Sean Quinn Jailed For Contempt Of Court

Sean Quinn Senior has been jailed for failing to comply with a court order to overturn a multimillion-euro asset-stripping plot.

A judge at Dublin's High Court said she had no choice but to sentence the former-tycoon to nine weeks in prison.

This summer, Mr Quinn, his son Sean Junior and nephew Peter Darragh Quinn were ordered not to put the family's 500 million euro (£400m) fortune beyond the reach of the former Anglo Irish Bank.

But although the 66-year-old initially avoided prison, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne said Mr Quinn had committed a serious contempt of court by not reversing the scheme. 

She described his attitude as evasive and unco-operative, adding that with regards to the jail sentence "he has only himself to blame". 

The founder of Quinn Insurance, who also owned an international property empire, declared himself bankrupt last year over debts of 2.8bn euro (£2.24bn) to the now-nationalised Anglo bank.

He racked up huge losses on secret stock investments in the bank as its share price collapsed.

The family admit they owe 455m euros (£364m) to the bank - rebranded the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation - but deny owing the rest and have launched a counter-case.

Mr Quinn Jr was freed from prison two weeks ago after serving a three-month sentence for contempt of court, while Darragh Quinn has avoided going to prison to date, despite a similar sentence imposed in July.

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Car Insurance Cost Fall 'Will Not Last'

Car insurance premiums are said to have gone into reverse gear by £360 (13.6%) for young drivers - but there are concerns costs could rise dramatically after next month's EU gender ruling.

Insurance comparison site Confused.com has advised 17 to 20-year-old drivers to take advantage of "today's preferential rates" but warned them to avoid 2013's predicted price hikes by "shopping around".

Average comprehensive car insurance prices now stand at £757 as of this year's third quarter, compared to £843 for last year's third quarter - a significant year-on-year fall of £87 (10.3%).

Car insurance prices actually fell for all age groups, particularly young female drivers, but predictions from the Treasury indicate that young female drivers could see rises of up to 24% after the EU gender ruling becomes law on December 12.

After this date women and men cannot be priced differently for insurance meaning women will no longer directly benefit from being statistically less risky drivers as far as insurers are concerned.

This predicted insurance price rise could affect female drivers throughout various age groups, according to the Treasury data.

Sharon Flaherty, editor of Confused.com, told Sky News: "At the moment women pay less than men and statistically this is because on average they are less of a risk on the roads than young male drivers.

"However the bad news is that on December 21 the law change will mean that men and women have to be judged as exactly the same on the roads.

"Women will effectively be charged more because statistically they will no longer be allowed to be rated as safer on the roads."

Women aged 26-30 years are forecast an 18% price hike once the gender directive takes effect. Female drivers aged 31-35 are expected to suffer a 10% price rise.

Smaller price rises are expected for women aged 36-40 who are predicted to experience a 3% rise, and 41 to 45-year-old female drivers are only expected to receive a 1% price rise for their future car insurance policies.

Women on average saw their premiums shrink by 11.7% over all in the third quarter.

For spouses of either gender the average premium cost for a joint insurance policy is a lot less than average costs for solo drivers.

Male drivers insured plus spouse are quoted on average £432, compared to £907 as insured only driver, for women it costs an average of £787 for insured only driver cover, but just £418 for women who have a spouse on their policy.

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Pension Forecasts To Be Slashed By FSA

People are to get more realistic estimates of the value of their retirement pension pots under plans announced by the City watchdog.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said it will reduce the standard projection rates used to show possible future returns and the impact of charges.

The new calculations will show more realistic forecasts for consumers taking out personal pensions and life policies.

It said the move will reduce the possibility of Britons being given a "false impression" of the size of their potential cash pots.

Firms will have a year to implement the new projection rates, which come into force in April 2014.

Under the current system, companies must use projection rates to show what returns an investor might receive. These are  not a firm guarantee but give an idea of what people might gain from their investment.

They are meant to give three different rates of return and revise them down if a product appears unlikely to achieve them.

The FSA has been consulting on plans to strengthen these rules after finding providers often fail to comply with this requirement.

Under the current system, a pension statement shows what a pension will be worth if it grows by 5%, 7% and 9%.

But the FSA said projection rates will be cut to 2%, 5% and 8% to make sure customers are not given potentially misleading or exaggerated information.

