“Commercial Awareness Is Global.”
By: Ainsley Brown What’s a few million euros between friends, right? SocGen – Sociètè Gènèrale – one of France’s oldest and most respected banks is being sued in the English High Court by one of its former managing directors. Raphael Geys, the investment banker in question, was until November 2007 when his employment was terminated a managing director at SocGen
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 This forms part of the Middle Passage Law Series on Law Is Cool. American International Group, better know by its acronym AIG, it seems these days can rarely catch a break. It just seems negative news follows negative news for this company. This time the negative news for this too big to fail company – deeply wounded
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 I was sent this video by my cousin Kia and I thought it worthwhile to share it here on Commercial Law International. It is a lecture given by Phillip K. Howard, the author of The Death of Common Sense, and founder of the not-for-profit Common Good. As taken from its website: “Common Good is a non-profit, non-partisan
By: Carsten Lexa Money helps a lot when it comes to exchanging goods. One buys the goods, pays with cash and takes the goods away. So far, so good. But what if free cash to spend is a rare thing? For example in times like today, when the economy is not doing well and money is scarce? Today, more and
By: Ainsley Brown Global trade was expected to drop as much as 10% in 2009; instead it fell by 12%. That extra two percent may not seem like much but it represents the largest drop in global commerce since 1945. This greater than expected drop has lead to renewed calls from Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the World Trade
By: Ainsley Brown The stage was for a very interesting court battle in Australia pitting advisor against former client; at stake the fees that the advisor could charge. While the case remains interesting the deep probing spotlight that it promised on investment banking fees alas may not materialize. JP Morgan Chase, the investment bank is suing its former client Consolidated
By: Carsten Lexa On August 13th, 2009, I wrote an article here on Commercial Law International about the “secrets” of the US credit card business and about how the existing rules make it hard for customers to pay off their credit card debt. On November 3rd, 2009, I wrote in a the second article about a Goverment proposal regarding new legislation for
By: Ainsley Brown Islamic banking and finance (IBF) is a subject that I have longed to blog about here on Commercial Law International and after much procrastination here is a brief commentary. And by brief I mean brief – don’t get me wrong this is by no means all I have to say about the subject, far from it. I