John Harris

Focusing on RBS threatens to restrict the debate to the morals of state ownership.' Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

Where next for the story of Stephen Hester’s bonus? On Sunday, two papers reported that the now-infamous £963,000 is only a fraction of his treasure-chest. Partly thanks to something called a “long-term incentive plan”, by this time next year he is likely to have been handed another £8m in shares, which will take his rewards since he took charge of RBS in 2008 to not far short of £40m.

But herein lies danger. It suits the imperatives of the news media to have such a huge issue boiled down to the rewards package of one man; it’s also in the interests of the privileged people who own whole swaths of the press and broadcast media to do whatever they can to ensure that such a reductive script is followed to the letter. In that context, note the perfect role played by the RBS chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, now given temporary sainthood for turning down his bonus of £1.4m. His intervention has done its work: the issue is now in danger of becoming about matters of character and choice, rather than anything systemic.

So, what to do? Clearly, the argument about high pay is in danger of turning cacophonous, and thereby meaningless. Canards and dead-ends abound: focusing on RBS threatens to restrict the debate to the morals of state ownership; “transparency” is a crock. Talking about “rewards for failure” nudges the issue away from basic inequality, and even limiting the conversation to the banks lets plenty of companies off the hook (witness Bart Becht, the one-time CEO of the firm that makes Cillit Bang detergent, in 2010 given a cash-and-shares package of £90m).

Moreover, huge amounts are said, and almost still nothing done. Faced with global practices, even the most well-intentioned politicians – Ed Miliband, Vince Cable – can only try and keep the issue on the agenda in the hope that openings will eventually appear for more convincing policy.

But Lest anyone succumb to fatalism, some interesting developments are afoot. The last two years have seen national and local campaigns in the US, encouraging people to move their cash away from big financial institutions and into small banks and local credit unions. A big fillip came with Bank Of America’s decision to charge customers a $5 monthly fee for using their debit cards – which resulted in as many people joining US credit unions in a single month as usually make the switch in a year, and played its part in that bank and others dropping the plan. The campaigns’ focus, of course, is much bigger than that – but the episode proved they were hardly wasting their time.

That there are problems with approach is self-evident: Bank Of America has 58 million customers, whereas the campaigns were cheering about the defection of hundreds of thousands. But, in the form of the Move Your Money project and the US Move Our Money, they are still there. The former builds it activities around the recognition that “little has changed to prevent another financial crisis or to end ‘too big to fail’”, and wants to encourage people “to take power into their own hands by voting with their dollars and no longer contributing to a financial system that has led our country astray”. The latter claims it has so far deprived big banks of around $57m dollars.

But more important than any figures is what these protests represent: a focus for outrage, as networked and agile as modern protest demands, that can keep the issues simmering away.

This week, a British version launches, with the support of such unions as the GMB and Unite and the comparatively saintly Co-operative Group, along with some of the people involved in UK Uncut. They presumably know that the importance of high-street banking is dwarfed by the clout of the banks’ investment wings, but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the damage to their brands that can be wrought by such targeted protest.

Cynics will scoff and claim the politics of boycotts can be just as distracting as the non-debates embraced by politicians and the press, reducible to the salving of consciences rather than any actual change. But with what is left of Occupy currently quiet and introspective, and the Hester case proving that spasms of righteousness are no substitute for the politics of the long haul, this latest move offers something very welcome: at least one means by which the arguments about the obscenities of inequality can be kept in roughly the right place.

www.guardian.co.uk, 29 January 2012

Orhan Ozer is president and CEO of Toyota Turkey. He told CNN’s Rima Maktabi: “Turkey has lots of advantages in respect of the geographical advantages, in respect to the location of the country at the middle of Europe, Middle East – even Central Asia.”

“Also the population is young, they are very dedicated, qualified, experienced and they are very ambitious for their work,” he added

Toyota Turkey exports almost exclusively to Europe – mainly to Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the UK. Likewise, in the first half of 2011, almost half of Turkey’s exports were to the EU. But with an ailing European market and a European Union that refused Turkey as a member, Ankara’s government has looked to new markets – to the east.

