Posted by Cody Wimmer.
Recently AstraZeneca made a statement warning Britain that pharmaceutical companies may be moving out and away from Britain due to their low-funding and exit of the European Union. In Britain, funding for clinical drugs goes through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), “which is based on how cost-effective a drug is.” The issue lies in the fact that many of these drugs are very expensive and serve only to help a few patients with very rare diseases or cases. Nice is not as interested in funding those projects as it is in funding projects that could help more people.
Not only is there a lack of funding from the UK, but since they left the European Union the market in which to sell the products has become much smaller. Before the exit Big Pharma companies could freely trade between the EU with a very little extra cost, but that cost has grown substantially to the point where they might have to look elsewhere. Lisa Anson notes “England spends £6,500 a head on medicines per person. By contrast, in France and Germany it is £12,000 to £13,000.” This shows that not only is the market much smaller in terms of the people that could potentially need the medication, but also that the UK is less willing to spend money on the research and the medication itself.
If the UK does not soon change the way they look at and fund medical treatment they will start to greatly fall behind the rest of Europe, if not the world. They no longer can rely on their European Union trading nor their outdated government health care spending to keep them afloat and keep them ahead in terms of research. If they want to have a chance to keep the pharmaceutical companies in the UK they are going to have to make some major changes in their health care system.
Cody is an information technology management major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2018.
Posted by Michael de Andrade.
Volkswagen, one of the European auto giants, admitted to “installing defeat device software in 11 million cars.” These “defeat device software” lets carmakers to change performance settings of the engines before a pollution test. These software would not only switch the performance settings of an engine but also detect when “they were being tested for nitrogen oxide emissions.” The installation of such defeat device rose a huge debate as to whether or not Volkswagen’s “emissions-test trickery” is a violation of European testing rules. The question at hand as described by Paul Willis, top Volkswagen official in Europe, was “whether the software officially constituted a defeat device” under European Union regulations.
The Volkswagen scandal, not only questioned whether Volkswagen is cheating or not, but questioned strongly Europe’s permissive testing practices and the compatibility of American and European auto regulations. This scandal led to Trans-Atlantic trade talks to rapidly increase so the United States and European nations can agree to a mutual auto regulation rules. In Europe “the setting of the engine and of the vehicle’s controls shall be those prescribed by the manufacturer;” making Volkswagen alteration of engine settings not a clear cut violation of European rules. But what makes the debate become such a big issue is that roughly 11 million Volkswagen vehicles carry the software, which about 500,000 are in the United States alone. This can cause Volkswagen to lose billions of dollars despite the penalty enforcements by auto regulators in Europe are very passive and rare.
Volkswagen came out by stating they are “committed [themselves] to fixing the vehicles.” Volkswagen is being comprehensible and trying to fix the issue that they commenced. As stated by Ms. Caudet, “European legislation implies that a vehicle must use the same engine setting during the regulatory emission test and in real driving,” which would make Volkswagen’s actions a violation against European auto regulations. The situations at hand continued to cause tension when the Environmental Protection Agency discovered that Volkswagen used another defeat device in some larger cars and sport utility vehicles that had not previously been implicated” making the cost to fix the issue grow substantially. In the end, the European system is known for its loopholes, for “allowing automakers to test preproduction vehicles that will never be sold” but actions need to be done so auto regulation rules in Europe and the United States, through the Trans-Atlantic agreement, can become more enforced. The “phony system of testing” as described by Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, must be improved and by “simply making the road emission tests easier to pass,” is simply not the right step by the European government.
Michael is a sports management major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2018.
Posted by Wing Sze Yu.
In this article, Facebook intends to appeal a data privacy ruling in Belgium. This privacy ruling forces social media to stop collecting digital information from people who are not its users. There is a tough line about how American technology companies, such as Facebook, gain access to, manage and use people’s information on their website even for the European Court of Justice, as well as the European Union’s highest court. In Monday’s ruling, a court in Brussels states that Facebook has no right to collect person information in Belgium who do not have an account with the social network.
Prior to the data privacy rule, Facebook had collect data from people’s online activities, both Facebook users and non Facebook users through digital cookies. Facebook responds that it had been using digital cookies to collect information without facing complaints, so it would appeal the ruling. Yet, Facebook promised to stop collecting online information from people in Belgium who do not have a social media account.
Wing is an accounting major at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University.
Posted by Stephanie Ramos.
Like no other company, Google has revolutionized the way we conduct web searches over the last ten years. However, in the years after it went public, Google’s increasing market dominance was generating both “sky-high profits and unwanted regulatory attention.” In April 2015, the European Union’s antitrust chief formally accused Google of abusing its dominance in web searches, bringing charges that could “limit the giant American tech company’s moneymaking prowess.” This is the first case that antitrust charges have been brought against Google, despite a years long faceoff between the company and regulators in the EU. Most importantly, it “will almost certainly increase pressure on Google to address complaints that the company favors its own products in search results over its rivals’ services.” In addition, a formal antitrust investigation into the company’s Android smartphone software is underway.
Regulators have focused on accusations that Google “diverts traffic from competitors rivals to favor its own comparison shopping site.” However, Google has defended its business practices, by stating that “[P]eople can now find and access information in numerous different ways—an allegations of harm, for consumers and competitors, have proved to be wide of the mark.” In today’s modern world, privacy laws and consumer protection laws have come under intense scrutiny. Big companies, such as Amazon and Facebook, have become subjects of investigations in matters such as low-tax arrangements and protecting people’s online data. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission investigated “antitrust complaints against Google, but closed that inquiry in 2013 without reaching a formal finding of wrongdoing” in the way it arranges its Web search results. In addition, the investigation into Google can increase political tensions between the European Union and the United States.
Antitrust laws are statutes developed to protect consumers from predatory business practices by ensuring that fair competition exists in an open-market economy. In this case, the EU is accusing Google of abusing its powers by “diverting traffic from competitors rivals to favor its own comparison shopping site. This case raises the issues of corporations and ethics. In this case, Google is a big company that generates billions of dollars in revenue. However, whether these revenues are generated through ethical practices is an ongoing question that EU is trying to solve. “Google will have [ten] weeks to make a formal response to the charges.” It “can also request a formal hearing during a procedure that commonly takes a couple of years and often results in companies’ eventually making appeals at the Court of Justice of the European Union.”
Stephanie is a business administration major with a concentration in international business at Montclair State University, Class of 2016.
Posted by ZaAsia Thompson-Hunter.
The European Union isn’t happy with Honeywell and DuPont because they believe they are breaking antitrust rules. Honeywell and DuPont are the only two companies that produce the chemical R-1234yf. This chemical is used to produce the only car-coolant that meets the standards on the European Union’s greenhouse-gas emissions. By working together, the European Commission believes that Honeywell and DuPont are limiting the supplies of the coolant sold to other carmakers and furthermore reducing technical development. “The investigation, triggered by French company Arkema SA (AKE), also examined Honeywell’s alleged ‘deceptive conduct’ when the product was endorsed by a car-industry trade group, and whether it charges ‘fair and reasonable’ license fees to rivals who want to produce the product.” This investigation may lead to fines as much as 10% of yearly sales.
DuPont plans to fight against all accusations made by the EU because they feel they have not violated any policies and have been abiding by all the rules and laws that apply. In an e-statement, DuPont says they “will fight this every step of the way, as it has no basis in law or fact.” Additionally, in this ongoing case, Honeywell responded by saying the EU’s allegations were “baseless and conflict with the EU’s own laws that encourage collaboration on development,” according to an e-mailed statement.
ZaAsia Thompson-Hunter is a business administration/psychology major at Montclair State University, Class of 2017.