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EU’s executive body, the European Commission, announced Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into whether Microsoft has kept the antitrust commitments it made in 2009, and warned that penalties for non-compliance would be “severe.” Microsoft conceded it had “fallen short” of its obligation to provide the “browser choice screen,” or BCS. The choice screen would allow users of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems to select a browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. 2 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post “Due to a technical error, we missed delivering the BCS software to PCs that came with the service pack 1 update to Windows 7,” Microsoft said in a statement. The company said that PCs running the original version of Windows 7, as well as Windows XP and Windows Vista, did have the screen. “While we have taken immediate steps to remedy this problem, we deeply regret that this error occurred and we apologize for it,” Microsoft said. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told reporters it appeared that the choice screen, promised by Microsoft in 2009 following an antitrust case, has not been provided since February 2011, meaning 28 million customers who should have seen it may not have. Microsoft submitted a report to the Commission in December asserting that the browser choice screen was being provided as required. In its statement Tuesday, the company said it believed at the time that was the case. The company said it had retained outside to conduct a formal investigation of how the technical error occurred and to make suggestions to avoid such compliance problems in the future. It also said that it was offering to extend the time during which it is obligated to display the choice screen by an additional 15 months. “We understand that the Commission will review this matter and determine whether this is an appropriate step for Microsoft to take,” the statement said. “We understand that the Commission may decide to impose other sanctions.” The latest development stems from Microsoft’s agreement in 2009 to offer a choice of rival Web browsers on Windows to ward off additional fines. Rivals had complained that attaching Internet Explorer to Windows was an unfair way for Microsoft to put its Web software on most of the world’s computers. The competitive landscape has changed greatly since then, however. Tech companies are now more concerned about Google’s and Facebook’s dominance than Microsoft’s. Meanwhile, rival browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome have gotten more use, and apps on mobile devices have started to replace browsers as gateways to online content The development comes just weeks after a European court upheld most of a massive fine that the European Commission had levied against Microsoft in 2008 for failing to fully comply with an order covering technical documents it had to share with rivals. At the time, the ruling closed the last of EU’s active cases against Microsoft, which dated back to 1998. Almunia said this would be the first time that this type of legally binding agreement has not been complied with. “Needless to say, we take compliance with our decision very seriously,” he said. “If the infringement is confirmed, there will be sanctions.” All told, the European Union has so far fined Microsoft €1.64 billion ($2 billion).
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Diamond Contradicted by Del Missier, Criticized by Regulator
Barclays Plc (BARC)’s ex-chief executive officer, Robert Diamond, was contradicted by his former chief operating officer and criticized by regulators investigating the Libor-rigging scandal. Jerry del Missier told lawmakers yesterday his former boss instructed him to submit artificially low Libor rates, and blamed compliance managers for failing to act. Less than an hour later, Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner told the committee Barclays had been “gaming the system.” Del Missier, 50, said he took Diamond’s direction to have come from the Bank of England. He said he then “passed the instruction along” to Mark Dearlove, head of the bank’s money- markets desk, to lower its contributions for the London interbank offered rate. “It did not seem an inappropriate action given it was coming from the Bank of England,” del Missier told Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee in London. “The government were calling the shots.” His comments contradicted Diamond, who told lawmakers he wasn’t directed by the Bank of England to lower the firm’s submissions and gave no such instruction. Del Missier also embroiled more executives in the inquiry, saying compliance chief Stephen Morse was told by the bank’s money-markets desk about the request to lower Libor rates, and failed to act. The desk “informed compliance of the request,” del Missier