“Starting from the republic until the 1990s, beginning of 2000, Turkey was just looking at the West,” said Sabiha Gündoğar, director of the foreign policy program at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation.

“It is still important but it is not the only foreign-policy goal for Turkey,” he added. “Turkey started to discover, and I can say now it discovered, and is improving its relations with its neighbors, be it the East, be it the more South.”

In 2002, Asia’s foreign direct investment in Turkey totalled $1 billion; in 2010 the number jumped to $18 billion. During a recent visit to Ankara the Malaysian PM Najib Razak agreed with his Turkish counterpart to set a new target for bilateral trade, raising it from its current $1.3 billion to $5 billion.

This Asian-Turkish economic connection is welcomed by big conglomerates like Dogus group, a Turkish firm that focuses on everything from financial services to media operations.

“We are receiving investment appetite from Far East, not recently from the neighboring countries, or the near East, but we are receiving some interest from the Far East, like Korea, Indonesia, India, even China,” says Dogus Group executive vice president Levent Veziroglu.

But Turkey is also reaching out to politically unstable countries in the Middle East. In October 2011, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan led a delegation of more than 200 businessmen on a tour of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya – countries trying to find stability and help in rebuilding.

“We know the region, we know the culture, we have some historical ties with those countries, so it’s very natural if we see the Turkish economy will expand its limits towards those countries,” said Veziroglu.

via Turkey takes a turn to the East – Business 360 – CNN.com Blogs.

In the United States, a massive Internet protest last week led by Wikipedia and Google drove congressional leaders to place controversial anti-piracy legislation on hold.

Polish lawmakers from the leftist Palikot’s Movement cover their faces with masks as they protest against ACTA during a parliament session in Warsaw on Jan. 26, 2012.

But in other parts of the world, another proposal to increase copyright enforcement is gaining momentum, despite protests from opponents concerned about Internet censorship.

On Thursday, the European Union and 22 of its member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA — a major step toward enforcement of the copyright treaty. Eight countries, including the United States, had signed the agreement this past fall.

ACTA has always been controversial because the international negotiations that began in 2007 took place in secret. But now, opponents of the treaty have developed new muscle after witnessing the success of the Internet outcry against the two U.S. bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

In Poland, hundreds took to the streets this week to protest the government’s intention to sign ACTA. Several popular Polish websites replaced their regular content with statements expressing concerns about ACTA, and government websites were taken offline in an apparent denial-of-service attack coordinated by the hacker group Anonymous.

For copyright holders, an international treaty may offer fewer roadblocks to combating digital piracy, critics say. While SOPA and PIPA sought to change U.S. law by forcing American Internet service providers to block domain names of websites believed to be engaging in online piracy, ACTA seeks to implement existing U.S. copyright law in countries where copyright enforcement is less stringent. The Obama administration has argued that ACTA does not require Senate authorization because it’s technically an “executive agreement.”

But U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden wrote a letter to President Barack Obama last fall raising questions about whether it was constitutional for the U.S. trade representative to sign on to the treaty without Senate approval.

Sean Flynn, a professor of intellectual property law at American University, said ACTA is not as “draconian” as the pending U.S. legislation, calling the treaty “SOPA light.” Some of its most troubling measures — such as a requirement that Internet service providers suspend service to customers caught downloading copyrighted works, known as the “three strikes” rule — have been stripped from the agreement, he said.

But other experts argue that ACTA is still problematic.

“ACTA contains new potential obligations for Internet intermediaries, requiring them to police the Internet and their users, which in turn pose significant concerns for citizens’ privacy, freedom of expression, and fair use rights,” Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a blog post last fall.

Many of those who support the U.S. legislation are also backing ACTA, including the Motion Picture Association of America. ACTA is “an important step forward in strengthening international cooperation and enforcement for intellectual property rights,” said former U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the MPAA, in a statement last fall.

ACTA is not the only anti-piracy treaty raising concerns. Some experts fear the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) may include intellectual property measures more restrictive than those in ACTA. But public information about the latter treaty is vague because it is also being negotiated in secret, experts say.

