Business View

The Court of First Instance No. 2 Madrid has dismissed the lawsuit filed by the National Federation of Dairy Industries (phenyl) against the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) which stated in a press release today that milk is worse than a decade ago.

According to the judgment to which access, and against which there is an appeal, the application was rejected because, by not carrying out the studies Phenyl should refute the opinions of the OCU, “can not claim that milk be of higher quality than a decade ago, it is one end is unknown. ”

The OCU issued a press release on June 21, 2011 in which he stated that after an analysis of all major brands of whole milk, discouraged the purchase of ten of them did not meet the basic requirements of quality and brand performance was by brand.

In its press release, the OCU explained that the analysis had detected differences in quality not found in other products and worse than those found a decade ago, which the organization could be caused by the demands of law have been relaxed.

The OCU claimed that the analysis put in evidence some of the procedures used by certain manufacturers, including the use of milk of high antiquity (degraded protein), the need to add stabilizers (phosphates) that are not reported and the use of thermal aggressive that do not improve the hygienic conditions of milk and only deteriorate in quality.

The consumer organization said that some of these results could be classified as fraud and that the market had “milk of good and poor quality at prices of all kinds” and that it was necessary to spend more money to drink “a good milk.”

The court decision known today that detailed analysis of the OCU were corroborated in expert evidence given by the organization of consumers.

The above test results concluded that in that report were “significantly worse” than the 10 years before.

According to the resolution, could not prove Phenyl Otherwise, that is, milk is of better quality today than ten years ago and added it is not enough to disqualify the expert’s report proposed by the OCU.

The Phenyl criticized the report of this expert because he had analyzed one sample from a single batch of each of the brands of milk and understood that the results would have varied used another method.

The British plan to monitor emails and calls today opened a gap in the government coalition between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives after the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, denied having participated in developing the project.

The Prime Minister, Conservative David Cameron said that Clegg was “on the table” during the meetings that established the outlines of a project so that the security forces have direct access to information on the communications of citizens, but the deputy prime minister denied responsibility for that plan.

Cameron said during a tour of Asia that the Liberal Democrats and Labour have criticized the plan to monitor phone calls, emails and text messages should be “patient” and wait for the final version drawn up by the Executive.

The prime minister also called for caution before ruling against the bill to make certain judgments behind closed doors that affect national security, an idea that also threatens to create divisions in the British government coalition.

“I think everyone should be patient. Have to see what the final proposals, both in court as the issue of calls and emails,” said Cameron.

After learning of the April 1 plans of the Ministry of Interior British on access to communications information, Clegg said the UK should “update the powers of the security forces” to fight terrorism, but stressed it will not allow the government committed “errors” on privacy and civil rights.

Regarding the proposal to hold closed trials, Clegg wrote to the National Security Council of the United Kingdom stating that judges should be, not ministers, who decide whether a hearing should be public.

Clegg’s criticisms of the government’s proposal came after the justice minister, Kenneth Clarke, will be shown for some non-public trial because some evidence before the British courts are derived from material “delicate” facilitated by intelligence agencies.

The Spanish risk premium has soared today to 434 basis points, the highest close since November, while the yield on ten-year debt slash 6%.

The risk premium, the spread between the yield on German bonds and Spanish, has added 32 basis points in the session, affected by the “nervousness” of investors and the weakness of the economic situation in Europe, especially in Spain.

Furthermore, this increase has also influenced the fall in German bond yields reference, coming down to 1.64% from 1.74% yesterday, while his Spanish counterpart marked annual maximum located at 5, 98%.

This recovery, in common with other peripheral countries, is, according to analysts, the lack of liquidity in the market once exhausted the effect of injection of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the worsening economic outlook for Europe.

To this we must add, in the Spanish case, as investors question the viability of the budget deficit target by the Government, so that, according to Barclays, we should expect to see the result of adjustments to restore market confidence.

The market has missed the cut of 10,000 million euros in education and health announced yesterday by the government and defended today by the Ministers of Economy, Luis de Guindos, and Finance and Public Administration, Cristobal Montoro.

In Guindos has also insisted that Spain does not need a bailout and that the government will not change its reform program.

Another factor affecting the price of sovereign debt bonds, according to analyst team Bankinter are attacks launched by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which puts Spain as an example of economic mismanagement.

This rise in the profitability of Spanish sovereign debt could affect the next auction of treasury bills, to be held on Tuesday 17 April.