With historic low interest rates many people have found downward pressure on their investments, including pensions.

The changes could lead to people re-considering their plans for retirement.

At present, a 22-year-old earning £30,000 a year who contributes just under £2,000 annually to their pension is told that their projected pension income would be around £10,300 on retirement at 68, based on a mid-point growth rate of 7%.

But under the new mid-point growth rate of 5%, the projected income would be thousands of pounds less, at around £6,400, according to research from financial services provider Hargreaves Lansdown.

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "It is important to remember that these are just projections; they will have no impact on what investors actually get back from their savings.

"The one thing we can guarantee is that whatever projection rates are used, they will be wrong, simply because they are only projections - reality will be different."

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Summly: iPhone App Delivers Bite-Sized News

A news summary app has been launched this week on the back a $1m investment from Horizons Ventures and celebrities like Stephen Fry and Yoko Ono.

Summly, created by the London-born, 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio, pulls in articles from online sources and uses an algorithm to identify key points, turning them into 400-character bite-sized summaries.

"Proud to announce the launch of Summly," Nick wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter on Thursday, as the app became available for free on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch.

Nick taught himself to code at age 12.

He started developing the prototype after receiving his first investment - at age 15 - from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing's Horizons Ventures - an early investor in projects that have since become household names for millions of people, like Facebook and Spotify.

Those funds allowed Nick to create the Summly prototype, which generated widespread attention and fresh investment.

Along with Fry and Ono, investors and advisers today include Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga's business manager Troy Carter, and WordPress entrepreneur Matt Mullenweg, according to Summly's website.

Summly is also "working closely with News Corporation on the summarisation of their content", the website said.

Nick is at King's College School, where he received an academic scholarship, and his Twitter profile lists technology, design and typography among his interests.

Summly allows users to browse the news through categories such as sports or UK stories. Swiping sideways allows users to move between summaries, swiping down brings them to the original source's story.

The app has received praise from Arianna Huffington, creator of the Huffington Post websites, who called Summly "amazing" and its creator "brilliant".

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

RBS Confirms £1.2bn Loss After PPI Hit

RBS has confirmed it made a loss before tax of £1.2bn in the third quarter, compared with a profit of £2bn for the same period last year.

As revealed by Sky's City Editor, the bank has set aside a further £400m for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, meaning the scandal has cost it £1.7bn to date.

This provision took the total compensation bill for Britain's four largest lenders past the £10bn mark.

The 82% taxpayer-owned bank also said it had taken a further hit of £50m to cover costs relating to the summer's massive IT failure - which saw many RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank customers locked out of their accounts.

It takes its bill for the meltdown to £175m.

The bank also expects to face "material fines" in relation to how Libor and other interest rates were set, it added.

RBS is under investigation by US and UK authorities over the rate-rigging scandal and is expected to be one of the next banks to settle after Barclays was fined £290m in June.

"The group expects to enter into negotiations to settle some of these investigations in the near term and believes the probable outcome is that it will incur financial penalties," RBS said.

It added that it had dismissed "a number of employees for misconduct" after investigations into rate setting.

But the group's core banking operations - if the mis-selling and IT charges are stripped out - performed well, with operating profit for the three months reaching £1bn.

A decline in charges on bad debt helped boost performance at the bank, which said its restructuring would be complete in the next 18 months.

As part of this plan, the number of employees was down by 9,900 from a year earlier, resulting in a 5% fall in staff costs compared to the previous quarter.

The bank described the collapse of the sale of 316 branches to Santander as "disappointing".

As a condition of RBS' state bailout, the European Union ordered it to offload the branches by the end of next year. RBS said it did not expect this to change and so had restarted efforts to sell them.

The group's chief executive, Stephen Hester, said it now needed to focus on improving its reputation.

"The extraordinary challenges which RBS faced following the financial crisis are being worked through successfully," he said in a statement.

"The five year restructuring plan is now in its later stages with important work still to do, including an emphasis on dealing with reputational issues now that the bank's safety and soundness has advanced so well."

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Waitrose Reveals 'Unglamorous' Christmas Ads

Waitrose opts for an "unglamorous" advertising campaign this Christmas, as it plans to donate £1m to good causes.

