Apple was the recipient of illegal tax breaks from Ireland. That was the finding today of a European Union (EU) Commission investigation into the tech giant’s business and tax practices. The result? The company has been ordered to pay €13 billion ($14.5 billion U.S.), plus interest, to settle back taxes owed to Ireland.
"Key provisions of the proposals which are not acceptable from the point of view of important public interests include: a prohibition of requirements to hold data locally; a prohibition of otherwise regulating cross-border data transfers; a prohibition of requiring a local presence for goods/service providers in the country; and a prohibition of requiring open source software in government procurement contracts. It is also proposed that there be no border taxes on digital products.
Furthermore, it is being proposed to effectively give the WTO jurisdiction to adjudicate whether a national technology or data regulation was “reasonable,” “objective,” “transparent,” and “not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service.” WTO’s adjudication processes have historically tended to favour commercial interests, and giving them a blanket supervision of technology/ data regulation may go against governments’ obligation to ensure that services are operated in the public interest and respect human rights and freedoms
In addition, discussions in WTO and in so-called free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations are neither transparent nor inclusive, thus resulting in decisions that do not take into account the interests of all concerned parties. The processes are overly influenced by big business interests."
NYT By JONATHAN ZITTRAINMAY 14, 2014 The Opinion Pages A right to be forgotten? "THE European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that Europeans have a limited “right to be forgotten” by search engines like Google. According to the ruling, an individual can compel Google to remove certain reputation-harming search results that are generated by Googling the individual’s name. The court is trying to address an important problem — namely, the Internet’s ability to preserve indefinitely all its information about you, no matter how unfortunate or misleading — but it has devised a poor solution."
Jeremy Brecher , Dec 2013 "Based on the Justinian Code’s protection of res communes, governments around the world have long served as trustees for rights held in common by the people...
by Tyler Durden on 07/28/2014 As Bloomberg reports, The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague found that Russia is liable to pay just under half of the $114 billion sought, GML Ltd., the holding company for Yukos’s main owners, said today. The decision showed the campaign against Yukos was “politically motivated,” GML head Tim Osborne said in London. And Russia replies...
By Fruzsina Eördögh 5.12.13 The trial thus focused on the legitimacy of digital protest, and the deals offered by prosecutors in San Jose may set a precedent for future cases against digital protesters.
Some 1,400 people have filed a joint lawsuit against three companies that manufactured the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, saying they should be financially liable for damage caused by its 2011 meltdowns.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 24/2013 (June 10, 2013) of DER SPIEGEL. Obama, der verlorene Freund "It's about rendering people and their behavior predictable. The NSA's research projects aim to forecast, on the basis of telephone data and Twitter and Facebook posts, when uprisings, social protests and other events will occur." "...Gus Hunt added, almost apologetically: "Technology in this world is moving faster than government or law can keep up."
by Martin Khor In the recent public debate surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), an issue that seems to stands out is the investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS).
Robert Fisk: "No one doubts that Senussi is a man who holds many secrets – nor that he had a reputation as one of Muammar Gaddafi’s fiercest and most loyal henchmen. He is wanted for crimes against humanity, and there is no doubt that the torture of Libyan exiles – after their rendition to Libya with the help of MI6 and other Western security agencies after Tony Blair’s “deal in the desert” with Gaddafi – fell under his remit. Senussi was, in effect, the receiving end of the renditions and of the information about Libyan exiles furnished by the West to Gaddafi." "An open trial at The Hague could reveal the full and scandalous relationship between Gaddafi’s thugs and British and American intelligence agencies."
Facebook announced this month that it plans to give its co-founder and controlling stockholder, Mark Zuckerberg, a $2.8 billion cash windfall. Amazingly, Zuckerberg’s bonanza will cost Facebook absolutely nothing. Well, actually, a lot less than nothing, since it will help save Facebook, Inc. a staggering $3 billion in federal and state corporate income taxes. These tax breaks are expected not only to wipe out all of Facebook’s federal and state income taxes for 2012, but also to generate a $0.5 billion tax refund of taxes the company paid in the past.
Friday, November 25, 2011 Tax evasion is worth $3.1 trillion a year - over 5% of its GDP The Tax Justice Network issues the following press release today: Huge Cost of Tax Evasion Revealed as Campaign to Tackle Tax Havens Launches New research published by the Tax Justice Network shows that tax evasion costs 145 countries, representing over 98% of world GDP, more than US$3.1 trillion annually.
In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Cl