said. “There was no closing of the loop.” Shares Fall Barclays fell 4.5 percent to 157.70 pence, the lowest in almost eight months, in London trading yesterday. The stock has declined 10 percent this year, making it the worst performer in the six-member FTSE 350 Banks index. Simon Eaton, a Barclays spokesman, and Daniel Yea, Diamond’s spokesman, declined to comment on del Missier’s remarks. Del Missier resigned from Britain’s second-largest bank by assets on July 3, the same day as Diamond after the lender was fined 290 million pounds ($453 million) by regulators for attempting to manipulate Libor, a benchmark for $500 trillion of financial products. Libor is calculated by a survey of banks’ daily estimates of how much it would cost them to borrow from one another for different time frames and in different currencies. Because submissions aren’t based on real trades, the potential exists for the benchmark to be manipulated. Seven Banks Tracey McDermott, the FSA’s acting enforcement chief, told lawmakers yesterday the regulator is investigating seven banks over Libor-rigging. The U.K. Serious Fraud Office said on July 6 that it had opened a criminal probe. Diamond told the committee on July 4 that he had received a call from Paul Tucker, then markets director at the Bank of England, in October 2008 questioning why the lender’s Libor submissions were so high. Diamond said he didn’t interpret the call as an instruction to submit lower rates. Tucker said no government minister or official pressured him to instruct London-based Barclays or any other U.K. bank to lowball its Libor submissions during the financial crisis in his own testimony on July 9. Diamond said del Missier misinterpreted his account of the call as in instruction. “I was unaware that Jerry had the impression that the conversation I had with Paul, either by note or by conversation, was an instruction,” Diamond told lawmakers. “I was not aware that he did instruct” his traders to lower their submissions. Diamond’s Instruction Del Missier said yesterday he passed on what he took to be an instruction to his head of money markets without getting legal advice. He didn’t seek further clarification from Diamond. “It was an instruction, wasn’t it?” said David Ruffley, a committee member from the U.K.’s ruling Conservative Party. “Yes, it was,” said del Missier. Del Missier was then asked what he said to Dearlove after he had a conversation with Diamond. “I said I have spoken to Mr. Diamond,” del Missier said. “He’s had a call from Mr. Tucker, alluding to the political pressure around Barclays’s health as demonstrated by our Libor rates and that we should get our rates down and not be an outlier.” “So you explicitly instructed him to bring the Libor-rate submissions down?” said Andrea Leadsom, a committee member. “I passed the instruction along, yes,” said del Missier. Diamond’s comment to the committee that regulators had been “specifically pleased” with the “tone at the top” at the bank was again challenged yesterday by the FSA’s Turner. ‘Cultural Tendency’ The bank “had a cultural tendency to be always pushing the limit” of what was allowed under banking rules, Turner told the committee. He and Andrew Bailey, the regulator’s head of banking supervision, said the cultural issues at Barclays came from the “tone at the top,” including Diamond. Turner said he talked to Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius to drive home the message that the bank was “gaming the system.” “There have been a set of issues” the FSA had argued about with Barclays “on a case-by-case basis,” Turner said. “It is the accumulation that makes us believe that we have to draw the attention from the chairman to the chairman level,” he said, referring to a February letter to Agius in which he outlined his concerns about how the bank approached regulators. “There was a problem with this institution,” Bailey said.
Dutch authorities have joined the FBI in conducting criminal investigations into the discovery of needles in six sandwiches aboard four Delta Air Lines flights from Amsterdam to the United States
Dutch authorities have joined the FBI in conducting criminal investigations into the discovery of needles in six sandwiches aboard four Delta Air Lines flights from Amsterdam to the United States, a military police spokesman in the Netherlands said Tuesday.
One person was injured when he bit into a sandwich containing a needle, Delta and Dutch officials said.
That passenger, James Tonjes, said he thought the object was a toothpick at first.
"When I pulled it out, then I found out it was a needle," he said Tuesday.
Tonjes said he has been placed on medication to prevent HIV.
A second passenger aboard the same flight, Jack Drogt, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that he not only found a needle, he discovered after landing that his son also found a one in his sandwich aboard another flight from Amsterdam.