The high-end supermarket, which operates in a partnership with its employees, said it was "breaking with convention" by restricting its festive advertising.

Instead it plans to plough the money it would have spent into at least 1,700 local charities.

The campaign shows celebrity chefs Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal in what it describes as an unglamorous studio, standing next to a the store's typical charity box.

The pair - who waived their appearance fees - tell viewers the lack of a "fancy TV advert" will benefit good causes.

Marketing Week's Rosie Baker said it was an interesting advertising strategy by the chain.

"A lot of retailers are following John Lewis in recreating an extravagant story through their adverts," she told Sky News.

"Waitrose has gone beyond this.

"It shows confidence in the business, because they are not promoting their products – they are promoting what they stand for and this will probably work well for them."

Waitrose's marketing director, Rupert Thomas, said that Christmas this year would be difficult for many people across the UK.

"We feel that Christmas is the right time to give more back to good causes in the communities we serve," he said,

"There are no snow machines, no festive glitter, just an echoey studio stripped bare of Christmas trimmings."

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Japan Tech Firms Need Revamp To Topple Korea

Japan's top electronic firms have been told to change their business model, amid plunging share prices and booming competition from South Korea.

Shares in Sharp fell on Friday as worries about the TV and display maker's future deepened, a day after it warned of a £3.5bn net loss for the year and said it might not be able to survive on its own.

Panasonic's shares have steadied after a slide to their lowest in more than 30 years, while in August Sony reported a £202m first quarter loss as it pinned its hopes on new TV technology.

Sharp, which makes displays used in Apple's iPads and iPhones, has lost three-quarters of its share price since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, South Korea's Samsung has cemented its place as the world's leading smartphone seller after setting a record for the most units shipped in the third quarter.

Samsung sold 56 million smartphones between July and September, representing 31.3% of the global market - more than twice as much as rival Apple's 15% share.

Japan's giants have been urged to target high value goods, such as cars

"What it is telling us is that the Japanese should be focusing on a lot more on higher value goods – automobiles are going very fine, mechatronics and machinery," Mizuho International director Seijiro Takeshita told Sky News.

"The vertical integration model that the Japanese are very strong at, at least on commoditised products such as televisions, is wearing thin as far as competitiveness is concerned."

"The Koreans are doing a very good job following that model."

The strong yen and falling prices for gadgets are only partly to blame for the ill health for some of Japan's top consumer brands.

Increasingly, Japanese companies have toyed with the idea of strategic partnerships – once anathema to the consumer powerhouse.

"I think this is an alarm bell to many of these companies, so there should be some kind of diversify move or transformational move that is needed," Mr Takeshita said.

Panasonic has said it will lose £5.9bn this business year as it writes down goodwill and assets and plans more restructuring - taking its cumulative loss over five years to nearly £15.6bn.

Sony eeked out a small quarterly operating profit for Q3, helped by the sale of a non-core chemicals business.

"A lot of Japanese companies have not reorganised or refocused. It takes time and there are a lot of political motives not to make the changes," Mr Takeshita said.

"I think it is very clear for Panasonic or Sony that they do have to make these changes."

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Polly Peck Tycoon Nadir Ordered To Pay £5m

Disgraced tycoon Asil Nadir has been ordered to pay £5m compensation to Polly Peck International administrators or face a further six years in prison.

In August, Nadir was jailed for 10 years for stealing £28.6m pounds from his business empire and its shareholders.

Polly Peck, which was one of the most successful companies of its time, collapsed owing £550m in 1990.

Nadir, whose firm included the Del Monte fruit label, then went on the run for 17 years before returning to Britain in 2010 confident he would be cleared.

He later claimed to be penniless after prosecutors demanded £60m should be paid in compensation and interest to the administrators.

Mr Justice Holroyde, sitting at the Old Bailey, rejected Nadir's claims of poverty and said he believed Nadir had money stashed away.

Nadir, 71, fled from the UK to his native Northern Cyprus in 1993.

He claimed to have lived on the generosity of his mother and a girlfriend while in exile and before he was discharged as a bankrupt.

The judge said: "It is not true that Mr Nadir received no significant income or owned no significant assets since 1993."

Nadir has been given two years to pay the compensation. 

The judge also ruled that Turkish airline boss Hamit Cankut Bagana could apply for the return of the £250,000 security he paid to allow Nadir bail.

