High standards of governance will be essential to convince local investors to participate in the regional financial centres that are springing up around the world. And London looks set to benefit from business with those centres as they adopt EU-style regulations, writes Brandon Davies.
Smoking in enclosed public spaces, including offices, is about to be made a criminal offence in England. The move is welcomed in many quarters, but employers whose employees break the law will be liable to pay much heftier fines than the errant employees themselves, writes Michael Imeson.
Despite a meteoric rise to global powerhouse, the RBS board has managed to transform itself from darling to demon in the eyes of its shareholders. Geraldine Lambe charts the bank’s fall from grace.When is an excellent management team not an excellent management team? When your shareholders don’t believe it. Such is the case with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shareholders, and their jaundiced view was amply displayed when chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin was asked if he was a megalomaniac at August’s half-year results conference. Where once they lauded Sir Fred as emperor in all his finery, now shareholders behave as if he has no clothes.