The risk premium Italian has added 32 basis points today to stand at 404, while the Irish country risk has closed 521 points (8 more than the day before), the Portuguese, in 1,068 points (18 more), and Greek , at 2066 points (60 over).

The debt default insurance (credit default swap or CDS) relating to the bonds to ten years in Spain to cover the possibility of default on $ 10 million at this time were changed to $ 463,830, above the opening $ 450,040.

The Spanish stock market registered today the second largest fall of the year, 2.96 percent and stood at March 2009 levels after close to 7,400 points, hurt by doubts about compliance with the Spanish deficit and economic growth world.

The main indicator of the Spanish market, the IBEX 35, with all negative values, has lost 226.90 points, or 2.96 percent, to 7,433.60 points. The annual fall amounts to 13.22 percent.

In Europe highlighted the fall of 4.98 percent in Milan, Paris ceded 3.08 percent, the index Euro Stoxx 50, the 2.97 percent, Frankfurt, 2, 49 percent, and London, 2.24 percent.

After four days without negotiation, the Spanish stock market struggled in the opening to maintain the level of 7,600 points after Wall Street down 1 percent on the eve and lost altitude of 13,000.

U.S. employment data released Friday-March-with a lower than expected growth, and the bleak figures from China, have burdened the Spanish stock exchange.

With this background, the announced cuts of 10,000 million euros in health and education in Spain and the stagnation of the French economy in the first quarter, the stock increased losses and headed for 7,500 points.

With doubts about achieving the deficit target for the new savings continued the attack on the long-term debt of Italy and Spain, bringing the national risk premium passed in this session of 410-434 basis points-November level past, with the yield on long-term bonds rising, increasing from 5.7 to 5.95 percent.

Although the Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez warned that banks may need more capital if economic conditions worsened, the stock recovered its losses and reduced the 7,600 points before noon for the smallest drop of European markets and a rebound in Repsol, by rumors that the Chinese oil company CNOOC could buy YPF.

The optimistic forecasts of the OECD for the euro area economy served to sustain the fall and “stabilize” the bag around 7,550 points.

The losses on Wall Street, which after a neutral start have grown to 0.75 percent after publication of the 0.9 percent rise in U.S. wholesale inventories in February, determined the final result, and the fall of Brent oil less than $ 121 with the euro at $ 1.306.

All great values ​​have dropped: Banco Santander, the 3.88 percent, BBVA, the 3.62 percent; Telefonica, 2.9 percent; Iberdrola, the 2.88 per cent and Repsol, the 0.91 percent.

OHL leads the IBEX losses with a decline of 7.11 percent, followed by ArcelorMittal, which has fallen 6.28 percent, Indra. The 5.68 percent, affected by a negative report from an investment firm, and Acerinox, the 5.09 percent.

Three companies have resulted in declines of between 4 to 5 percent: Caixabank, the 4.59 percent; Technical Reunidas 4.39 percent and Bankinter, 4.37 percent.

Iran has cut oil supplies to Spain, said today the official Iranian television in English, Press TV.

A source at the Embassy of Spain in Tehran told that have not received “no official or unofficial communication” from the Iranian authorities about this may cut oil supplies.

Press TV, citing “unnamed sources” Iranians, said: “Tehran has cut oil supplies to Spain after suspend exports to Greece, in their action against the sanctions” imposed by the EU to Iran’s oil sector.

Moreover, according to the station, Iran also “studying cut oil supplies to Germany and Italy.”

The embassy source data referred to the Spanish Foreign Ministry which indicated that Spanish companies expect to end our oil imports from Iran during the month of March, “but may have been some delay.”

Moreover, the Iranian Oil Minister, Rostam Qasemi, confirmed today that Iran has stopped selling oil to Greece and said he is considering cutting supplies to other European countries, local media reported.

Spain also had reduced purchases of Iranian oil to less than half between November 2011 and January this year and March 2012, Spanish companies had planned to end our oil imports from Iran, which last year accounted about 14 percent of consumption in the country.

The European Union approved on January 23 new oil and financial sanctions on Iran and one of the most important was a complete embargo of Iranian oil purchases for the Twenty, which comes into effect next July 1, as leverage to to suspend its nuclear program.

This has led to European companies that import oil from the Islamic Republic to replace it with that of other countries, which has also been one of the factors that has led to a significant increase in international oil prices in the first quarter of this years.

