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Economy Energy has ceased trading, continuing into the new year a trend which saw eight small providers fail in 2018.

The company, which provided energy to around 235,000 domestic energy customers in the UK, failed on Tuesday, days after the energy regulator barred it from taking on new customers due to poor levels of customer service.

In a note on its website, the company said: “Economy Energy has ceased to trade. Ofgem, the energy regulator, is appointing a new supplier for its customers.”

Under Ofgem’s safety net procedure, Economy’s customers will be transferred to a new supplier in the coming days and their credit balances will be protected.

“We have seen a number of supplier failures over the last year and our safety net procedures are working as they should to protect customers,” said Philippa Pickford, Ofgem’s director for future retail markets.

Economy was one of a number of energy providers to miss a deadline to make certain green energy payments to the regulator last October, with around £17m outstanding in renewable obligation charges. Ofgem said on Tuesday it had since paid off £4m of this. The remainder will be spread across remaining suppliers through a process of “mutualisation”.

Incumbent suppliers have complained that the high level of failures shows it is too easy for new suppliers to begin trading, with risky business models leading many to go bust when market conditions deteriorate, leaving others to pick up the bill.

Ofgem plans to tighten entry requirements on the market in the coming months, requiring new entrants to have enough funds to support themselves for at least a year.

“Unfortunately, Economy Energy didn’t get the basics right when it came to customer service, billing and payments, so when market conditions got tougher it didn’t have the solid foundations on which to continue trading,” said Rik Smith at switching site uSwitch.

The UK energy ombudsman said it was looking into over 1,300 complaints into the company. Ofgem said a 2016 investigation into whether it had engaged in anti-competitive activities would remain open.

Economy could not be reached for comment.

Par Régis Arnaud le 08.01.2019 à 13h19

L'ex-président de l'alliance Renault-Nissan Carlos Ghosn a répondu pour la première fois au double chef d'accusation du procureur du tribunal de Tokyo. Son avocat estime que les chances de remise en liberté de l'industriel libano-brésilo-français sont très faibles.

La première passe d'armes entre la défense et l'accusation dans l'affaire Carlos Ghosn a eu lieu ce mardi 8 janvier, dans la chambre d'instruction 425 du tribunal de Tokyo. Cette audience ne portait officiellement que sur les motifs du maintien en détention de l'ancien patron de Nissan. Mais elle a permis à ce dernier d'esquisser, dans les dix minutes qui lui ont été imparties, sa ligne de défense, reprise ultérieurement par ses avocats en conférence de presse.

Double chef d'accusation

C'était la première fois qu'il répondait de manière substantielle aux accusations du procureur de Tokyo de dissimulation de revenus et d'abus de bien social. Les deux chefs d'accusation n'ont pas la même importance. Le premier consiste dans une minoration de son salaire par Carlos Ghosn devant les autorités boursières dans l'attente d'un paiement ultérieur, au moment de sa retraite, sous forme de commissions qui auraient été secrètement arrangées à l'avance. Une manière pour le dirigeant d'éteindre la polémique sur son salaire, trop élevé devant les canons français et, surtout, japonais, estime le procureur. Mais une accusation très difficile à prouver, contre laquelle Carlos Ghosn oppose des arguments très solides: pour lui il n'existe aucun contrat sur le moindre montant de salaire défini par avance. "Je n'ai jamais reçu de compensation de Nissan non publiée, et ne suis jamais entré dans une relation contractuelle avec Nissan pour recevoir un montant fixe qui n'a pas été publié. Pour moi le test est le "test de la mort": si je mourrais aujourd'hui, mes héritiers pourraient-ils demander autre chose que mon indemnité de retraite? Sans équivoque, la réponse est "non"", a martelé l'homme d'affaires.

Le deuxième chef d'accusation est beaucoup plus grave et problématique pour Carlos Ghosn. Les procureurs le soupçonnent d'avoir indûment rémunérer un homme d'affaires saoudien via Nissan, officiellement pour services rendus pour l'entreprise, mais en réalité pour se porter garant de sa solvabilité alors qu'il traversait une mauvaise passe financière à la suite d'investissements personnels risqués. Mardi, la défense a martelé que les contrats de consulting passés avec ledit homme d'affaires avaient bien été approuvés par les responsables idoines chez Nissan; mais ni Carlos Ghosn, ni ses avocats n'ont évoqué le rôle dudit homme d'affaires dans ses ennuis financiers personnels, signe probable de son inconfort devant cette deuxième charge.

