Swiss indicate repair to UBS taxation headache in U.S.

Lisa Jucca, European Wealth Management Correspondent ZURICH Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:42pm EST

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland will ask parliament to turn a deal with Washington that got bank UBS off the hook in a tax evasion case into binding law, plugging a legal hole that is stopping Berne from honoring the agreement.

To settle a bitter dispute, UBS and the Swiss government agreed in August to disclose 4,450 secret accounts that U.S. citizens used to hide money from tax authorities.

But the settlement hit a stumbling block after a Swiss court ruled in January that such a transfer of data would breach existing Swiss law.

The tax row and uncertainty surrounding the settlement has led to billions of Swiss francs of client withdrawals at UBS.

By asking its parliament to approve the deal, Switzerland would do away with a legal distinction between tax fraud and tax evasion in providing assistance to the U.S. and be allowed to speedily deliver the data Washington is seeking.

"We will in this way uphold the international commitments made by Switzerland with a view of finding a definitive resolution to the legal and sovereignty conflict with the United States," the Swiss government said in a statement.

The future of UBS, still Switzerland"s largest bank by assets, is crucial for the stability of the Swiss financial market, whose tradition of bank secrecy is under attack in the United States and in Europe.

Switzerland manages $11.3 trillion of assets, making it the third-largest financial market after the United States and Britain. It is the leading global offshore center with $2.3 trillion in assets. The Swiss government will unveil a strategy on how to support its financial services industry on Thursday.

INTENSE DISCUSSIONS AHEAD

The Swiss administrative court ruling caused embarrassment for the Swiss government as it risked prolonging a legal nightmare for its already hard-pressed bank giant.

Although Swiss politicians are known to rule by consensus and shy away from the open confrontation seen in other countries, the fact that the government has in the past introduced ad hoc measures to help UBS has ruffled some feathers.

Approval is likely to require intense parliamentary discussions, a top Swiss politician told Reuters.

"Right now we haven"t got the numbers (to approve it)," said Flavio Abate, a member of the Swiss liberal party who heads the financial commission in the Lower House of Parliament.

"The situation risks becoming problematic," he said.

UBS said in a statement it intended to fulfill all

commitments under both a criminal and civil settlement of the tax row. This included providing relevant client account information to the Swiss tax authorities.

Swiss bank secrecy laws prevent Berne from automatically sharing tax information with foreign authorities. Each request needs to follow an administrative process and clients of Swiss banks can appeal against a request for data transfer in court.

Shares In UBS were up 2.14 percent at 14.77 Swiss francs at 1600 GMT, outperforming a 0.5 percent rise in the European DJ Stoxx banking index.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had no immediate comment.

(Additional reporting by Kim Dixon in Washington; Editing by Rupert Winchester)

Mitchells Butlers to give up drinks-led pubs

Robert Lindsay & , : {}

John Lovering, the new chairman of Mitchells Butlers brought in by the rebel shareholder Joe Lewis, today said that he was changing executive bonuses because his senior managers valued their pensions more than their share options.

Mr Lovering said: "Our reward system has favoured continuity and security, not profit maximisation. This is not a criticism, merely an observation, but we have made our senior managers value their pensions more highly than their share options rational response to plc life with a big generous defined-benefits pension fund."

Mr Lovering, the former chairman of Debenhams, had promised a complete strategic review when he was brought to the helm two months ago after Mr Lewis, the billionaire trader and 23 per cent shareholder, succeeded in voting off his predecessor Simon Laffin.

MB"s new chairman said that he was determined to address a pension funding problem and added: "The senior management compensation schemes have been such that pension entitlements have been more significant than the rewards available from creating shareholder value." The remuneration committee is drawing up a new bonus plan to better align management with shareholders.

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Mr Lovering also wants to accelerate the group"s current plan to shift from pubs that rely on drinks sales to those that rely on dining, such as Toby Carvery and Harvester.

He said that he wanted to "plan a withdrawal from the more price sensitive drinks-led brands and outlets", likely to include All Bar One.

"We have previously identified a number of businesses which are not central to our future strategy, but we have only progressed slowly in exiting them ... Our portfolio has too many brands," he said.

He was prepared to license some brands to other operators, to convert some outlets to food brands and to sell or swap others with other pub businesses.

Mr Lovering wants to more than double the number of Harvester, Toby Carvery, Crown Carveries and Sizzling Pub Co outlets by opening in leased buildings in leisure centres and out-of-town shopping centres with plenty of car parking.

There had been speculation that Mr Lovering might oust MB"s current chief executive, Adam Fowle, but the chairman praised Mr Fowle, calling him "immensely experienced", and said that the business required a "fully engaged chairman" to oversee the "business reshaping" while Mr Fowle got on with managing the business.

