The head of the German Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, says the European Central Bank will have to re-examine the Irish promissory note deal to make sure it doesn't breach its rules.
He said he was very concerned about monetary policy being too closely intertwined with fiscal policy and crossing the line to
monetary financing.
David Powell, Bloomberg BRIEF's senior economist said that Mr Weidmann is primarily worried about the fiscal nature of the transaction. Mr PAowell said Mr Weidmann has been the most vocally opposed ECB governing council member to many of the operations of the ECB over the past year.
Elsewhere, the European Commission has unveiled its blueprint for a Financial Transaction Tax which 11 member states including France and Germany but not the UK or Ireland are intending to implement from 2014.
It aims to bring in €35 billion in tax revenue a year and also intends to levy tax on transactions taking place in financial centres such as London and New York which are not part of the FTT zone.
Mr Powell said that history provides a clue as to how the tax will be implemented - that the financial world will find inventive ways around it. He said they will come up with creative avoidance schemes leaving it open to interpretation.
*** Investor Warren Buffett who, alongside Brazilian billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann, has just paid $28 billion to buy Heinz was first alerted to the potential of the food company by its former chief executive Tony O'Reilly.
Buffett told Dealbook.com that the Irish rugby star and businessman apparently would wax lyrical to Buffett about the company in conversations the two men had as far back as 1980 when O'Reilly was running Heinz.
Well the seeds planted then have seen Buffett and private equity firm 3G, backed by Lemann, pay what is considered quite a steep price for Heinz. The $28 billion is 19% above Heinz's all time record value on the stock market.
*** Independent News and Media, another company once run by Tony O'Reilly, is attempting to remove the chief executive of an Australian media operation in which it has a 29% stake.
In a statement to the stock exchange last night Independent News said it was seeking the removal of Brett Chenoweth both as a director and as chief executive of media group APN.
*** The euro trading at $1.338 and 86.2 pence sterling.
