BANKING INQUIRY SEEKS CENTRAL BANK RECORDS FROM 1990s - The Oireachtas banking inquiry has sought board minutes and other internal records stretching back more a decade from the Central Bank.
The inquiry’s request comes as newly released Bank of England minutes from 2008 show that Ireland’s bank guarantee was blamed in London for bringing global interbank lending to a standstill after the Lehman bankruptcy, writes the Irish Times. “Actions announced first by the Irish government and then the German government were both unclear and unco-ordinated and led effectively to a ‘beggar thy neighbour’ policy which froze the international banking system,” said a Bank of England minute from October 2008, a fortnight after the guarantee. The records of the Bank of England court of directors - its board - were published on foot of a transparency drive by its governor Mark Carney. The release of hundreds of pages of records from 2007-09 follows demands from MPs, who are scrutinising how the Bank of England grappled with the crisis. The British documents emerge as the Oireachtas inquiry awaits records from the Central Bank, one of several institutions to which it sent a request for documents in the days before Christmas. The panel of TDs and Senators will conduct a public hearing next Thursday with Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, its third witness. It is seeking the board records of the Central Bank from the late 1990s until 2013 ahead of hearings with political figures, bankers and regulators.
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KNOCK AIRPORT PASSENGER NUMBERS HIT ALL-TIME HIGH ON BRITISH ROUTES - More than 700,000 passengers used Ireland West Airport Knock in 2014 - a record in its 29-year history. The number of passengers hit 703,000 last year, up 5.7% on 2013 as Knock benefited from increased services to the UK, says the Irish Independent. Knock also experienced its busiest ever month, when nearly 103,000 passengers used the airport in August. That was also the first time Knock handled over 100,000 passengers in a month. Services to the UK are the biggest component of Knock's business, with traffic numbers to and from Britain up 9.4% in 2014 compared to 2013. The best performers included Ryanair's services to Stansted and Luton, which carried 40,000, or 20% more passengers than in 2013. Ryanair's London Gatwick service grew by 6%.
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GAMES FIRM IN €1.2m EXPANSION IN CANADA AND BRAZIL - Keywords Studios- the Dublin-based computer games services firm which ranked as the largest technology flotation in London two years ago - has expanded further, via the acquisition of two firms for a combined €1.2m. The company - which ‘localises’, or translates language and cultural references in computer games for some of the industry’s biggest players in different international markets - yesterday announced the Can$1.25m (€894,000) takeover of Montreal-based company Alchemic Dream. It also said it had concluded the purchase of Brazilian game localisation business, Reverb, for €300,000, says the Irish Examiner. The latter introduces Keywords to one of the fastest growing gaming markets in the world, with Brazilian-Portuguese now ranking alongside French, German, Spanish, and Italian in terms of popular languages in the market. The Canadian deal sees Keywords enter the live operations support market, as Alchemic Dream specialises in managing online/mobile gaming communities.
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MONSTER SUES DR DRE'S BEATS HEADPHONE MAKER - California audio group Monster is suing Beats, the headphone brand co-founded by hip hop artist Dr Dre and acquired by Apple for $3.2 billion last year, alleging it unlawfully squeezed the company out of doing business with it before the lucrative deal. The strongly worded complaint, filed in a California court this week, accuses Beats of “deliberate acts of corporate betrayal” and names Dr Dre, Jimmy Iovine, the music producer and Beats co-founder, and HTC, the Taiwan-based smartphone maker, as defendants. It accuses Beats of “fraudulently acquiring” the rights to the product line via a “sham transaction” with HTC, which purchased a 51% interest in Beats in September 2011. Monster helped launch Beats headphones back in 2008 and used to make its equipment, writes the Financial Times. But Dr Dre and Mr Iovine ended the agreement in 2012. It has now accused Beats of using the HTC deal as a pretext to end its partnership with Monster via a “change of control” clause in the commercial contract between the parties, under which Beats acquired all intellectual property rights to the brand when the company changed owners.
