reuters) - Carrefour , Europe's largest retailer, is in advanced talks to divest its remaining 25-percent stake in its Middle Eastern joint venture to local partner Majid Al Futtaim (MAF), two sources familiar with the matter said. Family-owned MAF is paying between $400-$500 million for the stake, one of the sources …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co is 90 percent finished with retrofits of the battery system on its 787 Dreamliner and should finish the rest by next week, Ray Conner, president of the company's commercial airplane division, told an investor conference on Wednesday. Conner told the conference he saw "great momentum" on …

BERLIN (Reuters) - German opposition parties accused a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel of withholding information on a cancelled drone project and squandering hundreds of millions of euros of taxpayers' money four months before an election. The row, which has topped the German news for the last few days, threatens …

PARIS (Reuters) - Societe Generale said on Wednesday that it was moving to dismiss its top Russian executive days after his shock arrest on bribery charges. The decision by Russian subsidiary Rosbank's board to fire its head, Vladimir Golubkov, after his arrest last week in a dramatic sting came as the French bank's management …

By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Claire Milhench LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's energy price manipulation probe has turned regulatory attention to secretive trading units at oil companies with huge turnover and millionaire staff with risk appetite higher than at Wall Street's biggest banks. Regulators have scrutinised banks, trading …