Nadir is serving half the sentence handed down in August in prison and will then be released on licence.

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

America Sees Huge Spike In Number Of New Jobs

The United States economy has added 171,000 net new jobs in October - a figure much higher than expected by analysts.

Simultaneously, the unemployment rate inched up to 7.9% from 7.8% in September due to the increased size of the work force.

The new hiring numbers were also revised for August and September, as higher than previously thought by 84,000 jobs.

The figures were released as part of the US Labour Department's last look at hiring before Tuesday's presidential election.

It sketched a picture of a job market that is gradually gaining momentum after nearly stalling in the spring.

Most analysts had expected the rise in the unemployment rate, but the job growth far outpaced the 125,000 forecast.

Since July, the economy has created an average of 173,000 jobs a month, up from 67,000 a month from April through to June.

The US economy has added jobs for 25 straight months, and there are now 580,000 more than when President Barack Obama took office.

However, Mr Obama will face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent since Franklin Roosevelt.

The rate ticked up because more people without jobs started looking for work and the government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching.

According to analysts from IHS Global Insight, damage of between $30bn (£18bn) to $50bn (£30bn) in economic losses from Superstorm Sandy could drop nominal GDP by 0.2% to 0.3%.

The Wall Street Journal described it as "naive" a view held by some that a rebuilding programme would boost the nation's GDP.

After the jobs announcement, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney called the small unemployment uptick a "sad reminder" that economy is at a "virtual standstill".

Throughout the campaign, Mr Romney has argued that the recovery should have been stronger by now.

He says voters will decide on Tuesday between what he calls stagnation and prosperity.

"We're not where we all want to end up, but we are making serious important progress moving forward," Obama senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said on CBS This Morning before the jobs report was released.

Polls show the two candidates virtually tied in what may be the closest presidential race in modern history.

Investors were pleased by the news.

Dow Jones industrial average futures were flat before the report came out at 8.30am local time, and within 30 minutes they had risen 54 points.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury note climbed to 1.77% from 1.72%, a sign that investors were moving money out of bonds and into stocks.

The October jobs report was compiled before Sandy struck the East Coast earlier this week and devastated many businesses.

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Comet Collapse: Gift Vouchers Suspended

Gift vouchers for stricken electrical retailer Comet have been suspended, the chain's administrator has confirmed.

Deloitte, which was appointed on Friday, has launched an "urgent" search for a buyer to protect some 6,600 jobs at the 236-outlet chain.

But, as a consequence, of administration gift vouchers have been suspended even though all Comet stores remain open and the group's staff will continue to be paid.

A spokesman for Deloitte said: "We are assessing the position with regard to gift vouchers, to establish whether it is possible for the company to accept them in future.

"But in the meantime stores have been instructed not to accept payment by means other than credit card or cash.

"If ultimately it is not possible for customers to redeem gift cards at Comet, then they will have an unsecured claim against the company, and the administrators will be pleased to provide the appropriate forms for customers to make such a claim if and when that eventuality arises."

The collapse of Comet marks one of the biggest high street casualties since the demise of Woolworths in 2008 and comes a month after the failure of JJB Sports.

Neville Kahn, joint administrator and restructuring services partner at Deloitte, said on appointment: "Our immediate priorities are to stabilise the business, fully assess its financial position, and begin an urgent process to seek a suitable buyer which would also preserve jobs.

"We appreciate the co-operation and support from the management, staff, customers, landlords and suppliers at what is clearly a very difficult time."

Deloitte said Comet had been hit by weak high street trading conditions, competition from online rivals and being unable to secure the trade credit insurance needed to safeguard suppliers.

"The inability to obtain supplier credit for the peak Christmas trading period means that the company had no realistic prospect of raising further capital to build up sufficient stock to allow it to continue trading," Deloitte added.

In particular, it was knocked by the lack of first-time home buyers, which had been key customers for Comet.

Its administration comes just months after Comet was taken over by investment firm OpCapita, which bought the chain in February.

The UK's high street electrical market has come under huge pressure as cash-strapped shoppers put off purchases of big-ticket items such as TVs and large appliances, as online rivals take a bigger slice of the sector.

The spokesman said extended warranties previously purchased remain unaffected by the administration and remain valid.

00.02 | 0 komentar | Read More