PEBL

Perspectives on European Business Law presents a news review on the centre pages of each issue. Stories from this review are presented here, often in longer form than can be printed. Links to other web sites for further research are also available from this online resource. If you know of a news story that should be covered by PEBL, please let us know using the contact form provided.

Martin Bangemann's Pension: Occupational pensions form a deferred part of the beneficiary's pay and cannot be summarily removed for misconduct.
Internal market in insurance: The European Commission has adopted a communication on freedom to provide services and general good as applied to the insurance industry.
OLAF: The European Commission is in dispute with the two major financial institutions of the Community.
Committee to examine German Ubernahmekodex: Chancellor Schroder is to create a committee to examine consequences of the Vodafone/Mannesmann merger.
Electronic signatures: Highly important new EC Directive on a "Community framework for electronic signatures".
Economic policy: Commission gives a mixed review to member states' implementation of "broad economic policy guidelines" for 1999.
Language problems: There is clearly a language crisis building up in the Community.
Community law in 1998: The Commission’s 16th annual report on the application of Community law in 1998, issued in July 1999, has just been published (OJ 7 December).
Free movement of cheques?: Since the abolition of exchange controls many years ago there has been free movement of money throughout the EU. Except that it is not free. It is very expensive.
Knowledge of Community Law: The Robert Schuman programme to improve awareness of Community law among the legal profession has invited applications for its Y2K project.
Community Trade Marks Office: Publication of the budgets for the Community Trade Marks Office in Alicante for 1999 (updated) and 2000 reveals a projected increase in established staff from 391 to 509, with a slight drop in non-established posts from 99 to 71.
Factortame: The Factortame saga has been keeping us entertained for just over ten years now, since the adoption of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1988 aimed to shoot marauding Spanish quota-hoppers out of the fishing waters of the United Kingdom.
Key EU web sites: Finding web sites containing vital EU legal texts is not easy. From time to time we shall include here web addresses of particular value, which will also be placed in a special listing on the PEBL web site. This first bundle gives the addresses of the main European institutions...
Commission Organisation: As part of the general sharpening of the Commission organisation, President Prodi has made moves to discipline the multifarious press outlets, in particular by strengthening the central Commission press office. Formerly known as the Official Spokesman, it is now rebaptised as the Press and Communication Service. That this is a serious change is shown by the appointment as its Head of Jonathan Faull. He will be known to many readers as a high flyer in DGIV (before transfer he was Deputy D-G for state aids) with the rare gift of speaking at conferences faithfully giving the official view while authoritatively taking part in the cut and thrust of the debate and avoiding the somewhat olympian stance so typical of most senior Commission officials. Among new press officers, Leonello Gabrici is responsible for Justice & Home Affairs while Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen is temporarily covering the environment, business and information society desks. The Commission website is in a state of complete chaos, however. While the new Prodi organigram is there, do not seek it via the IDEA entity profile, which still gives the old Santer Commission and organigram.
Bribery and Corruption: Publication of its 5 th annual "Corruption report" by the NGO Transparency International on 26 October (www.transparency.de) revealed a continuing decline in standards internationally. Using a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranging from 10 (good) to 0 (bad) it showed the top ten bribery-free countries to be mostly European: all five Nordic countries plus the Netherlands and Switzerland, together with New Zealand, Canada and Singapore. The remaining EEA countries were ranked, in descending order of probity...
Office of Fair Trading: The communitisation of British antitrust law aligns it on Arts. 85 and 86 (now 81 & 82) of the EC Treaty. The Competition Act 1998, which does this, comes into force on 1 March 2000. In preparation for this change, the OFT has thoroughly reorganised its Competition Policy Division with the addition of 55 new staff. Four new sectoral branches and two new general branches are added to the existing Mergers branch, making seven in all, shaped along the lines of the EC Commission’s Competition DG. The Director of Competition Policy, Margaret Bloom, heads the Division...
Community Trade Marks Office: The Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) aka the Community Trade Marks Office in Alicante has advertised (29 October) for both the President of the Office as a whole and a chairman of a board of appeal. The Office is independent as regards technical, administrative and financial matters but its decisions are, of course, subject to appeal (via judicial review) to the Court of First Instance. It is responsible for issuing and administering the Community trademarks that are operative throughout the whole of the EU. In the future it will also administer Community designs. It will have a budget for year 2000 of some 100 million euros and a staff of approximately 600...
European Court: The ECJ has just acquired its first woman Judge, Fidelma Macken, an Irish barrister
Tampere European Council: The important summit meeting at Tampere on 15-16 October agreed on a number of major initiatives.
European Central Bank - Anti-Fraud: The Governing Council of the ECB has decided to set up an anti-fraud committee which will be independent of OLAF but will co-operate with it.
Anti-Trust - Block Exemptions: The draft Commission block exemption regulation on vertical agreements, which is intended to replace Regs. 1983/83, 1984/83 and 4087/88 (expiring at the end of 1999), was published in OJ C270/7.
EU-US Anti-trust Co-Operation: A joint committee of EU and US experts is to be set up to consider improved procedures for approving mergers and acquisitions which have a transatlantic effect
Court Of First Instance: The Court of First Instance celebrated its 10th anniversary on 19 October with a symposium which, fortunately, was less celebratory than critical.
International Bar Association: The IBA has just launched its new website at www.ibanet.org
Commission Organisation: The rumoured changes to the organisational structure of the EC Commission under President Prodi do not seem to be as extensive as was suggested.
People: The well-known and long-standing British press officer at the ECJ, Tom Kennedy, left the Court this spring.
Mario Monti: The new Commissioner for Competition under the Prodi presidency gave several indications of his intended policy during his appointment hearings before the European Parliament in August and September.
Politicians: Commission: Whether Commissioners are politicians or administrators is still a matter of dispute in some quarters.
EP Legal Affairs Committee: The new Committee VI on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
IGCs: WTO: The EU, is not the only international organisation to be afflicted with IGCitis. The World Trade Organisation, only a few years after the ending of the Uruguay Round and its massive injection into world trade of major new economic laws and judicial procedures, is about to start a new round at the forthcoming Seattle ministerial conference (30 November - 3 December).
IGCs: EU: One of the differences between the EU and typical federal states is the frequency with which it changes its constitution. A five-year cycle for Intergovernmental Conferences to amend the EC and EU Treaties has been established since 1985 (SEA), followed in 1990-91 (Maastricht) and then again in 1996-97 (Amsterdam).
Politicians: European Parliament: The new European Parliament elected in June for a five-year term has now organised its committees. The two which are likely to be of particular interest to lawyers are those on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) and on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, but the latter is mainly concerned with criminal and police matters and human rights. That leaves only the Legal Affairs Committee (no.VI) for the business lawyer.