Telephone Conversations News

By extracting a $13 million penalty and imposing tough restrictions on future oil trading by Arcadia and others, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) this week sent a powerful signal that laws against market manipulation still have teeth. The case challenges a now famous view expressed in 1991 by commodities lawyer Jerry Markham that manipulation of commodity futures prices had become an unprosecutable crime. "Under present law the crime of manipulation is virtually unprosecutable, and remedies for those injured by price manipulation are difficult to obtain," Markham wrote in an article published in the Yale Journal of Regulation.

The West should impose tougher sanctions on Russia, which is waging a "hidden war" in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia said in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt. The United States and the European Union have already imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russian individuals and some companies, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of stoking the eastern rebellions, a charge Putin has denied. "The West should impose more severe sanctions that hit specific economic sectors such as banking and target Russian decision makers," he said in an advance copy of an interview due to be published in Saturday's print edition. "It's also important to impose preventative sanctions before Russia does even more damage," he said.

Maritime satellite communications provider Inmarsat says it now connects leisure and fishing vessels with a specially designed broadband service. Accessing weather information and chart updates, keeping in contact with loved ones or simply checking the news are now as simple to do at sea as they are on land with the launch of Fleet One from Inmarsat Maritime. From nnow on, yacht and fishing boat owners can take full advantage of maritime broadband services previously only available to much larger vessels. Whether  on a sailing holiday or an extended fishing expedition, the new Fleet One service ensures small vessel owners have uninterrupted access to the internet, while being able to send SMS messages and have telephone conversations from on board their boat, anywhere in the world.

The new locks contractor Grupo Unidos por el Canal, S.A. (GUPC) accepted Panama Canal Authority’s (ACP) repeated request and agreed to restart on Thursday, February 20 the construction of the Third Set of Locks project. GUPC is formed by companies Sacyr Vallehermoso, S.A (Spain), Impregilo, S.p.A. (Italy), Jan de Nul Group (Belgium) and Constructora Urbana, S.A. (CUSA) (Panama). As soon as works are resumed, ACP will pay GUPC $36.8 million for December invoices to ensure that GUPC cancels pending payments and obligations to suppliers.

ITIC says P&I correspondents are coming under increasing pressure from clubs and from third parties to ensure that they have taken out professional indemnity insurance. In the latest issue of its newsletter, The Wire, ITIC says it is aware that at least one International Group P&I club is considering asking all its correspondents to obtain professional indemnity cover, and anticipates that a number of other clubs will follow suit. ITIC has recently commented on a proposed P&I club contract for its correspondents…

International Transport Intermediaries Club (ITIC) has emphasised the potentially costly consequences of a failure on the part of shipping intermediaries to confirm in writing any initiatives performed on behalf of their principals. In the latest issue of its Claims Review, ITIC says it has seen an increasing number of claims on its shipbroking members relating to the receipt and forwarding of messages. Emphasising the importance of accurate record-keeping and the need to reconfirm telephone conversations in writing…