Are Municipality has been ordered by the European Commission to reclaim the unlawful state aid which the municipality paid to Konsum in Jämtland? The Commission’s decision underlines the importance of governmental authorities, municipalities and county councils monitoring the provisions on state aid in business transactions involving private players ...
In late November 2007, the Supreme Court rendered a judgment on the law of sale in Quebec in the case of ABB Inc. v. Domtar Inc.(1) in which it pointed out important differences between Quebec law and the law of the other Canadian provinces regarding limitation of liability clauses ...
The last years have revealed significant divergences between the Romanian Competition Council and the High Court of Cassation and Justice regarding certain merger notification aspects. A recent High Court of Cassation and Justice decision seems however to indicate a potential reconciliation of the positions of the two authorities.The Competition Law no ...
The government's current plans to increase the UK's wind energy industry are "too late and too weak", the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has argued. Under recent proposals put forward by the European Commission, the UK must obtain 40 per cent of all electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, within the next 12 years ...
Investors in Scottish commercial property have been warned that the sector may see a zero per cent rate of growth in 2008 as supply continues to outstrip demand.In comparison to the situation just 12 months ago, where there were ten buyers for every commercial property put on the market, now ten sellers exist for every purchaser, new research from industry consultants Drivers Jonas has revealed ...
Three separate bids are expected to be submitted to rescue Northern Rock ahead of today's government-imposed deadline.Following a series of government interventions, the chancellor is keen on a private sector rescue for the bank, which has already received £25 billion worth of loans from the Bank of England ...
DALLAS – The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed and vacated the convictions of two indigent Mexican nationals who have spent the last 12 years in prison on life sentences for the Aug. 6, 1996 killing of a convenience store clerk in the Texas Panhandle ...
NIGERIA’S MINING ACTS - A Case Study for Mining Reform
What It Means: After 339 days of hearings over five years, and at a cost of almost $30 million, a court in British Columbia has expressed its opinion that the Tsilhqot'in Nation has aboriginal title to approximately 2,000 square kilometres of land, but stopped short of making that opinion legally binding by granting a declaration of aboriginal title ...
On 19 September, the Commission announced its third legislative package aimed at liberalising the EU’s electricity and gas markets ...
The Alberta Court of Appeal recently granted Atco Gas and Pipelines Ltd.’s (ATCO) application for leave to appeal AEUB Decisions 2005-63 and 2007-005 and Interim Order U2005-133. In those decisions the AEUB required ATCO to maintain certain natural gas reservoir storage assets (the “Carbon Facilities”) in rate base ...
In his September address to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the Premier announced that the Western Climate Initiative is working collaboratively to develop a cap and trade system by next August. British Columbia will also require hard caps on GHG emissions from all heavy emitters in B.C. All ministries and Crown agencies will be legally required to be carbon neutral by 2010 – “no ifs, ands or buts” ...
Prior to 1987, natural gas was supplied to end use customers in British Columbia by monopoly service providers only on a bundled basis. In 1987, Inland Natural Gas Ltd., a predecessor company to Terasen Gas Inc. (“TGI”), pioneered open access in this province by applying to establish transportation service rates for its industrial and large commercial customers. Open access was made available to those customers commencing in 1987 ...
On October 25, 2007 the Alberta Government announced a new royalty regime that will see a 20% increase in royalties for the development of the province’s non-renewable energy resources. Starting in 2009, oil and gas companies are expected to be paying roughly $1.4 billion more a year in royalties ...
On March 15, 2007 BC Hydro filed its first general rate design application in 16 years (after a lengthy government imposed rate freeze that ended in 2003, an enquiry into the allocation of the benefits of BC Hydro’s low-cost Heritage Resources, two revenue requirements proceedings and its first comprehensive longterm resource planning review in this year) ...
On September 30, 2007, on its own motion and without notice, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB) issued a decision voiding its approvals of both the Alberta Electric System Operator’s (AESO) need assessment and general routing selection and AltaLink Management Ltd.’s (AltaLink) subsequent facilities application related to the proposed 500kV transmission reinforcement between Edmonton and Calgary ...
In September, 2007 the AESO removed the 900MW threshold on wind power generation. In response to concerns about the Alberta system’s ability to absorb significant volumes of intermittent resources, in 2006 the AESO had capped wind facility interconnection to the Alberta system at 900MW until such time as appropriate mitigation measures were established to ensure wind power did not jeopardize system reliability ...
In this long running case, the Court of Appeal has granted Dwr Cymru (on 26 July) leave to appeal the Competition Appeal Tribunal's (the CAT) finding that Dwr Cymru had abused its dominant position by setting an access charge that resulted in a margin squeeze on Albion Water (Albion). The Court of Appeal is due to hear the case later this year ...
DEALING WITH MINING LEGACY – SOME CANADIAN APPROACHES(1)1. INTRODUCTIONIn this paper we discuss approaches that have been used in Canada to identify and foster private sector, public and aboriginal participation in dealing with mining environmental liabilities and orphan sites(2) ...
The Current Mineral Licensing Regime in Nigeria
The European Commission has published its report outlining its proposed changes to the European energy market.In order to open the continent's gas and electricity markets up to greater competition, the Commission has proposed the separation of energy suppliers and producers, a move which would see the break up of firms such as E.ON and Electricite de France ...
The global biofuels industry needs to be better regulated to ensure it does not harm the environment, the UK's climate change minister has stated.Speaking at a recent conference organised by Britain's Renewable Eneregy Association, Phil Woolas MP cited several studies which have shown that biofuel production has led to deforestation and increased house prices in some areas of the world, most notably across Asia ...
Ofgem announced last week that it is delaying its decision on proposals relating to transmission losses. The gas and electricity market regulator's previous statement that it favours one of several proposals before it on this subject has caused considerable consternation among commentators in Scotland ...
At long last, the Government's proposals in relation to the development of a Single Equality Bill have been released for consultation. The proposals stem from the work of the Discrimination Law Review that was established in February 2005 to consider the existing framework of discrimination legislation and to develop proposals aimed at harmonising and simplifying the current law ...
When August turns to September, 2007, a new market called NewConnect will open on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). It will support the trading of shares of small and medium-sized companies. The expectation is that issuers entering this new market will not be large companies (of market capitalization around PLN 20–30 million and with a public offer value from PLN several hundred thousand to several million) ...
