LAURA SLATTERYperuses the week in business
12
– percentage plunge in global trade in 2009, the biggest drop since 1945, according to new worse-than-expected figures from the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
17
– percentage jump in Wall Street bonuses in 2009, according to new data, despite President Barack Obama's description of multibillion dollar bonuses as "shameful"
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
'Tell that cat to chill.'
– what pop singer Prince said when told of the anxieties of music promoter Denis Desmond about whether the artist’s 2008 Croke Park concert would go ahead, the Commercial Court heard this week
QUOTE OF THE WEEK 2
'For me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well.'
– Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, says he takes personal responsibility for the carmaker’s safety issues
GOOD WEEK
Disney
The Disney Empire has largely crushed nascent opposition from a group of cinema chains in a spat about the timing of DVD releases. Odeon/UCI, Cineworld and Vue have now agreed to show Disney’s new Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland in cinemas, having originally threatened to boycott the film because Disney wanted a shorter DVD release window – 12 weeks instead of the standard 17. The cinema chains want the existing windows to remain in place to deter “I’ll-wait-for-it-on-DVD” indifference; the studios want to reduce the window to beat piracy and to cash in more effectively from home entertainment.
BAD WEEK
Football clubs
After 25 years, Cork City football club was wound up by the High Court this week as it failed to pay a debt of more than €160,000 to the Revenue Commissioners by Tuesday’s deadline, while the club’s failure to be awarded a Premier Division licence leaves supporters’ group Foras with a first division club to run. Meanwhile, the financial bubble in English football seems set to burst, with Premiership club Portsmouth on the verge of administration and a new report from governing body UEFA indicating Premiership football clubs in England owe more money than all the other top clubs in Europe put together.
Goldman Sachs
The investment bank was forced to defend the controversial debt-swap deal it did with Greece in 2001 that helped the deficit-crippled country to mask the extent of its public deficit and national debt. Gerald Corrigan, chairman of Goldman Sachs Bank USA, said the “family of currency swaps” entered into by Greece and Goldman Sachs was “consistent” with the regulations of the time, but “with hindsight” it should have been more transparent. The deal is now being investigated by the EU after it was uncovered by the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
