News Stories Archives

USCIB Members Celebrate BIAC Business Day at the OECD

Published on October 30, 2015
Rick Johnston (Citigroup), second row, fourth from left.
Rick Johnston (Citigroup), second row, fourth from left, joins other BIAC members at the annual Business Day at the OECD.

On October 28 and 29, member organizations celebrated the annual Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) Business Day at the OECD headquarters in Paris. Business Day is the traditional reunion of the BIAC business community, featuring several speakers from the OECD leadership and the BIAC policy groups, including Rick Johnston (Citigroup), chair of USCIB’s Trade and Investment Committee and executive board vice chair of BIAC.

OECD Chief Economist Catherine L. Mann and Chief Statistician Martine Durand spoke about the global economic outlook and the concept of well-being in our societies. OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria gave an account of current OECD priorities, including the importance of an enabling investment and regulatory environment.

“Across the presentations on investment, trade, international taxation, environment, innovation, regulatory policy and health, it was clear that the private sector’s engagement is key for more sustainable growth and productivity,” said Bernard Welschke, secretary general of BIAC. “We take this Business Day and the good feedback from the OECD and participants as an encouragement for the many activities ahead.”

USCIB members that attended BIAC Business Day included Arkema Group, Deloitte, Exxon Mobil, Johnson Controls, McDonald’s, Qualcomm and many more.

 

11 Companies to Promote Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in the Workplace

Published on October 29, 2015

disability_sign_low_resEleven major international companies have become the first signatories of the “ILO Global Business & Disability Network Charter” in a ceremony held at ILO headquarters in Geneva. The Charter expresses their commitment to promoting and including persons with disabilities throughout their operations worldwide.

It covers a wide range of areas, from protecting staff with disabilities from any kind of discrimination to making the company premises and communication to staff progressively accessible to all employees with disabilities.

The signing companies are: Accenture, AccorHotels, Adecco Group, AXA Group, Carrefour Group, Dow Chemical, Groupe Casino, L’Oréal, Orange, the Standard Bank Group and Michelin.

“The lack of equal employment opportunities for persons with disabilities often means lives of poverty and social exclusion,” said ILO Director General Guy Ryder. “By honoring the commitments of this Charter, the private sector will be showing real leadership in making it possible for people with disabilities to have productive work and to live in dignity.”

Ryder continued: “The first signatories to sign the Charter will help us spread a simple but essential message: employing persons with disability is not just a good moral cause, it is also good for business. This new Charter can also make a substantial contribution to realizing many goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development .”

Speaking on behalf of the signatories, the Network steering committee chairperson, Wendy Orr, said: “We are proud to be among the first companies to sign the Business Charter on Disability. This is one step further in demonstrating our commitment for the inclusion of people with disabilities in the labour market. We believe and have experienced how an inclusive and diverse workforce provides opportunities for employers, employees and society overall.”

Ronnie Goldberg, USCIB’s senior counsel, also sits on the Network steering committee.

All signatories are members of the ILO Global Business and Disability Network , which brings businesses together to promote disability inclusion by highlighting the business advantages of employing people with disabilities. It also facilitates the exchange of knowledge and good practices between companies, company networks and the ILO.

Created in 2010, the Network acts as a facilitator and responds to requests from members to develop tools, share knowledge, and facilitate business-to-business meetings and dialogues around disability issues. It combines the interests of the ILO employer constituents and of multinational enterprises.

Its steering committee is composed of representatives from eight multinational enterprises, a global organization representing people with disabilities and two employers’ organizations.

The Network has produced a self-assessment tool which allows companies to assess how well they are doing in a number of areas regarding disabilities.

The Charter will be provided to national employers’ federations and national business and disability networks as a way of promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities among their member companies, including small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

The Network also benefits from the invaluable insight of people with disabilities themselves, thanks to a partnership with the International Disability Alliance (IDA) , a network of global and regional organizations representing people with disabilities.

Progress Made on Enhancing Accountability at ICANN Meeting

Published on October 26, 2015

Digital GlobeAs the Internet community prepares for the transition of the Internet’s stewardship from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) of the U.S. Commerce Department to the global multi-stakeholder community, stakeholders made progress on enhancing accountability at the latest annual meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

At the week-long meeting, which wrapped on October 22 in Dublin, some 1,800 participants from government, business, civil society and the technical community rallied around a proposal to develop an ICANN accountability mechanism to replace the “backstop” function currently provided by ICANN’s contract with U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Barbara Wanner, USCIB’s vice president for ICT policy, represented USCIB member interests at the meeting.

Since NTIA announced in March 2014 that it would transition key Internet functions and domain names to the global multistakeholder community, USCIB and other stakeholders have underscored that any new model of domain name system (DNS) management must include mechanisms that ensure it is accountable to the global stakeholder community. USCIB further has emphasized that the transition process must be thoughtfully conceived so as to not in any way compromise principles set forth by NTIA for the IANAN transition. These include supporting and enhancing the multistakeholder model, maintaining the security, stability, and resilience of the Internet DNS, meeting the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services, and maintaining the openness of the Internet.

“The proposal developed at the Dublin meeting marked an important step in developing a mechanism that will effectively empower business and other stakeholders to hold ICANN accountable. We have repeatedly said that accountability mechanisms must be in place before the IANA transition takes place,” said Wanner.

Mathieu Weill, co-chair of the Cross-Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability), concurred. “What I think we can take away from this week is the wonderful and amazing way in which we have brought together in the same room people from different [stakeholder] groups to work in a collaborative manner – and that makes a difference and brings progress,” he said, noting that stakeholder collaboration is being embedded in ICANN’s accountability framework.

