Comment
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First milestone in notarial reform
Notaries are witnessing the first in a series of milestones, aimed at reforming and strengthening the profession, taking shape with the overhaul of the Notarial Profession and Notarial Archives Act. The amendments enacted through Act 24 of 2011 are...
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Learning from the mistakes of others
The German word schadenfreude is roughly translated as ‘pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others’ – an all-too-common human attitude that often leads to complacency. In the last few years, some political leaders in different EU states...
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Air Malta flying high, but...
The directors and management of Air Malta discreetly made a big do of the fact that the ailing company achieved an operating profit of €0.4 million in its latest reporting period. That is quite understandable. Long periods of winter gloom and...
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Regulation of online gambling
The regulation of online gambling requires streamlining, the European Commission has decided. In a recently published communication, it has set out an action plan on how to achieve some much-needed harmonisation in the regulation of this sector...
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Labour market participation of women in small EU states
One of the goals of the Europe 2020 Employment Strategy is to increase the overall employment rates across member states to compensate for the predicted decline in Europe’s workforce due to demographic changes. It is widely recognised that...
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Auto-analytics could change your life
I recently came across a blog entitled “The personal analytics of my life” by Stephen Wolfram and found it fascinating. Wolfram is a scientist-come-businessman who started an experiment in 1989 – what he calls a “self-awareness” experiment – by...
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Centre of excellence for maritime services
The Maltese economy’s Achilles heel is undoubtedly its dependence on a few economic activities that constitute a potentially serious concentration risk. Even as we steered away from low-tech manufacturing to embrace service industries, like finance...
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Trusts in German-Maltese property succession cases
Trusts are an often used vehicle in estate planning. This holds true namely in cross-border situations. By setting up a trust, the settlor can minimise potential conflicts among heirs and safeguard the integrity of the patrimony for the family. At...
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Consumers and blacklisted practices
Scratch cards are small cards containing concealed information in one or more areas, generally at the back, that can be revealed by scratching off an opaque covering to reveal the winning prize. These cards are popular not only because of their low...
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Money-market resistance
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission recently rejected proposed rules aimed at making money-market funds safer in a financial crisis – a rejection that has caused consternation among observers and other regulators. Given the risks...
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Improving international tax cooperation, action
A state’s ability to enforce its laws beyond its territory is, in its essence, a question of public international law. It is commonly accepted that jurisdiction to tax is a manifestation of sovereignty. There cannot be an extension further than...
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The labour market needs to be energised
The dynamics of the Maltese labour market are often baffling. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the eurozone. Yet our employment rate is one of the lowest in the EU. An A level economics student knows that unless our employment rate...
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Facets of HSBC- BoV equity premium puzzle
Any investor who invests in shares is always trying to answer this question: When do I know that the share price of a given company is right? A consumer’s trading will depend on the answer. A consumer will buy if he or she thinks that the company...
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Compensation for denied boarding
Two recent judgements delivered by the Court of Justice of the Europ-ean Union have shed new light as to when air passengers are entitled to financial compensation in cases when they are denied boarding on a pre-booked flight. EU law grants a...
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Entitlement, wages and sovereignty
Employees today feel they are entitled to work-life balance. Only hard work creates wealth, jobs and growth in any business or country. Now that people have learnt about this work-life balance idea they feel the need to have it, especially as...
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The non-executive director
The Companies Act 1995 provides that the term director “includes any person occupying the position of director of a company by whatever name a director may be called carrying out substantially the same functions in relation to the direction of the...
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The debt mountain and how to climb it
It is a question of time before the EU starts to tighten the screws on those countries that have significant excesses in their annual fiscal deficit and their debt to GDP ratios. When the Fiscal Pact, agreed to by all EU countries, except the UK and...
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Caution as we cheer tourism
In the flush of a rain of details about the ongoing success of the tourism industry this year, the Tourism Minister, Mario de Marco, felt he had to bring in a warning. It was important not to be complacent, he cautioned. This (success) doesn’t mean...
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Wine labelling and claims
The Court of Justice of the European Union has taken issue with a label placed on some of the wines marketed by German wine-growers’ cooperative Deutsches Weintor. The labels on the necks of the bottles bore the description “mild edition”,...
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Family businesses and the economy
The economic output and employment generated by the family business sector is substantial. Not only do family enterprises provide a launchpad for start-ups, but many family businesses have developed into successful multi-generational organisations,...