“We don’t know what’s in the TPP IP chapter, and that’s what worries us,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote on its website.

Flynn said the impact of last week’s protests against SOPA and PIPA has forced the world to pay more attention to these copyright treaties.

“There have been protests with ACTA, but they’ve never reached this scale,” said Flynn. “The politics seem to be changing on this issue internationally.”

via ACTA Copyright Treaty Sparks Protests In Latest Anti-Piracy Battle.

Bayerische Landesbank (BLGZ), or BayernLB, is providing the loan to Bilgin Enerji Yatirim Holding AS to buy 20 Nordex turbines for a wind farm near Izmir, in western Turkey, according to an e-mailed statement from Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs AG (HKV), the credit insurer owned by Allianz SE that’s handling the state guarantee.

The guarantee will protect BayernLB against the risk of default during the loan’s 10-year period, according to Ruth Bartonek, a spokeswoman at Euler Hermes. The German government will pay 95 percent of the loan if the Ankara-based developer defaults, she said.

“The financing of projects during the financial crisis becomes more difficult, especially for small and medium-sized companies,” she said today by e-mail.

Germany and Denmark are among the nations supporting exports from their renewable-energy industries. Euler Hermes, based in Hamburg, also insured loans to buy wind turbines made by Germany’s Repower Systems SE for the Thornton Bank wind farm offshore Belgium.

Eksport Kredit Fonden, a Copenhagen-based lender, guaranteed loans for equipment for the London Array offshore plant planned by Danish utility Dong Energy A/S, Germany’s EON AG and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar.

The Zeytineli wind project is expected to be operational by September 2013, according to the statement.

To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Sally Bakewell in London at Sbakewell1@bloomberg.net

via Germany Guarantees BayernLB Loan for Nordex Turbines in Turkey – Bloomberg.

(Updates with salary and cars in eighth paragraph.)

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — Asil Nadir, the former Polly Peck International Plc chief executive who fled Britain in 1993 following claims of fraud, was accused at a trial in London of stealing 150 million pounds ($233.4 million) from the company.

The amount, revealed by prosecutors on the first day of a four-month trial in London, is more than four times the figure cited by the Serious Fraud Office since the case began nearly two decades ago. Nadir, 70, and associates withdrew the money from the now-defunct electronics and food-packaging firm’s U.K. bank accounts and funneled it through companies in Switzerland and the Bahamas between 1987 and 1990, prosecutors said.

Nadir “wielded very considerable power” over the company’s operations and management, prosecutor Philip Shears said at London’s Old Bailey criminal court. “We say he abused that power and helped himself to tens of millions of pounds of PPI’s money.”

When London-based Polly Peck collapsed in 1990, its administrators found more than 700 million pounds owed to creditors was unrecoverable from units of the company, which Nadir built up during the 1980s by expanding into areas such as electronics, hotels and an acquisition of the Del Monte fruit brand. Nadir agreed to return to the U.K. in 2010 to face fraud claims nearly 20 years after fleeing.

The SFO accused Nadir of 13 counts of theft totaling about 34 million pounds, using a selection of “sample” transfers. Nadir denies the charges and his lawyers will present his case later in the trial.

Secret Share Purchases

Prosecutors said Nadir stole from the company’s accounts at National Westminster Bank Plc and Midland Bank Plc through at least 70 transfers, and that the money was used to secretly buy shares in Polly Peck and other companies. He also allegedly used the money to repay loans, make payments to Nadir family trusts and pay companies controlled by himself and his mother.

Nadir acquired a controlling interest in Polly Peck in 1980, when the company — then about 20 years old — was limited to the garment industry in East London, prosecutors say. He expanded the firm to include more than 200 subsidiaries in food, electronics, textiles and leisure, with offices in Lefkosia, Cyprus, New York, Istanbul and Hong Kong, the SFO said.

SFO prosecutors told jurors that Polly Peck increased Nadir’s salary in 1990 to 350,000 pounds from 200,000 and gave him use of a corporate airplane and five cars, including a Bentley and a Ferrari.

