Aurelia Butler

ZURICH (Reuters) -Credit Suisse has reached an 11th-hour out-of-court settlement with Mozambique over the decade-old $1.5 billion-plus “tuna bond” scandal, the Swiss bank’s new owner UBS said on Sunday, drawing a line under a damaging dispute it inherited.”The parties have mutually released each other from any liabilities and claims relating to the transactions,” UBS said in a statement. “The parties are pleased to have resolved this long-running dispute,” it added without giving further details.Under the deal, struck one day before a three-month London civil trial was due to start, UBS will forgive part of a loan that Credit Suisse made to Mozambique in 2013, representing less than $100 million, said one source familiar with the situation, who declined to be named because the terms are not public.In Maputo, the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office and Ministry of Economy and Finance said they were calling a joint news conference for Monday morning.The tuna bond case dates back to deals between state-owned Mozambican companies and shipbuilder Privinvest – funded in part by loans and bonds from Credit Suisse and backed by undisclosed Mozambican government guarantees in 2013 and 2014 – ostensibly to develop the fishing industry and for maritime security.But hundreds of millions of dollars went missing and, when the government debt came to light in 2016, donors such as the International Monetary Fund temporarily halted support, triggering a currency collapse, defaults and financial turmoil.The settlement included most of the creditors involved in funding a 2013 loan to ProIndicus, a state-owned Mozambican company, UBS said. DRAWING A LINEUBS, which took over scandal-scarred Credit Suisse amid turmoil in the global banking sector earlier this year, has pledged to resolve Credit Suisse’s legacy legal disputes. Since completing the mega merger on June 12, it has paid $388 million to U.S. and British regulators over dealings with collapsed private investment firm Archegos Capital Management and settled a dispute with a finance blog.The latest settlement leaves French shipping mogul Iskandar Safa and his Privinvest group among key remaining defendants in a High Court battle over the funding and maritime deals that have already triggered U.S. and Mozambican criminal proceedings.Mozambique has alleged it was the victim of a conspiracy and that Privinvest paid bribes to corrupt Mozambican officials and Credit Suisse bankers, exposing the country to a potential liability of at least $2 billion.Privinvest has alleged it delivered on all of its obligations under the contracts and that any payments it made were either investments, consultancy payments, legitimate remuneration or legitimate political campaign contributions.The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.NYUSI IMMUNITYIn another twist to the complex case, Privinvest on Friday secured permission to appeal against a London High Court decision to grant Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi immunity from the proceedings. Privinvest has argued that if it is found liable, Nyusi should contribute to any damages.Officials in the Maputo government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Court of Appeal Judge Elizabeth Laing said it was now up to the trial judge to grant any applications for adjournment, a decision seen by Reuters over the weekend showed.In 2021, Credit Suisse agreed to pay about $475 million to British and U.S. authorities to resolve bribery and fraud charges and has pledged to forgive $200 million of debt owed by Mozambique.It has alleged three former bankers, who arranged the bonds and have pleaded guilty in the United States to handling kickbacks, hid their misconduct from the bank. More

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Planned new post-Brexit border controls on animal and plant products imported from the EU will cost businesses an estimated £330mn a year in additional red tape charges, the government has admitted.The confirmation from Cabinet Office minister Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe in a letter to a Labour MP follows repeated warnings from the logistics and food industry that the new border checks would drive up food prices.“It will depend greatly on how businesses adapt their business models and supply chains to integrate the new controls regimes. We estimate these new costs of the model at £330mn p.a [per annum] overall, across all EU imports,” she wrote in the letter, seen by the Financial Times.From January European businesses exporting animal and plant products to the UK will be required to submit additional paperwork — export health certificates — with physical checks costing up to £43 a time being introduced from April 2024.The checks are one of 20 new major policy changes between now and the end of 2024 that will impact British companies that trade internationally, according to a report last week published by the Institute of Export & International Trade.The government has said the new border checks, which have been repeatedly delayed since the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into force in January 2021, will add 0.2 per cent to inflation over three years.In her letter to Stella Creasy, the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, the minister said that checks were required because the lack of a border since Brexit has “made it more challenging to intervene to combat threats to animal, plant and human health”.In contrast to previous Conservative governments that have delayed introducing a border, Neville-Rolfe added that the new border was essential to protect against diseases such as African swine fever that are prevalent in parts of the EU.