One small step for Shanghai ......

........  Will it be one big leap for China ? This is the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, which is opening in Shanghai this weekend. Already it is being compared to the launch of the famous Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in the eighties that heralded the economic revolution in China. Is it economic...

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This is why business leaders are reviled

If you behave like this, you deserve to be cursed, reviled, and generally hated. Unfortunately many business leaders are exactly like this, which is why a business tycoon is considered by society as a figure to be loathed. The "this" I refer to is Stephen Elop, Chairman of Nokia being entitled to a $25m payout for the the sale of Nokia's handset business to Microsoft. Nokia, as everybody knows,...

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Who has jurisdiction over me ?

The principle of jurisdiction is a basic tenet in law. Jurisdiction refers to the  law, the court, the authority that is applicable to you . You are then required to follow that law and be subject to  oversight by that authority and that court. In the good old days, jurisdiction was simple - where you were decided who had jurisdiction over you.  I live in India and so the laws of India...

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When you pay to sell a business

Mergers & Acquisitions are often the glamorous side of business. CEOs love  them - you go through the excitement of doing a deal, get on to the papers and TV, become famous etc etc. Most of the haggling on the deal is on the price - how much the buyer is willing to pay the seller. But...

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From Draught to Craft

This blogger is not a beer drinker.. He is therefore completely ignorant of the niceties of beer and therefore eminently qualified to comment on developments in the beer industry. In many countries in the world, people, especially men, gulp down enormous quantities of beer. Most of it is mass...

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The pressures of being a business leader

On hindsight, the surprise is that it hasn't happened more often. Last week Pierre Wauthier, the Chief Financial Officer of Zurich Insurance, tragically committed suicide. This starkly illustrates the unbelievable pressures top business executives function under. Zurich Insurance is one of the top insurance companies in the world. Recently, it has been going through a bad patch, although by no...

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