‘Thwarted’ Dual Signatures

The theft succeeded as a result of weak financial oversight at the company, a weakness ensured by Nadir’s own rules, prosecutors said. The SFO claims Nadir insisted that one board member’s signature was enough to move the company’s money and “thwarted” attempts by Polly Peck’s board to adopt a dual signature process.

Nadir repeatedly told the board he needed sole control over the money to operate effectively in Turkey and Cyprus, where last-minute decisions would need to be made, and walked out of a board meeting when the conversation turned to dual signatures, the SFO said.

He also fired a controller who tried to institute “a comprehensive system of financial controls,” prosecutors said. The manual that the employee helped create was later implemented in all of the company’s subsidiaries except for Turkey and Northern Cyprus.

Under Nadir’s leadership, Polly Peck loaned hundreds of millions of pounds to its subsidiaries in Turkey and Cyprus in the years before the company’s collapse. Nadir later said the money was for a capital expenditure program and advance payments to citrus growers to benefit the company, according to the SFO.

‘Black Hole’

“When PPI was in difficulty leading up to its going into administration, it proved impossible for PPI to get the cash back to the U.K., save for a very small amount,” Shears said. “When the administrators went to Northern Cyprus they effectively found no cash at all — just a black hole.”

Nadir claimed to own 25 percent of Polly Peck in 1985 and four years later — after increasing his holdings by more than 151 million pounds — he resisted an attempt by the board of directors to probe the ownership structure of his shares, prosecutors said.

Nadir returned to London from Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus in August 2010 to face trial, a month after a U.K. judge said that if Nadir did so he would be granted bail. He agreed to be fitted with an electronic security tag and to remain in the capital. The former executive was also ordered to comply with a curfew and check-in weekly at a police station.

While his lawyers had sought to have the trial earlier, a judge said it was unrealistic for the prosecution to be expected to re-compile a 17-year-old case on short notice. His lawyers later complained a senior U.K. prosecutor leaked information to the press. The SFO has denied that claim.

–Editors: Christopher Scinta, Peter Chapman

via Ex-Polly Peck CEO Nadir Accused of $233 Million U.K. Theft – Businessweek.

Brightwell board member Zamier Ahmen told Bloomberg “We will make a bid very shortly, there’s no question,” but the company is still doing its due diligence. The aim appears to be a restart of production at Saab’s Swedish facilities, and a revival of Saab’s automobile lineup. Any deal must be approved by GM, the Swedish government and the European Investment Bank. As far as Islamic countries go (well, sort of – Turkey is officially a secular country), we’d take a new 9-5 over one of the Iranian Peugeot clones, but there will no doubt be many dissenting views in the comments.

via Turkey’s Brightwell Holdings May Be Saab Suitor | The Truth About Cars.

• Explainer: a guide to understanding Sopa
• Clay Shirky: Pipa would create a consumption-only web

The US government has closed down one of the world’s largest filesharing websites, accusing its founders of racketeering, money laundering and presiding over “massive” online piracy.

According to prosecutors, Megaupload illegally cheated copyright holders out of $500m in revenue as part of a criminal enterprise spanning five years.

A lawyer for Megaupload told the Guardian it would “vigorously” defend itself against the charges, dismissing the criminal action as “a civil case in disguise”.

News of the indictment – being framed as one of the biggest copyright cases in US history – came a day after major internet firms held a 24-hour protest over proposed anti-piracy laws.

According to a Department of Justice release, seven people associated with Megaupload were indicted by a federal grand jury earlier this month over the charges.

They included Kim Dotcom, founder of the online firm.

The 37-year-old, who also goes by Kim Tim Jim Vestor and whose real name is Kim Schmitz, is accused of heading up a criminal venture that earn Dotcom and his associates upwards of $175m.

These profits were obtained illegally through advertising and the selling of premium memberships to users of Megaupload, the justice department is claiming.

Established in 2005, the website offered a “one-click” upload, providing an easily accessible online locker for shared content.

Before being shut down, the firm boasted 50 million daily visitors, accounting for 4% of total internet traffic, the justice department claimed in its statement on the indictment.