"Très faibles chances" de remise en liberté

L'audience de mardi a donc montré les failles et les forces de la défense de Carlos Ghosn. Il n'y aura pour l'ex-dirigeant de Nissan probablement plus d'occasion de s'adresser directement à l'opinion publique ainsi. Sa garde à vue en cours s'achève vendredi, mais elle débouchera certainement sur une mise en examen, puis sur une mise en détention provisoire (voire sur une nouvelle garde à vue sur la base de nouvelles charges). Son avocat principal Motonari Otsuru a estimé très faibles les chances d'une remise en liberté sous caution de son client d'ici au procès. La date de sa tenue? "Au moins dans six mois", selon l'avocat. La fenêtre de liberté de Carlos Ghosn, entrouverte ce mardi matin, s'est bien vite refermée.

Prosecutors could yet conclude that the bank put business interests before compliance

When the US Department of Justice charged three former Credit Suisse bankers with fraud and overseas bribery, the allegations had a familiar ring.

Prosecutors alleged last week that the trio had conspired with Mozambique’s former finance minister to borrow more than $2bn to fund a state fishing fleet and divert some of the proceeds into bribes and kickbacks.

It is the second time since November 1 that senior employees of a big global bank have been indicted for allegedly helping to rip off a developing nation. Two former senior Goldman Sachs bankers have been charged with conspiring to siphon bond proceeds out of Malaysia’s 1MDB investment fund to enrich themselves and corrupt officials. (Tim Leissner has pleaded guilty; Roger Ng denies wrongdoing; lawyers for the three CS bankers declined to comment.)

Goldman itself has also been criminally charged by Malaysian prosecutors and it is still under US investigation. Legal analysts expect the Wall Street bank to face serious consequences. Not only is Malaysia seeking $7.5bn, but US prosecutors have used harsh words in court documents filed in the individual cases. They said the bank’s “business culture” was “highly focused on consummating deals, at times prioritising this goal ahead of the proper operation of its compliance functions”. Goldman has said it is co-operating with the DoJ.

Credit Suisse, which also says it is co-operating with authorities, so far looks to be in better shape. The UK has downgraded its investigation into the “tuna bond” scandal from criminal to regulatory, and last week’s US indictment emphasised the efforts the Credit Suisse defendants made to deceive the bank’s compliance department. Prosecutors cited the use of personal email addresses and referred to the employees as having “withheld” information. A former prosecutor told the Financial Times last week that the language of the indictment “adopts the bank’s narrative that these are rogues, they lied to us”.

One reason for the difference may be that Credit Suisse’s leadership has changed since the tuna bonds were marketed in 2013. Chief executive Tidjane Thiam joined the bank two years later and has restructured the way the bank handles deals with African countries. Goldman’s new chief executive David Solomon, by contrast, was among 30 senior executives who reviewed the 1MDB deals and has defended the bank’s culture against some criticisms.

Another difference is that the prosecutors probing Goldman have secured testimony from Mr Leissner, as part of his guilty plea, that misleading the compliance department was “very much in line” with Goldman’s culture. No named defendant in the Mozambique case has openly co-operated with prosecutors.

But the Swiss bank may not be home free. Two former prosecutors told me that it is standard operating procedure for an indictment to emphasise concealment efforts because that supports allegations of intentional wrongdoing.

Two sections of the indictment in particular could spell trouble for Credit Suisse. One specifically says that the defendants were “acting within the scope of their employment . . . with the intent, at least in part to benefit” the bank. The other details the ways the defendants were allegedly able to ignore, lie to or circumvent the bank’s compliance department. Both could be a worry for Credit Suisse if prosecutors conclude that the bank had shoddy controls or put business interests ahead of compliance.

The outcome of the case matters not just to Credit Suisse but also to Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries. It lost International Monetary Fund funding over the scandal and is struggling to pay back the debts it racked up with Credit Suisse’s help. Its citizens are hoping for a lifeline. “If Credit Suisse is found to have acted illegally . . . [it] should have to pay back the investors,” says Florival Mucave, a prominent local attorney.

That only seems fair.

Walt Disney Pictures and Verizon have partnered to explore the possibilities of 5G connectivity for media and entertainment at Disney’s StudioLab. The partnership, which was announced at CES in Las Vegas Tuesday, will give the studio the ability to use next-generation wireless broadband with peak data transmission rates of 10 gigabits per second.

