(Both Ends, Amsterdam, 24 December 2014)
by: Wiert Wiertsema, Both ENDS
The Brazilian oil company Petrobras is currently involved in a corruption scandal that affects all companies it has been working with. The Dutch enterprise SBM Offshore paid bribes to Petrobras, and recently settled this matter with the Dutch Public Prosecution for US$240 million. But SBM Offshore is still under further investigation in Brazil and, for now, cannot do business there. In addition, the US Justice Department has started to fully investigate all Dutch companies that have done business with Petrobras. Companies such as Boskalis, Van Oord, IHC Merwede and Fugro – showpieces of the internationally renowned Dutch water and shipbuilding sectors – are at risk of getting large penalties or being excluded from new procurements abroad.
(Creditman, London, 19 December 2014) UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK’s export credit agency, has appointed David Ludlow as its new Head of international business development… Of his new challenge, Ludlow said: “I have seen how export credit agencies can play a key role in effectively opening up new markets for exporters. I’m looking forward to ensuring that more companies are aware of the financial support available from UKEF to exporters, and helping those businesses make a major contribution in the global marketplace.”
(PRNewswire-USNewswire, Washington, 11 December 2014) The Export-Import Bank of the United States will guarantee a $50 million loan to finance the export of 55 American made bridge sets to Cameroon and support 200 U.S. jobs. The loan, extended by Société Générale to Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Works, facilitates the export of modular steel bridges manufactured by the Acrow Corporation of America, a small business based in Parsippany, N.J.
(Bloomberg, Moscow, 23 December 2014) Total SA (FP) and its partners will use a record 16 ice-breaking tankers to smash through floes en route to and from the Arctic’s biggest liquefied natural-gas development. They’re still looking for a way around a freeze in U.S. financing… The U.S. Export-Import Bank this year halted a study into funding the plans to ship gas from Yamal, or End of Earth in the native Nenets tongue, to buyers around the world as President Barack Obama’s administration imposed sanctions on Russia. The action by the bank, which offers credit assistance to companies buying the nation’s goods and services, effectively blocked the project from borrowing in the U.S. currency… European governments, reliant on gas from Russia, have had to tread a fine line in their relations with the country since its annexation of Ukrainian Crimea led to sanctions. The U.S. and Europe have mostly targeted the Russian oil industry and individuals with ties to President Vladimir Putin rather than impose measures that could strangle the nation’s gas exports… One option for Paris-based Total is to look for help from home. Coface SA (COFA) is France’s answer to the U.S. Exim bank.
(Business Wire, Stockholm, 5 December 2014) The Swedish Export Credit Corporation’s (SEK) wholly owned subsidiary AB SEK Securities has been merged (by absorption of a wholly owned subsidiary) into SEK. The merger results in SEK taking on the assets and debts of AB SEK Securities. AB SEK Securities has been licensed by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority since 2002 to conduct securities trading. Its operations are being transferred to the parent company now that SEK is licensed to conduct this type of business.
(The Economist, Castel del Piano, 2 January 2015) The smaller, often family-owned manufacturers that are the backbone of the Italian economy have been hit especially hard: between 2008 and the first half of 2014, a fifth of them went bankrupt or into administration, or were voluntarily wound up. One of the main reasons so many have gone to the wall is that they are too focused on the home market. Italian businesses of all sizes are much less likely to have export customers than German or Spanish ones, according to a recent study by SACE, Italy’s official export-credit agency. Italian cuisine is popular all over the world, but Italy’s countless small food producers get only a morsel of this huge global market: exports account for a smaller share of the Italian food industry’s output than in either France or Germany… Businesses are looking abroad for customers, and for saviours. Italy does not have a globalised food retailer on the same scale as other European countries and its domestic market is fragmented: even those chains with national coverage often stock different products in different regions, chosen by different local purchasing managers… Deep discounters like Aldi and Lidl, which offer only a restricted range of products, most of them under their own labels, have been taking market share from conventional grocers which sell a broader range, including many products bearing their manufacturers’ brands… Over four-fifths of Italian food manufacturers are family-run and with annual revenues of less than €10m. With their home market still struggling, a rich foreign backer may be just what they need.
(24/7 Wall Street, London, 9 December 2014) Boeing on Tuesday morning released its 2015 aircraft finance market outlook. The headline number is $124 billion and the forecast amount for 1300 new commercial deliveries in 2015, up from $115 billion in 2014. The company’s Boeing Capital Corporation also forecasts deliveries totaling $156 billion in 2019. How all these airplanes will be paid for is the subject of Tuesday’s release. Boeing expects bank debt and capital markets to fund about 60% of all 2015 deliveries, with cash accounting for another 23% of funding and export credit to cover another 15%… An issue for the U.S. plane maker is that the U.S. Export-Impact Bank has ceased new dealings with Russia, Mr. Myer said. European export credit agencies are still open to backing Airbus Group NV deliveries to Russia… Another concern for the Chicago-based plane maker is continued uncertainty over the fate of ExIm in the U.S.
Three organizations want to enforce access to information regarding documents on export credit guarantees – Human rights assessments not disclosed
BERLIN, 9 December 2013 – Human rights organizations, Amnesty International Germany, urgewaldand and CounterCurrent have filed a suit against the federal government for the first time.The government had rejected a freedom of information request from the organizations to disclose information on human rights protection in the allocation of export credit guarantees. “The relevant Economics Ministry claims that it takes sufficiently into account the human rights situation on the ground when allocating guarantees. At the same time they refuse to publish the relevant information. “That doesn’t create confidence”, says Verena Haan, responsible for business and human rights with Amnesty Germany.
Through the lawsuit at the Administrative Court of Berlin, the three organizations seek to understand how the Federal Government assesses the human rights impacts of the projects they support. In July 2012, they had requested access to the due diligence reports for a number of projects. They asked, for example, about mining and dam projects and power plants in countries such as Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as for projects in Belarus. “In these countries and sectors human rights violations are likely or even regular. Forced resettlement and environmental destruction take place, labour rights or freedom of expression are ignored. We therefore want to know exactly how the companies and the federal government fulfil their human rights duty of care. However, the federal government treats this information like a state secret” criticizes Regine Richter of urgewald.
The basis of the lawsuit are the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Act, which are supposed to grant free and unfettered access to information held by administrations. In its rejection of the application the Ministry of Economy cited as reasons the protection of intra-governmental consultations, confidentially collected information, international relations and business confidentiality. “We have made clear that our request is limited to the environmental and social part of the due diligence reports and that we are not interested in further sensitive data. The fact that our request is completely rejected, is unacceptable and contradicts the law. Therefore we are now going to court” explained Heike Drillisch of CounterCurrent.
In 2012 the federal government supported exports and investments of German companies to developing and emerging countries through guarantees worth nearly 30 billion Euro. The Ministry of Economics decides upon guarantees together with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation and the Foreign Office. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights of 2011 stress export promotion as an area in which highest human rights duty of care should prevail.
(Reuters, 10 December 2013, Seattle) – More commercial jet buyers will tap rapidly-expanding capital markets to finance $112 billion of jet sales in 2014 as state-backed export credits become pricier and more politically sensitive, Boeing Co (BA.N) said on Tuesday. Money from government-backed export credit agencies (ECA), once used to pay for the bulk of jet deals, will make up 18 percent of plane financing next year, down from 23 percent in 2013, the U.S. aircraft maker said in an annual forecast.