Today, Qasemi has insisted that Iran has no trouble selling its oil in other markets, especially in Asia, and has also ruled that international sanctions can damage infrastructure of extraction and processing of hydrocarbons in the country, it said it self-sufficient in this regard.

According to statistics Tehran, exports of crude and petroleum products to Iran reported 130,000 million between March 2011 and March 2012.

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, announced today that his government began “a process of annulment” of the contract with the Brazilian firm OAS for the construction of the road who reject Tipnis Indian national park, and attributed to repeated breaches of the company.

Morales criticized again the slowness of the works of OAS, which is building three roads in Bolivia including that which was to unite the country’s center with the northern Amazon and whose second leg break in two Indian Country Isiboro Secure National Park (Tipnis).

The president said the company suspended “without justification or authorization” jobs in the two end sections of the road, which began construction in June 2011, and has failed “various contractual obligations that affect the work” among other irregularities.

“Yesterday (Monday) I had a long meeting of the team is headed and why we have initiated the cancellation of the contract with OAS in these two sections,” the president told reporters in La Paz.

Morales also complained that the company also failed to deliver the commitment in December 2010 another highway in southeastern Bolivia, between the colonial city of Potosi and the Salar de Uyuni, one of the main attractions of the country, an old bed sea ​​about 3,600 meters altitude.

According to the president, is also behind the road from Potosi to the southern region of Tarija, which borders Argentina and Paraguay, whose delivery was scheduled for last December.

Morales did not explain what will happen to the central section of the Amazon route, which was to cross the Tipnis and Indians reject the environmental effects of the work.

In addition, the Indians are afraid to increase the invasion of the nature reserve by producers of coca leaf, cocaine base to produce from the nearby Chapare region, political bastion of the president.

The OAS was awarded in 2008 the construction of the controversial 306 km via Amazon, with an investment of $ 415 million, of which the Brazilian government finances 332 million.

The natives succeeded in 2011 with a march of hundreds of miles to La Paz, Morales signed a law banning the construction of any road in the Tipnis, but the president has insisted on continuing the project.

41% of Spanish consumers using online banking tools available to them online financial institutions, while 50% are served from the phone and 15% of applications for smart phones, according to a BT and Avaya announced today.

However, 48% of those surveyed for this report responded that their main link with the banks are local branches.

Looking ahead, 40% were in favor of the development of telephone communications between customers and branches to attend.

Therefore, BT’s vice president for Spain, Portugal and Latin America, Jacinto Cavestany, stated in a meeting with the media that the future of the application of technology to the financial sector will be focused on improving relations between the remote client and the workers in the branches.

Cavestany has highlighted the example of Banco Sabadell, which derives calls from call centers to customer (“call centers”) to branches if the client wishes to perform an operation on any employee who has relationship.

“The branch will not go away: it will integrate in a different way,” he added.

In this regard, 55% of respondents in Spain, Germany, USA and the UK says it is more likely to change their bank because of poor customer service to obtain better conditions.

With respect to social networks, only 5% of respondents are considered as an appropriate framework for talks on their personal finances with the banks, while 60% said they would not want to use these platforms to solve problems customer service.

However, Cavestany has ensured that take into account the comments and respond to dissatisfied customers can generate a positive effect to the extent that users end up recommending to other people who come to one or another bank.

In mature markets, such as those analyzed in this report, “most importantly, customer retention,” he noted.

This can also help, as Cavestany, some tools of communication in the network that can be used while users browse the websites of organizations such as the chat (to 26% would like to use), internet calls (25 %) and videoconferencing (15%) with bank employees.

The government says it is following the plan of reforms that marked since coming to power regardless of the market turmoil, though vigilant in its evolution, and without feeling pressured by the lack of investor confidence in the Spanish economy.

In this respect have been expressed by Ministers of Economy, Luis de Guindos, Finance and Cristobal Montoro, who are convinced that we must move in the reform process intended to recover the medium-term growth, but without forgetting the process reduction of public deficit to 3% of GDP in 2013.

In Guindos has defended New Economy forum that recent reforms announced in the health and education, which are aimed at saving another 10,000 million euros, not the result of improvisation to the market situation, but fall in a coordinated plan of the Executive.

Montoro also insisted that the government is complying with the reform agenda, to be completed in late summer and which will result in the budgets of all regions.

