The BBC did a report recently about how Russia is evading the sanctions intended to punish its invasion of Ukraine. Apparently, UK law allows that country to import refined petroleum products without regard to where the crude came from. This creates a neat loophole. India (whose foreign policy is at best ambivalent on the subject of the war in Ukraine) imports the crude, refines it, and sells it to the UK. The BBC credits the Centre for Reseach o Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for the key research here. CREA's Europe-Russia policy analyst, Isaac Levi, is quoted saying, "The issue with this loophole is that it increases the demand for Russian crude and enables higher sales in terms of volume and pushing up their price as well, which increases the funds sent to the Kremlin's war chest." Russian oil getting into UK via refinery loophole, reports claim (bbc.com)
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At this time of year I ask myself what were the biggest stories of the past twelve months in business/financial news. Here are the twelve stores that especially caught my attention and that in retrospect I recommend to yours. I'll make no effort to rank their importance against one another, so I will order them simply by month. January: Brick and mortar retail. A bankruptcy court judge offered Lambert, the man behind the chief institutional owner of Sears, another chance at avoiding the liquidation of that august institution. (Update -- Lambert would get that chance, but wouldn't make it stick. By end of year liquidation was well advanced.) February : Space exploration for profit. The Dutch organization, Mars One, entered bankruptcy. Why do I elevate that fact to the unutterable prestige suggested by putting it on this list? Because it suggests the narrowness of the line that now separates reasonable business plans from fantasy/fraud. Mars One had planned to cr...
The Justices are back at work. There are a number of fascinating items in the pipeline. I'll mention in this entry just two that the Court has recently decided to hear: Bank Markazi v. Peterson, and FERC v. Electric Power Supply Ass'n . Bank Markazi involves sanctions against Iran, and a blatant Congressional effort to interfere with ongoing litigation in the courts. The FERC case asks whether the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. § 791a et seq ., gives that agency the authority to regulate the way that operators of wholesale-electricity markets match supply and demand in real time and through day-ahead markets. The above link will take you to the Solicitor General's petition for cert in the FERC case. In the sanctions matter it was the Iranian central bank that had to petition for cert. You'll find that petition here.