How some international treaties threaten the environment
Investor-state dispute-settlement provisions are blamed for impeding government actionOct 5th 2020IN USE FOR over six decades, the “investor-state dispute-settlement” (ISDS) clauses of international trade and investment agreements might have been designed to wind up critics of globalisation. Typically they give foreign investors the right to resort to a secretive tribunal of well-remunerated corporate lawyers to…
In twenty years, exchanges have gone from clubby firms to huge conglomerates
Aug 27th 2020THE HONG KONG Stock Exchange (HKEX) resembles a financial estuary, says Charles Li, its boss. China’s capital flows mix with the open seas of global markets. In 2014 HKEX sought to ride the waves by launching Stock Connect, a conduit allowing offshore and mainland punters to invest in each other’s markets. Later it…
The Fed makes its biggest inflation-policy change in decades
It now weighs jobs as heavily as prices, but has not made the radical shift many had hoped forAug 27th 2020WASHINGTON, DCMONETARY-POLICY OVERHAULS tend to be forged in times of crisis. So it is fitting that, though the Federal Reserve began a grand review of its policy framework in 2019, the conclusion of that reassessment…
The explosion at Beirut’s port will blow a hole in insurers’ balance-sheets
A HOMEOWNER IN Achrafieh does not care if the investigation is a sham, only that it rules that the explosion was an accident. Otherwise his insurance policy will pay nothing. The owner of a ruined boutique down the hill in Mar Mikhael would prefer the opposite result: her policy covers terrorism, unlike most, and will…
Ant Group IPO filing shows its might
ANTS ARE normally small but mighty. This one is big but sprightly. On August 25th Ant Group, a Chinese financial-technology company, filed for a joint listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, targeting a valuation of more than $200bn. It began life as Alipay, a payment service on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. It then launched China’s go-to…