“It would be dangerous to underestimate the huge costs both to lives and livelihoods that an outbreak of these diseases could cause to the UK,” she added. The letter cited estimates that “around half” of the £330mn annual additional cost was accounted for by export health certificates, but adds that the decision earlier this year to introduce a lighter-touch border meant that the figure represented a “saving” for business of £520mn from the original border plans.Creasy said the controls represented additional costs for businesses as a result of Brexit, not a “saving” and urged the government to urgently rethink its approach. “British companies struggling with border paperwork to import food will have little choice over these charges meaning it’s likely British consumers will have to pick up the bill,” she said. Labour has promised that it will seek a veterinary agreement with the EU if it wins power at the next election, which trade experts have said could reduce the levels of paperwork and border checks in both directions if it was based on sufficiently close alignment with EU rules.But Sam Lowe, trade expert at Flint Global, said the EU and the UK would need to agree to a dynamically aligned “Swiss-style” vet deal — where the UK automatically followed EU rules and submitted to elements of EU legal oversight — in order to remove the need for export health certificates.Veterinary groups and farmers have welcomed the introduction of the new border, arguing it will protect UK biosecurity but also create a level playing field for British exporters who have faced full EU border checks since January 1 2021.However, trade and logistics groups said the border would drive up costs in the short, medium and long term, adding that the £330mn estimate did not represent the full costs to the industry of the last three years of Brexit uncertainty.Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, said: “It is a shame that it has taken so long to just admit this candidly. What is not included in this original estimate is the cost of confusion, delayed deadlines and ongoing uncertainty.” Peter Hardwick, trade policy adviser for the British Meat Processors Association, an industry body, added that even with the simplified certificates there would be a “massive increase” in the amount of work UK border control posts will have to do. “Much play is made of the physical checks being reduced and risk-based [under the revised border model], but the paperwork checks alone will slow things up,” he said.The headline on this article has been amended to reflect the estimated added costs of red tape More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Congress passed a stopgap funding bill late on Saturday with overwhelming Democratic support after Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed down from an earlier demand by his party’s hardliners for a partisan bill.The Democratic-majority Senate voted 88-9 to pass the measure to avoid the federal government’s fourth partial shutdown in a decade, sending the bill to President Joe Biden, who signed it into law before the 12:01 a.m. ET (0401 GMT) deadline.McCarthy abandoned party hardliners’ insistence that any bill pass the House with only Republican votes, a change that could cause one of his far-right members to try to oust him from his leadership role.The House voted 335-91 to fund the government through Nov. 17, with more Democrats than Republicans supporting it. That move marked a profound shift from earlier in the week, when a shutdown looked all but inevitable. A shutdown would mean that most of the government’s 4 million employees would not get paid – whether they were working or not – and also would shutter a range of federal services, from National Parks to financial regulators.Federal agencies had already drawn up detailed plans that spell out what services would continue, such as airport screening and border patrols, and what must shut down, including scientific research and nutrition aid to 7 million poor mothers. “The American people can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no government shutdown tonight,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. “Democrats have said from the start that the only solution for avoiding a shutdown is bipartisanship, and we are glad Speaker McCarthy has finally heeded our message.”DEMOCRATS CALL IT A WINSome 209 Democrats supported the bill, far more than the 126 Republicans who did so, and Democrats described the result as a win.”Extreme MAGA Republicans have lost, the American people have won,” top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries told reporters ahead of the vote, referring to the “Make America Great Again” slogan used by former President Donald Trump and many hardline Republicans.Democratic Representative Don Beyer said: “I am relieved that Speaker McCarthy folded and finally allowed a bipartisan vote at the 11th hour on legislation to stop Republicans’ rush to a disastrous shutdown.”McCarthy’s shift won the support of top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, who had backed a similar measure that was moving through the Senate with broad bipartisan support, even though the House version dropped aid for Ukraine.Democratic Senator Michael Bennett held the bill up for several hours trying to negotiate a deal for further Ukraine aid.”While I would have preferred to pass a bill now with additional assistance for Ukraine, which has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, it is easier to help Ukraine with the government open than if it were closed,” Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a statement.McCarthy dismissed concerns that hardline Republicans could try to oust him as leader.”I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try,” McCarthy told reporters. “And you know what? If I have to risk my job for standing up for the American public, I will do that.”He said that House Republicans would push ahead with plans to pass more funding bills that would cut spending and include other conservative priorities, such as tighter border controls.CREDIT CONCERNSThe standoff comes just months after Congress brought the federal government to the brink of defaulting on its $31.4 trillion debt. The drama has raised worries on Wall Street, where the Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) ratings agency has warned it could damage U.S. creditworthiness.Congress typically passes stopgap spending bills to buy more time to negotiate the detailed legislation that sets funding for federal programs.This year, a group of Republicans has blocked action in the House as they have pressed to tighten immigration and cut spending below levels agreed to in the debt-ceiling standoff in the spring. The McCarthy-Biden deal that