Toyota staff memo on reserve sacrifices handed to US investigators

Leo Lewis, Middle East Business Correspondent & , : {}

Toyota was forced yesterday to palm over to US congressional investigators a smoking gun memo constructed by the own bureau workers that warned government as far behind as 2006 of systemic threats to car safety.

The two-page memo, drafted by a organisation of long-term Toyota employees and sent without delay to Toyotas thenpresident Katsuaki Watanabe in 2006, condemns reserve sacrifices done by the association in office of profit.

It highlights the unsound growth times for new vehicles and the ubiquitous decrease of craftsmanship at Japans majority important production company, final that critical processes were in the hands of amateurs.

The request additionally offering a chilling foretaste of the difficulty that was to come, notice that Toyotas government policies would in conclusion bluster the companys survival.

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Tadao Wakatsuki, the principal writer of the memo, was interviewed by The Times dual years ago, when he warned that Toyotas expansionism was formulating new victims: the employees were buckling underneath the burdens of cost-cutting and the patron was about to compensate an unfortunate price.

Mr Wakatsuki has worked on the building of one of Toyotas largest Japanese factories for 45 years. Along with multiform alternative employees both of Toyota and the subsidiaries, he set up a breakaway kinship in an try to urge operative conditions via the group. His preference to form the All Toyota Labour Union, he said, was formed on what he saw as the capitulation of the central kinship a physique that frequency challenged management.

The Toyota Way is important all over the world. In reality, the Toyota Way is to omit warnings from inside of the firm, he said.

People work themselves to illness since they are frightened to do differently. Do you think that incident is great for the cars or the approach they are built?

We used to do reserve and peculiarity checks on each singular car that leaves the plant. Not any more. Not even dual thirds get the full treatment.

Mr Wakatsuki, who functions in the in the appurtenance press stamping territory of the factory, pronounced that cost-cutting and speed had turn the widespread ethos at the responsibility of experience and thoroughness. Top to toe reserve checks were no longer conducted on 100 per cent of cars, he alleged.

Even prior to reports had started to aspect about inadequate accelerator pedals, Mr Wakatsuki believed that problems would in the future arise to show up Toyota. The company, he said, had authorised itself to grow as well fast and in the routine lost what it was that done the code so strong. Those expect difference were echoed last month by Akio Toyoda, the stream Toyota president, when he apologised for mass recalls and attempted to insist how a association of Toyotas description had got in to such a mess.

The memo, by Mr Wakatsuki and five associate members of the union, was created when Toyota was rising from a rapist examination in to veteran loosening over a car collision where five family members were injured. Toyota was privileged of all charges but Mr Wakatsuki and his collaborators demanded government yield a fuller reason of what had happened.

As well as home on countless purported shortcomings of Toyotas government practices, the memo done 7 requests. One of them demanded a examination of cost rebate measures so that the association can pledge the production of protected cars.

Toyota concurred yesterday that comparison government had seen the strange memo, but deemed it suitable to reply to usually one of the requests a respectful idea that government see in to ways of shortening the sum series of hours worked by employees each year.

The carmaker stays in predicament after a tellurian stop of scarcely 9 million vehicles, a flourishing fusillade of lawsuit and allegations that accelerator faults caused the genocide of dozens of people on American roads.

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We can bear 2bn-a-year cost of construction high-speed rail network says Adonis

Philip Pank, Transport Correspondent & , : {}

The building a whole of a high-speed rail network joining London, Birmingham and the good conurbations of the North, to be summarized in Parliament today, would cost at slightest 2 billion a year for some-more than a decade, The Times has learnt.

The plans for the fastest railway in Europe is already being against by Conservatives and environmental groups. But the Government insists that the greatest infrastructure plan given the building a whole of the main road network is possibly even at a time of firmly compelled open spending.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, will set out minute plans in a White Paper today. The due lane is drawn to inside of 5 metres in civic areas and twenty-five metres in open nation and will light a conflict with thousands of people and landowners whose properties will be affected.

The line would cut by key extrinsic constituencies in the West Midlands as well as the Chiltern Hills, one of 40 areas of superb healthy beauty in Britain. It has the clever subsidy of commercial operation leaders, who see billions of pounds value of intensity expansion from a faster, some-more fit network.

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Journey times in in in in between London and Birmingham would be cut to 49 mins if the line opens as programmed in 2025. The lane is written to take trains at speeds of up to 250mph, with a genius of 20,000 people on eighteen trains an hour.

