IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 5 May
05-05-2009
by Sylvia Leatham
Obama proposes overseas tax changes | Apple, Google under antitrust microscope
The Irish Times reports that President Barack Obama has proposed wide changes to tax rules for US firms operating in Ireland but stopped short of calling for a complete repeal of overseas tax benefits. Under the new rules, which must be approved by Congress and will not come into effect until 2011, US multinationals would still be able to defer paying US tax on profits earned in Ireland but would no longer be able to claim tax deductions in the US for expenses related to their Irish operations. The IDA has deployed a senior executive to the Irish Embassy in Washington to monitor and engage with the issue.
The Irish Examiner says that vital maritime data is being transmitted from Norway to Ireland by a high-speed broadband link, via fibre optic cables laid by Cork County Council. The National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI) at Ringaskiddy has become the first customer to hook up to the local authority's recently completed broadband project. The project, which took three years to complete and cost EUR20 million, saw the county council lay heavy-duty fibre optic cable underground to service industry in 14 towns.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Federal Trade Commission is examining whether the overlap of directors on the boards of Apple and Google violates antitrust laws, according to sources. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levinson, former chief executive of Genentech, sit on the boards of both companies. Antitrust regulations allow the government to intervene if directors sit on the boards of two competing companies and if their presence could reduce competition. Spokesmen for Google and Apple declined to comment.
The same paper says that a US court has granted EMC's request for a preliminary injunction barring executive David Donatelli from taking a big job at Hewlett-Packard. Donatelli had been president of EMC's storage business, its core unit and the source of most of its revenue. He surprised EMC and most outside analysts last week when he resigned to take a job at storage rival HP. Judge Stephen E. Neel has issued an order saying Donatelli is "restrained and enjoined from commencing employment at Hewlett-Packard."
According to the Financial Times, struggling US mobile operator Sprint Nextel has posted pared back operating losses and posted an unexpected per-share profit excluding certain items. Thanks to strong customer gains in its Boost Mobile pre-paid unit, coupled with cost-cutting that included substantial job cuts, Sprint recorded an operating loss of USD487 million, compared with USD1.73 billion a year earlier when the company reported a USD963 million goodwill impairment charge. Sprint posted a net loss of USD594 million, or USD0.21 per share, up from a loss of USD505 million, or USD0.18 per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Excluding unusual items, however, Sprint’s profit per share was USD0.03.
The paper also says that French telecoms equipment firm Alcatel-Lucent has reported a bigger-than-expected first-quarter adjusted operating loss. The loss before interest and tax came in at EUR254 million, compared with an adjusted operating profit of EUR36 million in the year-ago quarter and an average forecast from analysts polled by Reuters of a EUR131 million loss. Revenue declined 6.9 percent to EUR3.6 billion in the first three months of the year. Analysts had expected sales of EUR3.57 billion.
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