EU proposals would force multinationals to publicly disclose tax arrangements
US multinationals such as Google, Facebook and Amazon will be forced to publicly disclose their earnings and tax bills in Europe, under legislation being drafted by the EU executive. The move would put into practice global standards recently developed by the OECD, which allow for sharing of country-by-country tax reports between governments. But the European commission’s proposals would go a step further, by requiring that such filings be made public. The commission was heavily criticised last month when it proposed that corporations report only to national tax authorities in Europe without making the information public. The commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, is said to be in favour of public reporting. The competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has already found Starbucks in the Netherlands and Fiat in Luxembourg culpable of tax avoidance and ordered them to pay €30 million each in unpaid taxes. Similar investigations are ongoing into Apple in Ireland and Amazon in Luxembourg. (Guardian, International Business Times)
Strategy
Twitter deletes Isis accounts and expands anti-terror teams
Twitter has deleted more than 125,000 accounts linked to terrorists since mid-2015, the company has announced, offering some of the most detailed insight yet into how Silicon Valley is collaborating with western governments in its fight against Islamic State. Twitter and other tech companies have long policed their content for signs of Islamic extremism, but have previously provided few details of their policies and procedures. Speaking in Davos last month at the World Economic Forum, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg suggested Isis could be quelled by posting anti-Isis content on Facebook. In a closed-door meeting last month with US national security officials, she and other technology executives discussed the idea of trying to automatically flag Isis content. Meanwhile, Google executives have discussed the idea of forcing Isis operatives off the public internet. But Twitter pushed back against the idea that Silicon Valley can invent a formula to spot traffic automatically. “There is no ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the internet,” a spokesperson said. (Guardian)
Energy
California dominates solar, with more than 50 percent of all US capacity
The Golden State is quickly becoming America’s solar state, with a huge lead on the rest of the country due to favourable policy frameworks and innovative new energy companies. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, for both utility-scale solar photovoltaics and solar thermal, California has more capacity than the rest of the country combined, with 52 percent and 73 percent of the US total, respectively. While California has certain natural advantages over other states, including sunny cities and a large population base, the chief driver has been a strong policy framework that gives incentives to solar energy on a utility-scale and also, crucially, on rooftops. Legislation passed late last year mandates the state to get 50 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2030, one of the most ambitious targets in the country. (Triple Pundit)
Corporate Reputation
Credit Suisse CEO asks board to cut his bonus
Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Credit Suisse, has asked the company’s board to reduce his bonus, days after the Swiss bank reported a multibillion-dollar loss in the fourth quarter. Thiam, who joined the bank in July, did not indicate the size of the reduction in his bonus, but said his was the largest reduction within the management team. Credit Suisse is one of several European banks that have brought in new management and announced plans to reshape their businesses in the past year. The bank vowed to accelerate its plans to cut costs by billions of dollars by the end of 2018, saying it would eliminate 4,000 jobs out of about 48,000. (New York Times)
HSBC fined US $470 million for ‘abusive mortgage practices’ during 2008 crisis
HSBC has been fined US $470 million for “abusive mortgage practices” in relation to the 2007-2009 housing crisis in which millions of people lost their homes. The British bank on Friday agreed to pay the fine to settle US federal and state investigations into alleged abuses against homeowners struggling to keep up with mortgage payments during the 2008 global financial crisis. The settlement also requires HSBC to change some of its policies and take corrective actions, including giving homeowners the chance to appeal foreclosures. The bank must also install an independent monitor to oversee its compliance with the settlement. (Guardian)
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