Prosecutors allege that the website violated copyright law by illegally hosting movies, music and TV shows on a massive scale.

Those behind the website have claimed that it diligently responds to any complaint regarding pirated material.

But according to prosecutors, the accused conspirators deliberately employed a business model that encouraged the uploading of illegal material.

They say that Megaupload paid users for uploading pirated material in full awareness that they were breaking the law. In addition they failed to close the accounts of known copyright infringers.

The indictment includes chat logs with conversations between company executives, which include statements like: “we have a funny business . . . modern days pirates ”

Alongside Dotcom, law enforcement officials swooped on a number of other senior members of Megaupload’s staff.

Arrests were made at a number of homes in Auckland, New Zealand, on warrants issued by US authorities.

In all, addresses in nine countries including the US were raided as part of massive international operation.

Three men accused alongside Dotcom remained on the run tonight, the Department of Justice said.

About $50m dollars in assets were seized as part of the massive operation.

Meanwhile, the Megaupload website was closed down, with the FBI seizing an additional 18 domain names associated with the alleged crime.

In response to the indictment, the hacker group Anonymous, which is ostensibly unaffiliated with Megaupload, launched a cyber attack that at least temporarily brought down the websites of the justice department as well as those of the Recording Industry Association of America, Motion Picture Association of America, and Universal Music.

If found guilty of the charges, the accused Megaupload executives could face 50 years behind bars.

Ira Rothken, an attorney for Megaupload, said the firm would fight the “erroneous” charges.

Speaking from his California office, Rothken said: “The allegations appear to be incorrect and the law does not support the charges.”

He added: “It is a civil case in disguise.”

Asked why it was being pursued as a criminal case, Rothken replied: “You’d have to ask the prosecutors.”

The Guardian

(ANSAmed) – ISTANBUL, JANUARY 19 – Syria has “a malignant attitude” toward the Dedeman Hotels International, as well as other Turkish and foreign businesses active in the country, according to a press release yesterday by the company, a Turkish hotelier, whose hotel operating contracts were canceled by the Syrian government, as daily Hurriyet reports today. Contracts that granted the Istanbul-based Dedeman the right to operate hotels in three Syrian cities were canceled by the Syrian government in the last four weeks. The first contract regarding Dedeman Hotel Aleppo was canceled December 29, 2011, and contracts regarding Dedeman’s Damascus and Tadmur hotels were canceled Januariy 17, according to Sana, Syria’s official news agency. Dedeman has not yet received any official notice from Syria about the cancellations, the company said. “It is saddening to reflect its domestic political developments in business life this way. We will take every step to protect our legal rights,” said Tamer Yorukoglu, Dedeman Hotels & Resorts International CEO. Dedeman could not meet forecasts envisaged in the auction process due to an economic crisis that started in 2009 and the instability caused by the political developments which came about from the beginning of last year, Dedeman said.

The renovation of three hotels had be assumed by the Syrian Ministry of Tourism according to the contracts, but the obligation was fulfilled by the ministry, said the company, adding that renovation project for those three hotels was submitted to the tourism ministry, but no positive move was made. (ANSAmed).

Lord Sassoon said Britain wanted to see a 'strong and dynamic' eurozone and European economy

The Government is undertaking “extensive contingency planning” in the event of a eurozone collapse, peers have been told.

Treasury minister Lord Sassoon said the planning was aimed at dealing with “all potential outcomes of the eurozone crisis”.

At question time, he said Britain wanted to see a “strong and dynamic” eurozone and European economy.

But he stressed it was for the eurozone countries to “take the lead in supporting the euro as a currency”.

Lord Sassoon also indicated that Britain would be prepared to stump up more cash to tackle the crisis if the IMF requested it.

“The Government sees the role of the IMF to support individual countries and not to support currencies.

“If the IMF puts forward a case, as it may well do, for an increase in its resources, if there is a strong case the UK will, as it has always done in the past, support the IMF in increasing resources as required,” he said.

Tory former chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby said: “There is only one thing as worrying as the collapse of the eurozone and that’s the continuation of the eurozone.”

He said it has been shown to be “fundamentally flawed and the cause of all these problems”.