“We see 5G changing everything about how media is produced and consumed,” said Walt Disney Studios chief technology officer Jamie Voris in an interview with Variety Monday. The two companies just finalized their partnership ahead of CES, but Voris said that his team already had ideas to test 5G for a wide variety of projects, including in production environments that aren’t easily accessible with traditional broadband solutions. “We shoot our movies in some very remote locations,” he said.

Verizon launched 5G wireless service in a total of 4 cities last October, including Los Angeles, Houston, Indianapolis and Sacramento. The launch in the entertainment capital will make it easier to explore how to use the new technology for media applications, said Verizon vice president of 5G ecosystems and innovation Sanyogita Shamsunder. “We have right in Disney’s backyard places where we can test 5G.”

The next-generation wireless technology makes it possible to download a digital movie in just 10 seconds at speeds of 300 mbps. Over 4G, the current standard for mobile internet, the same download takes 3 to 4 minutes at 20 mbps. Shamsunder said that the technology will also be perfectly suited for mobile AR and VR, which both require very low latencies.

Walt Disney Studios launched StudioLab as an on-the-lot innovation space out of the studio’s Technology Innovation Group in 2018. Since then, StudioLab has been exploring a host of technologies, including collaboration tools for creatives across the company, drones for location scouting, VR and more.

One of the innovations currently on display in the facility, which Variety got to tour last summer, is a set of large flat screen displays designed to bring movie posters in theater lobbies into the digital age. Voris suggested that these displays could potentially be networked via 5G, making it easier to send digital promotional assets directly to theaters.

Whatever the ideal media application for 5G ultimately turns out to be, Voris said that it was important to Disney to jump on the train early. “As the deployment happens, we will be ready,” he said.

Industrial production drops unexpectedly as several factors continue to weigh on the global economy

FRANKFURT—Fresh signs of a weakening German economy are raising fears that last year’s slowdown could spill into 2019, deepening the challenges facing policy makers in Europe and the U.S.

Industrial production in Europe’s largest economy dropped unexpectedly in November, according to data released Tuesday, the latest reflection of a confluence of headwinds facing the global economy including trade tensions and weakening demand from China.

German factories aren’t alone in feeling those effects. A monthly survey released by the European Commission on Tuesday found business confidence fell sharply in the final month of 2018, with French, Italian and Spanish manufacturers joining their German counterparts in downgrading their expectations.

Signs of a slowdown in Europe and China have prompted falls in global financial markets, despite continuing signs of strength from the U.S. economy. The disconnect presents the Federal Reserve with a tricky choice: focus more on the domestic economy and keep nudging interest rates higher to combat inflationary concerns, or pay greater attention to stresses abroad and in markets, and hold rates steady or even nudge them lower.

In the eurozone, any slowdown in Germany is a headache for the European Central Bank, which is trying to wean the 19-nation eurozone economy off years of monetary stimulus and ease toward higher interest rates.

Production in Germany’s key industrial sector, adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings, fell 1.9% in November from the previous month, the country’s statistics agency said Tuesday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected a 0.3% gain.

It was the second consecutive monthly fall in German industrial output and comes after data Monday showed a drop in new manufacturing orders.

“Today’s industrial production data has clearly increased the risk of a technical recession in Germany in the second half of 2018,” said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING in Frankfurt.

A technical recession consists of two consecutive quarters of declining economic output. Germany’s economy shrank in the third quarter of the year for the first time since 2015, dented by weaker exports and the impact of new emissions standards on automobile production. Italy’s economy also contracted in the third quarter, and is also at risk of ending the year in recession.

German officials have played down signs of economic softness, attributing them to temporary factors that would soon fade. The economy ministry argued Tuesday that the drop in industrial production partly reflected extra vacation days as well as bottlenecks in the key auto sector.

However, there are broader signs of a more durable economic slowdown across Europe, and that is reflected in souring business and consumer sentiment

With economic growth having hit a decade high in 2017 as exports surged, eurozone manufacturers started 2018 in a more upbeat mood than at any time since they were first surveyed in 1985. They ended the year in a quite different mood, helping lower the European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Indicator—an aggregate measure of consumer and business confidence in the eurozone—to 107.3 in December from 109.5 in November, reaching its lowest point since January 2017.

The collapse in confidence as 2018 drew to a close suggests growth is unlikely to rebound in the early months of this year.

Economists estimate that the eurozone economy grew 1.9% in 2018, a slowdown from the 2.4% expansion recorded in 2017. Economists at 30 banks and research firms monitored by Consensus Economics have steadily lowered their 2019 projections over recent months, and now expect the combined gross domestic products of the eurozone’s members to increase just 1.6% during 2019.