In March 2010, The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) submitted a complaint to the European Commission alleging that the UK gives unlawful state aid to GEFCO, a special purpose vehicle used by the UK's export credit agency, the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), to refinance its loss-making interest-rate support scheme provided to UK exporters. After much correspondence, it emerged in March 2011 that the complaint should have been directed at the companies receiving the support rather than at GEFCO itself and should have cited a different clause in the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The groups will submit a new complaint on this basis.

This Memorandum raises questions about the due diligence conducted by CDC, a company owned by the UK Government, in its dealings with two private equity firms that have invested in Nigerian companies. These companies are reported to be “fronts” for the alleged laundering of money said to have been obtained corruptly by the former Governor of Nigeria’s oil rich Delta State.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is going to Court on Tuesday 23 November (at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court in London) to seek approval of its plea bargain settlement made with BAE Systems in February this year over the company’s sale of a military radar system to Tanzania in 1999. (At this preliminary hearing, a date will be set for a final hearing in 2011.)

An article published in Mexican newspaper La Jornada on the eve of the UN climate summit in Cancun (English and Spanish).

Hoy, México, como muchos países del sur, tiene un nuevo producto de exportación: los derechos de contaminación. Este mercado es uno de los legados del neoliberalismo y del hábito de los países del norte de descargar sus problemas sobre el sur global.