Trains would primarily run off the high speed rails on to the existent West Coast Main Line north of Birmingham, so the idealisation idea of shortening tour times in in in in between London and Edinburgh to 2 hours 40 mins would not be finished for decades. The line would run from a Central London terminal, identified by rail experts as Euston. It is approaching to call at an rotate hire for Heathrow and the destiny Crossrail plan in Old Oak Common, West London.

Lord Adonis will additionally blueprint what a high-speed rail network north of Birmingham would see like. He is approaching to validate a inform submitted to him in Dec by High Speed Two, a association combined last Jan to suggest the Government on environment up a network.

The Times understands that the elite choice put brazen is a Y-shaped pattern with a singular line that divides at or nearby Birmingham. One bend runs west of the Pennines to Manchester and on to Scotland. The second runs by Sheffield, Leeds and Newcastle. Lord Adonis does not design building a whole of the London-Birmingham proviso to proceed prior to 2017, when Crossrail, that will couple Heathrow with London Docklands, is due to be completed.

As well as saving time, the Government believes that the plan would yield severely indispensable additional genius in in in in between London and Manchester and would coax mercantile expansion and regeneration. It hopes that a switch from cars on to the railway would additionally grasp poignant reductions in hothouse gases.

However, Lord Adonis has already unsuccessful in his try to take high-speed rail on top of celebration politics. He told The Times: I positively do not wish high-speed rail to be a dividing line in in in in between the parties.

But the bureau of Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Transport Secretary, currently publishes a poster disapproval Labours High Speed failure. It says that Labour have got high speed rail wrong for the economy and wrong for the envioronment.

The Conservatives contend that a network contingency run by Heathrow and have due a retreat S-shaped line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Ms Villiers says that a Conservative Government would proceed building a whole of a identical line in 2015.The 12-year Tory plan would cost 1.3 billion a year and begin in 2015. The open purse would encounter 15.7 billion of the twenty billion cost.

Writing in todays Times , Lord Adonis argues that annual building a whole costs of 2 billion could be met. Construction costs will not come from the ride budget.

Treasury officials admit that the plan would contest for supports with Trident prisons, an NHS database and alternative collateral projects.However, basic work of up to 1 billion is approaching to be met by the DfT, putting an additional fist on finance management after the election.

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Financiers see in to receiving carry out of Manchester United from Glazer family Manchester United

Tony Barrett & , : {}

A organisation of heading City financiers have hold talks with a perspective to wresting carry out of Manchester United from the Glazer family, the stream owners of the club.

The supposed Red Knights organisation met this sunrise at the Fleet Street offices of the Magic Circle law organisation Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Though no suggest for United is thought to be imminent, the Red Knights are accepted to be examining the viability of a intensity bid. The Glazer family, however, sojourn austere that the bar is not for sale and tonight released a matter reaffirming their joining to the club.

Keith Harris, a lifelong United fan and broker with Seymour Pierce, has been convention a organisation of like-minded intensity investors in new weeks and has been assimilated by Jim ONeill, the arch economist at Goldman Sachs, who has been an outspoken censor of the Glazer system of administration and the debt installed on to the bar by Uniteds owners.

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It is accepted that todays talks were hosted by Mark Rawlinson, a partner in Freshfields corporate practice, who suggested United on the takeover by the Glazers in 2005.

Finsbury, the heading City open family organisation who additionally suggested United in 2005, has been lined up to suggest the Red Knights, nonetheless no grave appointment has nonetheless been made.

Harriss critique of the Glazer system of administration has turn increasingly assertive in new weeks and he is assured that the required supports can be lifted to lure the Americans to sell up. He has additionally corroborated the immature and bullion fighting back by United supporters against to the Glazer system of administration and has even called on them to step up their efforts, imploring fans to protest deteriorate tickets in the summer.

Im a outrageous United fan but the Glazers are personification with an idol of football, one of the majority reputable in the world, and it is in danger, Harris pronounced in a new interview.

Vomiting pathogen sweeps by Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham

Gary Jacob and Ben Smith & , : {}

A queasiness pathogen has swept by the Tottenham Hotspur squad, inspiring dual initial group players and forcing the piece closure of the club"s precision belligerent this morning.

The outbreak, that is thought to have started on Tuesday, widespread fast by the club"s executive staff and academy players prior to relocating on to the initial team. Vedran Ćorluka was forced out of the FA Cup fifth turn replay opposite Bolton Wanderers on Wednesday but Harry Redknapp, the manager, hopes that the defender will redeem to fool around opposite Everton on Sunday.

Wilson Palacios has additionally been struck down by the pathogen but at this theatre it stays misleading if any some-more of the initial group patrol have been affected. Redknapp pronounced he approaching to know some-more once the players reported for precision today.