Unsavory truths about airplane food
The objects were discovered in the sandwiches as the planes were flying Sunday from Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands to Minneapolis, Seattle and two flights to Atlanta, according to Delta spokeswoman Kristin Baur. Two of the needles were found by passengers, she said. An air marshal aboard another flight found a needle as well.
Officials initially reported that four needles had been found. Baur said the two additional needles reported Tuesday were not new incidents but a clarification of earlier information.
The FBI said Monday that it had launched an investigation into the incident. On Tuesday, Robert van Kapel, spokesman for the military police in Schiphol, said detectives there were looking into who put the needles into the sandwiches and why.
Gate Gourmet, which provided prepared sandwiches to Delta, said the sandwiches originated at the firm's facility in Amsterdam. The company has been in business since 1992.
Airline drops salads from flights in food scare
"This is a terribly upsetting situation," Gate Gourmet spokeswoman Christina Ulosevich said. "First and foremost is the safety of the traveling public. There's nothing more important to us at all than the safety of the passengers and crews."
Tonjes said it was about an hour before the flight was scheduled to land in Minneapolis when he the flight crew served him a turkey and cheese sandwich.
Why air travel snacks matter
He described the needle that punctured the roof of his mouth as being about an inch long. He said it looked like a sewing needle but did not have an eye.
"It happened so quick," he said. "I called the flight attendants, and they immediately took it. They didn't make an announcement, but they did go around and collect (the sandwiches)," he said.
FBI officials declined to comment Tuesday.
On Monday, Transportation Security Administration spokesman David Castelveter said the agency had notified all U.S. airlines with flights from Schiphol to the United States of the situation.
"TSA continues to closely monitor the review of the incidents as well as the security protocols being conducted by the air carrier and the airport authority," Castelveter said.
Delta is now serving sealed prepackaged food on these flights instead of the sandwiches, and no other needles have been found, Baur said.
"Delta requires all its in-flight caterers to adhere to strict criteria in order to offer our customers the very best onboard meals," Baur said in a statement. "The safety and security of our passengers and crew is Delta's number one priority."
Ulosevich said Monday that Gate Gourmet provides food to other airlines but that it had not received any other reports of tampering.
"We are absolutely cooperating fully with federal and local authorities who are involved, and concurrent with that, we'll be conducting our own full-scale investigation."
Frequent flier Gary Leff, who rakes in more than 100,000 miles each year, said he's taking a "wait and see attitude" but isn't planning to change the way he thinks about airline food.
"I mean, this isn't going to be the first thing ever found in airline food and certainly not the first thing found in restaurant food," he said.
Leff is a frequent domestic flier for work and redeems his miles for international vacations, sharing his cheap travel expertise on his blog, View from the Wing.
He expects others to be bothered by this incident "for about 15 minutes," Leff said. He referenced a number of occasions when unwanted ingredients or objects have been discovered in foods and medicines over the past few decades -- incidents no one seems to worry about or even remember, he said.
"I think most people are just so happy to be served food in the sky that they'll forget it pretty quickly," he said.
HSBC contrite as senators hammer money-laundering lapses
HSBC Holdings Plc told a U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday that it has dealt head-on with allegations of pervasive money-laundering through bank accounts, saying it has overhauled how it polices transactions, exited lucrative businesses and shaken up executive leadership. HSBC offered up the changes after the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report accusing the British bank of a "pervasively polluted" culture, underscoring money-laundering problems have been flagged by regulators for nearly a decade. The report said the bank routinely acted as a financier to clients routing funds from the world's most dangerous corners, including Mexico, Iran and Syria. During a hearing on the Senate report, David Bagley, a top compliance executive at HSBC since 2002, said he would step down. The resignation was part of HSBC's effort to apologize and show that it has cleaned up its act, even as the bank faces fresh questions about whether it has really fixed major flaws in catching and stopping money laundering. A Reuters investigation has found persistent lapses in the bank's anti-money laundering compliance since 2010.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Bankers face the prospect of jail as Serious Fraud Office launches criminal probe into interest-rate fixing at Barclays
Hearing: Former chief executive Bob Diamond left Barclays over the matter, before appearing before MPs this week
A criminal investigation has been launched into alleged rigging of the Libor rate within the banking industry, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) confirmed today.
