“Commercial Awareness Is Global.”
By: Ainsley Brown The tit for tat trade battles, one could even say bordering on a trade war, has entered a new area – Green. More precisely the U.S. is investigating China’s alleged subsidization of its green technology sector (wind, solar and advanced batteries, etc.) in breach of WTO rules. The US Trade Representative has launched the investigation under section
By: Ainsley Brown Four white farmers who had their farms unlawfully seized under the regime of President Robert Mugabe are to seek by all accounts gain compensation in South Africa. A South African court has ruled recently that the farmers have the right to seek out and seize Zimbabwean government property in South Africa. The North Gauteng High Court ruled
By: Ainsley Brown The European Union (EU) and Vietnam have now officially stated free trade talks after Karel De Gucht, the EU Trade Commissioner, met with the Vietnamese Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi. The talks come after the successful conclusion of the 2 year in the making deal signed with South Korea in October of last year. This
By: Ainsley Brown Could the longest running trade dispute in World Trade Organization (WTO) history be coming to an end? If newspaper reports are to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt them, then the 16 year old trade war could be very close to ending. At the center of this row is the Banana – yes the
By: Ainsley Brown It has been reported in the Times that ¨up to 5, 000 British investors have an estimated £3 billion stashed away in secret accounts in Liechtenstein. It is a good thing then, well good from the perspective of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), that Liechtenstein and the UK Government have reached an agreement on the sharing of
By: Ainsley Brown UBS, the world´s largest wealth manager, has found itself embroiled in a diplomatic row between Washington and Bern. At issue is the interpretation of the current US-Swiss double taxation treaty and at stake is the newly inked, yet to be ratified, revised US-Swiss double taxation treaty. Does the future of the revised US-Swiss double taxation treaty depend
By: Ainsley Brown The world economic down turn has had many knock on effects, many of which unexpected. It seems that bad times has the uncanny effect of making the once unthinkable, unsayable and undoable all very much possible. The Swiss banking model can be best characterized with one word: Secrecy. This don’t ask don’t tell attitude is more than
By: Ainsley Brown Trinidad Cement Limited vs. The State of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on January 15, 2009 made its first ruling as to its own original jurisdiction. The CCJ has Appellate jurisdiction over Civil and Criminal cases referred to it from common law member states. It also has original jurisdiction as to