The British government said that the post-Brexit trade rules it negotiated with the European Union “cannot go on” and need a major rewrite, straining already-tense U.K./E.U. relations and drawing a message of concern from the U.S. government, the Associated Press reported. The government said Britain would be justified in unilaterally suspending the legally binding Brexit agreement but had decided not to do so just yet. Since the U.K. left the EU’s economic embrace at the end of 2020, relations have soured over trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K.
Ireland
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A stand-off between drugmaker Mallinckrodt, the Dublin-based but U.S.-run drugmaker, and a small group of dissident shareholders, claiming their rights are being suppressed as the company goes through a restructuring in bankruptcy, is on track to be aired before the High Court in Dublin later this year, The Irish Times reported.
Growth in the Irish economy last year has been revised upwards, making it one of the strongest performers globally, despite the pandemic and the restrictions imposed on domestic activity, the Irish Times reported. The economy grew by 5.9 per cent in gross domestic product (GDP) terms last year, according to updated figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The CSO said headline GDP has been revised upwards from a preliminary figure of 3.4 per cent due to the availability of more comprehensive data.
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On the crowded waterside quay of Dublin’s Silicon Docks neighborhood, Google’s European headquarters tower above the skyline. Facebook and Twitter are neighbors. The European bases of Apple, Pfizer and hundreds of U.S. multinationals are implanted around the country, symbols of the commerce produced by Ireland’s famously low corporate taxes.
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A former millionaire property developer facing fraud charges in Ireland is seeking to challenge the appointment of a forensic accountant as his bankruptcy trustee, the Independent reported. Philip Marley alleges that the appointment, made at the behest of a creditor, was “rogue” and “invalid”. He made the claims in the High Court before Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, the judge who approved the appointment of accountant Mícheál Leydon last March.
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A co-founder of the collapsed Bula mine in County Meath has lost a Supreme Court appeal aimed at permitting him to challenge a decision adjudicating him bankrupt over non-payment of a €4.8 million legal costs debt, the Irish Times reported. The High Court granted a petition in March 2018 adjudicating Michael Wymes and another co-founder of Bula, Richard Wood, bankrupt. The two, with Tom Roche senior, established Bula in 1971 to buy a zinc and lead mine near Navan, but it collapsed with substantial debts some years later.
Gap will close all its 81 stores in Britain and Ireland by the end of September as it increases its focus on online shopping, The New York Times reported. The retailer also plans to shed its 32 locations in France and Italy. “The e-commerce business continues to grow and we want to meet our customers where they are shopping,” Gap said in a statement. The company is in negotiations with Hermione People and Brands, the retail branch of FIB Group, to take over Gap stores in France, while a buyer for the Italy locations is still not certain.
Aer Lingus needs a few hundred million euros in extra liquidity due to COVID-19 disruptions and does not expect the easing of Irish travel curbs next month to provide a significant near term bounce, its new chief executive said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The Irish airline, which recently announced company-wide layoffs and the closure of one of its main domestic cabin crew bases, is losing more than 1 million euros ($1.19 million) a day, Lynne Embleton told an Irish parliamentary committee.
The Restaurants Association of Ireland and some individual members of the group have applied to the High Court seeking leave to challenge distinctions made between indoor dining in non-hotel commercial restaurants and indoor dining within hotels, the Irish Times reported. The challenge relates to recent regulations signed by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and claims the distinction drawn should be quashed on the basis of “irrationality, lack of proportionality and unjustifiable interference” with restaurateurs’ property and economic rights.
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Representatives of the whiskey and dairy industries have called on the Government to pressure the European Union to recognise Irish products that contain some level of input from Northern Ireland as having EU origin status, the Irish Times reported. When the Brexit transition period ended at the start of the year and the UK officially left the EU, a range of goods deemed to be produced in the Republic lost their EU originating status and – as a result - their access to lower or zero preferential trade tariffs with some markets.
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