SFO director David Green QC formally accepted the Libor issue for investigation after Barclays was fined by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) last week for manipulating the key interbank lending rate which affects mortgages and loans.
The claims ultimately led to the resignation of Barclays boss Bob Diamond and have become the focal point of a fierce political debate over ethics in the banking sector.
The investigation could ultimately lead to criminal prosecutions and bankers facing charges in court.
The SFO's update came after it revealed earlier this week that it had been working closely with the FSA during its investigation and would consider the potential for criminal prosecutions.
The Government department, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting serious and complex fraud, said on Monday the issues surrounding Libor were "complex" and that assessing the evidence would take time.
Under fire: Barclays former chairman Marcus Agius (right) with former CEO Bob Diamond (centre), and former chief executive John Varley (left)
As the SFO prepares its investigation, Labour leader Ed Miliband continued to push for an independent inquiry into the banking scandal despite MPs rejecting the demands.
The Labour leader said that while the party would cooperate with a parliamentary investigation, its remit was too "narrow" and a judge-led probe was still needed.
Mr Miliband also defended the conduct of Ed Balls after the shadow chancellor engaged in a bitter war of words with his opposite number George Osborne in the Commons.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Barclays boss Bob Diamond resigns
Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned with immediate effect. The move comes less than a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates. Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked "damaging the franchise". Chairman Marcus Agius, who said on Monday he was stepping down, will take over the running of Barclays until a replacement is found. "I am deeply disappointed that the impression created by the events announced last week about what Barclays and its people stand for could not be further from the truth," Mr Diamond said in a statement. He will still appear before MPs on the Treasury Committee to answer questions about the Libor affair on Wednesday. "I look forward to fulfilling my obligation to contribute to the Treasury Committee's enquiries related to the settlements that Barclays announced last week without my leadership in question," Mr Diamond said. Last week, regulators in the US and UK fined Barclays £290m ($450m) for attempting to rig Libor and Euribor, the interest rates at which banks lend to each other, which underpin trillions of pounds worth of financial transactions. Staff did this over a number of years, trying to raise them for profit and then, during the financial crisis, lowering them to hide the level to which Barclays was under financial stress. Prime Minister David Cameron has described the rigging of Libor rates as "a scandal". The Serious Fraud Office is also considering whether to bring criminal charges.
Monday, 2 July 2012
Beware of missed call to check SIM cloning
Next time if you get a missed call starting with +92; #90 or #09, don't show the courtesy of calling back because chances are it would lead to your SIM card being cloned. The telecom service providers are now issuing alerts to subscribers —particularly about the series mentioned above as the moment one press the call button after dialing the above number, someone at the other end will get your phone and SIM card cloned. According to reports, more than one lakh subscribers have fallen prey to this new telecom terror attack as the frequency of such calls continues to grow. Intelligence agencies have reportedly confirmed to the service providers particularly in UP West telecom division that such a racket is not only under way but the menace is growing fast. "We are sure there must be some more similar combinations that the miscreants are using to clone the handsets and all the information stored in them," an intelligence officer told TOI. General Manager (GM) BSNL, RV Verma, said the department had already issued alerts to all the broadband subscribers and now alert SMSes were being issued to other subscribers as well. As per Rakshit Tandon, an IT expert who also teaches at the police academy (UP), the crooks can use other combination of numbers as well while making a call. "It is better not to respond to calls received from unusual calling numbers," says Tandon. "At the same time one should avoid storing specifics of their bank account, ATM/ Credit/Debit card numbers and passwords in their phone memory because if one falls a prey to such crooks then the moment your cell phone or sim are cloned, the data will be available to the crooks who can withdraw amount from your bank accounts as well," warns Punit