Montoro, as stated in an interview on the Radio, believes that the solution to the crisis “is not a matter of days”, or to make an announcement or give a precise figure, but to generate enough confidence in Spain’s ability to correct structural imbalances of the past and ensure the financial sustainability of the state and its basic services.

For this reason, De Guindos is important to “escape” of the market situation so as not to lose our way in a difficult situation in which you must combine two opposite things at first, the “inevitable fiscal adjustment” and the need to promote economic growth and job creation.

However, it recognized that the Government is concerned about the rise in risk premium and works in a “relatively quick to re-normalize”, but without changing the objectives it has set in the medium term.

In Guindos has ruled that Spain needs to be rescued at this point, because the country has a government “with clear ideas,” with an economy that has strengths but the situation is difficult and with the support of some European partners that coordinates economic policy, he said.

The minister believes that there are already signs that point to the stabilization of the economy, as the moderation in inflation or reducing the need for external financing, and has ensured that the evolution of the economy in the first quarter of 2012 will not be ” much worse “than the fourth quarter of 2011, when GDP contracted by 0.3%.

In any case be joined by two consecutive quarters of decline, representing a relapse into recession that de Guindos expected to be mild.

Finance expects to return 10.955 million euros in income year 2011, 1.21% less than in the previous year to 14.6 million taxpayers, or 1.8% less.

This was said today at the press conference unveiling the campaign, the general director of the Tax Agency (AEAT), Beatriz Viana, who has said that this year is estimated to be 19.1 million returns, 1, 01% less than a year ago.

In addition, 4.08 million returns, 1.55% more, come out with results to be paid, amounting to 6.308 million, 0.79% less.

Viana has indicated that the three main developments of the campaign, whose cost has been reduced by 25% in two years by advances telematics-are improving services for obtaining express REN0 draft and tax data online, the renewal Income Portal Site (www.agenciatributaria.es) and the creation of a new dedicated portal for mobile phones in www.agenciatributaria.mobi.

The director of the Tax Agency has stated that this year more than 22 million drafts and tax data will be available to citizens and added that more than 8 million taxpayers will use the system REN0.

If you access the Internet to this service is available immediately draft.

To this end, requests the NIF and the first name of the taxpayer, the box 620 of income 2010 and mobile number to send an sms with the reference number for consultation, review, modification or confirmation of the draft.

New this year is no must request the draft.

Viana emphasized that the system is ready to receive one hundred messages per second, compared to twenty last year.

Finance indicates that about 42% of the drafts should be amended because the taxpayer has to complete data not available in the AEAT.

The application to amend the draft declaration can be done by computer, by phone at 901 200 345, any delegation or administration of the tax office, or at the offices of the tax administrations of the regions that have an agreement collaboration.

Refunds will begin next April 12, while care offices will begin May 3 and the last day will be July 2, although the attention on the internet and phone started today.

Among the new regulations is to restore the deduction for investment in housing regular unlimited income and the deduction for ordinary rental properties extending the limit of taxable income to apply the amount maximum deduction.

Moreover, the percentage of deduction for works passes from 10 to 20% and the maximum annual deduction per taxpayer amounts to 6750 Euro, provided that the work is from May 7, 2011, if before the deduction would remain 2010.

The head of the research bureau of the real estate portal Pisos.com, Manuel Gandarias, has said that although housing sales in February dropped by 31.8% year “can be interpreted as a sign of stabilization” that the decline has been moderate to 7% compared to January.

In this sense, Gandaria considered that despite the decline compared to last year is quite significant when compared with the same month of 2011 the fall line “is not very relevant.”

Regarding the evolution of housing sales recorded so far in 2012, the manager of Pisos.com stressed that the first months of the year are traditionally good months for home purchases.

On the other hand, recalled that the current situation of demand “is not the most optimal” given the job insecurity and higher taxes, while stressed that the restructuring of financial institutions not “encouraged” today mortgage flow for today.

According to data released today by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the sale of houses intensified their fall back in February to 31.8% over the same month of 2011 and reached the 30,745 transactions, so this indicator total real estate and one year following the drop in annual terms.

Compared to January, sales of homes fell by 7.1%.

These data, added the director of the research bureau of the real estate portal, along with a reduction of 6.7% experienced by the mortgage in January according to the Spanish Mortgage Association (AHE), merely confirm the contraction suffered by the real estate in Spain for four years.