Several journalists, members of the clubs media dialect group and bureau staff have been strike by the pathogen that is believed to take about 48 hours to pass. Redknapp reliable the headlines at his press discussion today, that had to be changed to White Hart Lane due to the outbreak. The Tottenham physical education instructor pronounced that nonetheless the patrol would lapse to the Chigwell trickery today, the players will not be authorised to come in the buildings.

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We have this pathogen complaint at the precision belligerent and we"ve sealed it down, Redknapp said. We are going to sight there but all else is off boundary - the offices and the cafeteria. There will be no food or anything. We are only going to go in and sight and afterwards get out of there. We had a couple of down with it the alternative day. Corluka had the pathogen and Palacios was not feeling good with it either.

"It has swept by the Academy. About eighteen who possibly work there or the kids themselves have all got it, so the alloy motionless we couldn"t make use of it. We are still going to sight there but only get in to the becoming different rooms, get out on the pitch, showering and get out of there. Other than that it"s sealed down there completely.

"It hasn"t disrupted us, we are still precision as normal and hopefully nobody else gets it but there have been so most alternative people who have left down with it, together with a couple of of the Press boys who came over on Tuesday, it is positively spreading.

In 2006, the Tottenham patrol was struck down by a identical bug prior to the last diversion of the deteriorate opposite Arsenal. Tests after showed a pathogen upheld by the team. Tottenham lost the successive compare opposite West Ham United, permitting Arsenal to leapfrog them in to the last Champions League place. The road house was privileged of any wrongdoing.

Tottenham combined in a matter today: "A series of scholars and multiform initial group players have reported feeling indisposed and, as a precaution, are being kept afar from the precision belligerent for a duration of 48 hours in sequence to equivocate the risk of spread. As an one more precaution, the Club has undertaken a extensive low purify of the complete precision ground"s comforts whilst all executive and academy staff have been educated to work from home until Monday."

Protesters besiege new Pembroke energy hire over jobs for Britons

Simon de Bruxelles & , : {}

More than 200 protesters shut off opening to the site of a new appetite hire yesterday perfectionist that jobs go to British workers.

The �800 million appetite hire is being built at Pembroke by the French appetite association RWE and will occupy some-more than 2,000 people. However, campaigners explain that infancy of the jobs offering in the initial proviso have been since to workers from alternative EU countries.

The criticism was organized on the internet site Facebook by a organisation called Give the British Workers Jobs First.

Robert Jones, 36, a steel erector from Port Talbot, South Wales, said: I havent had a pursuit for twelve months. I feel I am losing out when internal jobs that Im competent for are on my doorstep but they are going to people from alternative countries.

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The companies contend they try to have use of British workers but I cant see any justification of that.

James Leonard, 33, additionally a former steel worker, said: I am anticipating to get work down here but it is not seeking good. Weve listened infancy of the jobs will be going to unfamiliar workers and I cant see that is right.

I have been out of work for eighteen months and I cant see it changing. I hold British workers should be since the initial crack at any jobs.

The protesters carrying banners shut off the opening highway to the appetite hire causing a mile-long tailback of some-more than 150 cars. Some drivers refused to cranky the unaccepted white picket line after articulate to protesters.

Owen Morris, 38, a executive at a circuitously oil repository who was one of the organisers of the protest, said: Im here to await the impoverished of this nation and Im really gratified with the turnout. We are here to show we wish a turn personification margin for satisfactory practice for internal workers.

We have 2 million impoverished in Britain and it seems essential to get your own people in work first.

Work began on the hulk gas turbine appetite hire 9 months ago. It now employs 370 people but that figure will climb to 2,000 by the rise of the three-year building a whole schedule.

The French owners Alstom denied that the infancy of jobs had been since to unfamiliar workers and pronounced infancy of the staff were British: of 373 non-management workers it pronounced that 97.5 per cent were UK residents.

It pronounced usually underneath half live inside of the county of Pembrokeshire.

Protest organisers explain the total are dubious since they are formed on postcodes not nationality.

Alstom said: We usually ever partisan people according to the specific skills that are needed, not according to nationality, as this would be discriminatory and bootleg for us to do so.

It would additionally be bootleg to select a British workman over one from the EU and vice-versa. EU and UK practice law allows British workers to work abroad in the European Union and for European workers to work in the UK.

Janette Leonard, 54, one of the criticism organisers, said: Im usually a parents mother who is endangered for British workers and the people of Wales.

Im not concerned with the unions or domestic parties. We wish to have the point that this is not extremist or xenophobic, we usually wish next to opportunities for internal workers. British people should be since the jobs first.