Money & Finance

Vattenfall vs. Germany: A Disgraceful Settlement of a Scandalous Claim

16 March 2021 | On March 5, 2021, it was announced that the Germany had reached an agreement with the Swedish state company Vattenfall to settle a claim valued at up to €7 billion, over the phase-out of nuclear energy in the wake of Fukushima. The government pay Vattenfall €1.4 billion, much too much, argues Juan Carlos Boué in this guest comment.

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Juan Carlos Boué: The World Bank Sausage Factory

13 December 2020 | Investor State Dispute Settlement, those special tribunals which foreign investors can use to sue a host government for alleged infringement on their rights, have drawn criticism for being one sided. Investors can sue governments, but not vice versa. Arbitration counsel Juan Carlos Boue describes a case, which drives this to the extreme. An investor drags a government in front of a tribunal because the government is suing the investor at regular courts. 

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All the good things a digital euro could do – and all the bad things it will

10. 11. 2020 | Few other documents have been sent to me as often as the recent deliberations of the European Central Bank (ECB) on a digital euro. There is obviously a great deal of suspicion with regard to plans of a digital euro. The following analysis will try to answer the question if this suspicion is justified.

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Book Review: An ECB manager on the long and successful history of monetary financing

May 21, 2020 | In his path-breaking history of central banking in Europe, a high-ranking manager of the European Central Bank shows central banking to be much older than the Anglo-Saxon historiography would admit, and that central banks have historically quite often served the purpose of financing public expenditure.

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Wall Street comes to Cambodia’s microcredit sector

By Milford Bateman. One microcredit institution in Cambodia has in recent years been highlighted not just as a best practice example of the microcredit model in action, but as a leading example of ‘inclusive capitalism’ composed of ‘social enterprises’ that aim to do good in the community. Now AMK had been acquired for a cool $US150 million by the Taiwan-based Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, one of Asia’s most aggressive financial institutions.What is making the former owners of AMK wealthy, is very bad news for its already suffering creditors.

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