Lord Lawson said ministers needed to look at the risk of a banking meltdown, adding: “If it should prove necessary for the UK Government to rescue any British banks, they should do so on much tougher terms than the ludicrously soft terms which the previous administration used.“

www.thisislondon.co.uk, 18 January 2012

The 1 percent and their employees are masters of word play. They turned the estate tax into the “death tax,” life-saving health and environmental rules became “job-killing” regulations, and of course when it comes to taxes, the richest of the rich are now “job creators” who are supposed to be exempt from paying taxes.

Given this track record, it is hardly surprising that a bill that would require every website in the country to become unpaid copyright enforcement officers for Time Warner, Disney, and the Washington Post comes packaged as the “Stop Online Piracy Act.” While the name may lead the public to believe that Congress is trying to keep our email pure and our computer screens safe, the real story is that the 1 percent are again trying to rig the rules so that they get as many dollars as possible from the rest of us.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would place an enormous burden not just on Internet giants like Google and Facebook, but any website that allows people to post content or includes links to other sites. An owner of copyrighted material would be able to go the Justice Department and claim infringement and request that the whole site be taken down.

While sites are already required to remove material that is determined to be infringing under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the SOPA requires that sites in effect preemptively screen material for potential infringements. If they fail, they risk having their whole site taken down for a period of time, in addition to paying damages to copyright holders.

The question that serious people would ask is what problem is the SOPA intended to address? There is still plenty of money being made by online distributors of music, movies, books and software. The problem seen by the top executives at Disney and the other promoters of the SOPA is that they want to make more.

A substantial amount of copyright-protected material does slip through the system, as does an even larger amount of material with ambiguous copyright status such as a home-made video with parts of a copyrighted song or material whose copyright may have expired. The big entertainment companies want to impose large costs on web intermediaries (which will be passed on to consumers) and make it more difficult for people to gain access to totally open material, in order to make them pay more money for their copyright-protected material.

Although the SOPA strategy of reducing access while raising prices could fit the dictionary definition of “job-killing regulation,” its advocates have the incredible audacity to be touting the 19 million jobs at stake. People really should take a moment to look at the industry’s website to see what might well rank as the most outrageous misrepresentation of economic reality ever to appear in a Washington policy debate.

The basic story is that if an industry is in any way directly or indirectly dependent on the output of a copyright-protected industry, then the jobs in that industry will be put at risk if Congress doesn’t approve the SOPA. By this methodology, all the jobs in the shipping industry will be at risk if we end the tax credit for solar power, since some of the materials used in solar panels is imported. This is patently absurd, but if you work for the 1 percent, you can get such arguments taken seriously in Washington policy circles.

In reality, the higher costs that the SOPA will impose on consumers both directly, and indirectly by raising costs to intermediaries, are money out of their pocket. The additional money that will be collected by the entertainment industry is money that will not be spent in local stores or restaurants.

It’s true that some of the money earned by entertainment industry will get back to writers, musicians and other creative workers, but this will be a very small amount compared with the additional cost to consumers. If we had forward thinking politicians in Washington, or economists who didn’t sell their services to the highest bidder, policy would be focused on devising more efficient mechanisms for supporting creative work.

Copyright is an incredibly inefficient mechanism dating back from the 16th century. The costs of enforcement are soaring as the Internet makes it ever more difficult. This is a situation where we are relying on toll booths to pay for our roads, but it is becoming ever easier for travelers to evade the toll booths. Rather looking for alternative ways to finance road construction, we are building bigger more expensive toll booths and increasing the penalties for not paying tolls.

Of course the point is to have money going to the road builders, not the people who run toll booths. There are alternative mechanisms for financing creative work. There is already a vast amount of creative and intellectual work that is not supported by copyrights. This includes work done by university faculty, work supported by non-profit organizations, and even to some extent work supported by the government.

We should be looking to expand and improve these alternative mechanisms rather than turn cyberspace into a copyright protected police state. The SOPA is big government at its worst: an intrusion into the market to help the 1 percent at the expense of everyone else.

www.huffingtonpost.com, 12/5/11