Misra; an IT expert who also owns a consultancy in Lucknow. The menace that threatens to steal the subscriber's information stored in the phone or external memory (sim, memory & data cards) has a very scary side as well. Once cloned, the culprits can well use the cloned copy to make calls to any number they wish to. This exposes the subscribers to the threat of their connection being used for terror calls. Though it will be established during the course of investigations that the cellphone has been cloned and misused elsewhere, it is sure to land the subscriber under quite some pressure till the time the fact about his or her phone being cloned and misused is established, intelligence sources said. "It usually starts with a miss call from a number starting with + 92. The moment the subscriber calls back on the miss call, his or her cell phone is cloned. In case the subscribers takes the call before it is dropped as a miss call then the caller on the other end poses as a call center executive checking the connectivity and call flow of the particular service provider. The caller then asks the subscriber to press # 09 or # 90 call back on his number to establish that the connectivity to the subscriber was seamless," says a victim who reported the matter to the BSNL office at Moradabad last week. "The moment I redialed the caller number, my account balance lost a sum of money. Thereafter, in the three days that followed every time I got my cell phone recharged, the balance would be reduced to single digits within the next few minutes," she told the BSNL officials.
Sunday, 1 July 2012
France brings in breathalyser law
New motoring laws have come into force in France making it compulsory for drivers to carry breathalyser kits in their vehicles. As of July 1, motorists and motorcyclists will face an on-the-spot fine unless they travel with two single-use devices as part of a government drive to reduce the number of drink-drive related deaths. The new regulations, which excludes mopeds, will be fully enforced and include foreigner drivers from November 1 following a four-month grace period. Anyone failing to produce a breathalyser after that date will receive an 11 euro fine. French police have warned they will be carrying out random checks on drivers crossing into France via ferries and through the Channel Tunnel to enforce the new rules. Retailers in the UK have reported a massive rise in breathalyser sales as British drivers travelling across the Channel ensure they do not fall foul of the new legislation. Car accessory retailer Halfords said it is selling one kit every minute of the day and has rushed extra stock into stores to cope with the unprecedented demand. Six out of 10 Britons travelling to France are not aware they have to carry two NF approved breathalysers at all times, according to the company. The French government hopes to save around 500 lives a year by introducing the new laws, which will encourage drivers who suspect they may be over the limit to test themselves with the kits. The French drink-driving limit is 50mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood - substantially less than the UK limit of 80mg.
The number of Britons arrested overseas is on the rise, official figures have shown.
The Foreign Office (FO) handled 6,015 arrest cases involving British nationals abroad between April 2011 and March 2012. This was 6% more than in the previous 12 months and included a 2% rise in drug arrests. The figures, which include holidaymakers and Britons resident overseas, showed the highest number of arrests and detentions was in Spain (1,909) followed by the USA (1,305). Spanish arrests rose 9% in 2011/12, while the United States was up 3%. The most arrests of Britons for drugs was in the US (147), followed by Spain (141). The highest percentage of arrests for drugs in 2011/12 was in Peru where there were only 17 arrests in total, although 15 were for drugs. The FO said anecdotal evidence from embassies and consulates overseas suggested many incidents were alcohol-fuelled, particularly in popular holiday destinations such as the Canary Islands, mainland Spain, the Balearics (which include Majorca and Ibiza), Malta and Cyprus. Consular Affairs Minister Jeremy Browne said: "It is important that people understand that taking risks abroad can land them on the wrong side of the law. "The punishments can be very severe, with tougher prison conditions than in the UK. While we will work hard to try and ensure the safety of British nationals abroad, we cannot interfere in another country's legal system. "We find that many people are shocked to discover that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office cannot get them out of jail. We always provide consular support to British nationals in difficulty overseas. However, having a British passport does not make you immune to foreign laws and will not get you special treatment in prison."
