The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.

Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse. If the country’s condition is calibrated simply by economic data — if, that is, America is nothing but an economy — then the ...

The European Central Bank (ECB) needs to wake up. Of all major central banks, it’s the one that really should be reacting to an evident economic slowdown in its backyard. There’s a danger this might turn into a recession, Europe’s third in a decade. But being proactive is not in its nature. Its Achilles’ heel is running monetary policy via ...

Vivendi SA’s plans for Telecom Italia SpA haven’t quite been dealt a sucker punch by Italian regulators. But they – and billionaire Vincent Bollore, who controls the firm – certainly received a blow. The focus should now shift to the carrier’s underlying business, and it needs to do so soon. The communications regulator said the plan, proposed by then-CEO Amos ...

This week, France’s data-protection regulator demanded that Google pay a record fine for violating Europe’s expansive new privacy rules. The tab? About $57 million. The purpose? Hmm. In its ruling, the regulator alleged that Google fails to adequately explain how it collects data to offer personalised advertising. Some information is “excessively disseminated” across different documents. Some requires more than one ...

At the moment, despite strong competition from the US, Britain leads the industrialised world in political breakdown. Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for Brexit has been crushingly rejected by the House of Commons yet the government plods on robotically. As May explained: One, she has heard what Parliament just said and respects it; two, her deal with Europe is the ...

Watch out, electric-car battery makers — Toyota Motor Corp. has arrived. Asia’s biggest automaker is setting up a joint venture with Panasonic Corp. to produce batteries for partners such as its Daihatsu unit, Mazda Motor Corp. and Subaru Corp. that together account for more than 20 percent of global car production. Toyota will own 51 percent of the venture, to ...

Errant debtors are forever looking for ways to undermine creditor protection; but when lenders themselves start making a mockery of a fledgling insolvency law, nobody can save it. That’s where India’s two-year-old bankruptcy regime is today, brought to the brink of irrelevance by the strain of resolving its most high-profile case: Essar Steel India Ltd. The billionaire Ruia brothers have ...

Bloomberg The Federal Reserve is examining how Deutsche Bank AG handled billions of dollars in suspicious transactions from Denmark’s leading lender, according to people familiar with the matter, further intensifying what could be one of the biggest money-laundering scandals ever. The Fed’s probe is in an early stage as it scrutinises whether Deutsche Bank’s US operations adequately monitored funds from ...

Bloomberg Norway’s central bank is seen sticking to the script this week to slowly lift interest rates as it assesses the first tightening in more than seven years. Policy makers in Oslo will leave the benchmark rate at 0.75 percent when they announce their decision on Thursday, according to all economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The meeting is in between monetary ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan left monetary policy unchanged as it cut its inflation outlook once again, underscoring how far away its price target is and how few options the central bank has for drawing closer. The BOJ maintained its yield curve-control program and asset purchases, it said in a statement on Wednesday, a result predicted by all but one ...