avoided default set a limit of $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending in fiscal 2024. House Republicans are demanding a further $120 billion in cuts.The funding fight focuses on a relatively small slice of the $6.4 trillion U.S. budget for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.”We should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis,” Biden said in a statement after the vote. “House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.” More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. narrowly dodged its fourth partial government shutdown in a decade on Sunday, but the past week exposed the depths of political dysfunction in Washington and particularly within the splintered House Republican caucus.A last-minute decision by Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy to turn to Democrats to pass a short-term funding bill pushed the risk of shutdown to mid-November, meaning the federal government’s more than 4 million workers can count on continued paychecks for now.But the mere fact the government came within hours of shutting down – with former President Donald Trump cheering on the idea and just four months after the nation almost defaulted on its $31.4 trillion in debt – raises concerns about Congress’ ability to function.”Congress is not looking very good,” said Sarah Binder, an expert on governance issues at the Brookings Institution think tank. “Arguably, the one thing it has to do every year is pass laws that fund the government, and their inability to do any of them this year is just a ringing indictment.” The near-shutdown is only the latest example of congressional malfunction. Hardline conservatives have held up Senate action on hundreds of military promotions over abortion, shuttered the House floor for a week in June and subjected McCarthy to 15 humiliating floor votes before allowing his election in January. They may yet oust him for having compromised with Democrats.And of course, less than three years have passed since Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to overturn his election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden. Trump is the clear favorite for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in 2024.A push to impeach Biden, led by Trump’s allies, has also fanned partisan anger and split the House majority with an inquiry that even some Republicans say has failed to produce tangible evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden. ‘NO WAY TO GOVERN’The partisan divisions between House and Senate make the 118th Congress unlikely to match the policy achievements of the last Congress, when Democratic majorities in both chambers enacted bipartisan bills on infrastructure, U.S. technology and other issues. Brinkmanship and polarization have already spread beyond politics to threaten the U.S. financial outlook. The credit rating agency Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) warned last week that a shutdown would harm its “Aaa” rating for the United States – the country’s last top rating.”Hurtling from one fiscal cliff to the next is no way to govern. We never should have been in this position to begin with,” Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer said.The House and Senate have been on divergent paths on funding since McCarthy agreed to set fiscal 2024 spending at $1.59 trillion four months ago.’DYSFUNCTION CAUCUS’House Republicans dissolved into infighting over hardliner demands for $120 billion in cuts.”The dysfunction caucus at work,” Republican Representative Don Bacon told reporters earlier this month, after hardliners blocked consideration of a defense appropriations bill that finally passed on Thursday. Some moderate Republicans have likened that party infighting to TV soap operas, including the one-time U.S. series “All My Children.” “The government is not a telenovela,” Republican Representative Monica De La Cruz of Texas said on Friday, expressing her frustration over Biden border policies and opposition to a failed Republican stopgap bill that included border restrictions.Before Saturday, bitter political relations between parties, and within the Republican Party in particular, boiled over into ad hominem attacks, some directed at hardline Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, a prominent holdout on bipartisan funding who has threatened to move for McCarthy’s ouster.”He’s not a conservative Republican. He’s a charlatan,” Representative Mike Lawler, a centrist Republican from New York, said of Gaetz after the failed Republican stopgap vote. Gaetz responded in a podcast appearance: “I’ll get my blanket and curl up in a corner and call my therapist and see how to work through all the hurt feelings.”Some House Republicans worry about personal rivalries and a general lack of trust within a 221-212 majority that can afford to lose no more than four Republican votes on legislation opposed by Democrats. “That’s the part that nobody wants to talk about. There are a lot of personalities at play here, and multiple strategic objectives,” Republican Representative Kat Cammack told reporters. Only one in three respondents to an August Reuters/Ipsos poll said they had a favorable view of the House or the Senate.Of the majority leaders, McCarthy scored an approval rating of just 21% while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – the top Democrat in Congress – had a 26% approval rating.Those ratings were well below the 40% of respondents in September who said they held a favorable view of either Biden or Trump.Democrats view McCarthy as having wasted time presiding over chaos. “The majority has demonstrated overwhelmingly, in the last several days and the last several months, an unwillingness to govern, an inability to govern, and chaos – general chaos,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. But many House Republicans directed their ire at the small group of hardliners that had opposed their own failed stopgap measure and its winning bipartisan successor, while complaining about the slow pace of progress on appropriations. “There’s this sort of strange woulda-coulda-shoulda — appropriations should have just moved faster,” said Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw. More