According to Wanner, ICANN’s work on accountability is helping to build the case for a multistakeholder Internet governance model, which is preferable to a government-controlled alternative. “Participants proposed that the CCWG-Accountability’s work demonstrates to critics who advocate inter-governmental organization jurisdiction over Internet governance issues that a multistakeholder model, although occasionally ‘messy,’ is effective and produces important results,” she said.

In addition to discussions about the enhanced accountability mechanism, the Dublin gathering featured some over 300 separate sessions on topics as diverse as “Women in ICANN, Internet and ICTs,” “Universal Acceptance of TLDs [top-level domains like .com and .org],” and “The Role of Voluntary Practices in Combating Abuse and Illegal Activity,” which reflected the substantive breadth of the policy and technical issues considered by ICANN.

USCIB is a member of the Business Constituency, a stakeholder group representing the private sector in discussions with ICANN on Internet governance.

Call for Participation: USCIB-NYU Human Rights Summer Fellowship

Published on October 23, 2015

SustainabilityIn order to run companies sustainably, business leaders must have an awareness of human rights and corporate social responsibility issues and an understanding of how to confront them. Students in MBA programs across the country have recognized these as permanent features of a globalized business landscape. Yet there are still far too few outlets for students to gain practical experiences in corporate responsibility, including sustainability and human rights issues.

To address this gap, USCIB has partnered with the NYU Stern Business School to offer a summer fellowship program to students seeking professional learning opportunities in corporate responsibility, sustainability and human rights. USCIB is inviting member companies to participate in the 2nd year of the Business & Human Rights Summer Fellowship for Summer 2016. The fellowship program matches talented NYU Stern MBA students interested in corporate responsibility with USCIB members willing to provide a hands-on summer internship opportunity.

The fellowship also has a training component in which USCIB and Stern will cover major corporate responsibility and human rights issues and related skills, like human rights due diligence and corporate reporting. The training will introduce the fellows to expert practitioners so fellows can provide even more added value to companies upon arriving at the start of the summer.

Last year, two fellows interned with USCIB members PepsiCo and DirectTV Latin America. The fellows discuss their experiences in blog posts here and here, as well as in the video below:

The fellows had very substantive experiences, completing tasks through their internships that contributed directly to key business operations and strategy in the area of CSR, sustainability and human rights, which included:

  • Developing more than 100 indicators tracking Public Relations, Institutional Relations, Anti-Piracy and Corporate Social Responsibility for a metrics dashboard created to quantify team’s impact across 10 countries in the quarterly management report;
  • Creating a business case for a company educational initiative to transition into a 501c(3) entity. Built financial model and offered recommendations in areas of costs, new markets entry and partnerships;
  • Analyzing inter-departmental work flows at the corporate and country operational level to forecast team budget until 2020 and propose plan for sustained growth;
  • Developing metrics and reporting on new corporate function dedicated to supply chain visibility and responsible sourcing;
  • Managing external relationships and produced guidance materials for internal stakeholders to facilitate change management agenda in global procurement and operations; and
  • Identifying and recommended sources of competitive advantage through benchmarking analysis of strategic peers and buyers on voluntary reporting and publicly disclosed sustainability efforts.

Companies willing to host a fellow for a 10-week, paid position working on corporate responsibility, human rights or sustainability issues should contact Ariel Meyerstein.

More information is available in this FAQ about the fellowship.

USCIB Members in Vanguard of White House Climate Action Pledges

Published on October 21, 2015

White_HouseOn October 19, the White House announced a set of new commitments from 81 companies – including dozens of USCIB members – under the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, which aims to rally support in the business community for action on climate change and the conclusion of strong United Nations climate agreement in Paris this December.

USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson welcomed the announcement. “USCIB has consistently focused on the necessity of ensuring that international action on climate works in harmony with the global economy,” he said. “These commitments demonstrate that the American business community is stepping up to help turn that ambition into reality. Leadership actions like these underline why a successful outcome in Paris must anchor and recognize business engagement and consultation going forward.”

Vice President Joe Biden gave closing remarks at the White House climate summit on Monday, during which government officials and business leaders convened for panel discussions about how the public- and private-sectors can work together on addressing climate change on the road to the UN climate agreement in December. Several USCIB members participated in the discussions.

With USCIB’s longtime climate, energy and environment expert Norine Kennedy on the front lines in Bonn, Germany for this week’s final negotiating session in advance of the Paris conference, Shaun Donnelly represented USCIB at the White House climate Summit.

USCIB is the U.S. affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce and a U.S. partner of the Major Economies Business Forum (BizMEF).  It has represented U.S. business interests in the UNFCCC since 1993.  Please check its climate change website for continuing updates of its climate change positions and plans for the UN climate agreement in December (COP21).

USCIB will hold a COP21 Preparatory Meeting for U.S. Business in Washington DC on November 17.  This meeting will update U.S. business representatives on the latest political developments in the UN negotiations, review opportunities for business activities and engagement at COP21 and highlight business priorities for the Paris outcomes.  Contact Norine Kennedy for more information.

Read the White House fact sheet.

USCIB Provides Business Voice at UN Discussion on Informal Economy

Published on October 19, 2015
Ariel Meyerstein
Ariel Meyerstein

USCIB Vice President Ariel Meyerstein participated as a lead discussant at a panel at the United Nations on “Promoting Inclusive Growth: Transitioning from the Informal to the Formal Economy” on October 16. Meyerstein provided the private sector perspective on the challenges associated with informal employment. The panel followed this year’s earlier release of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Recommendation on Transitioning from Informal to Formal Economies.

Formalizing employment is of strategic significance for millions of workers and enterprises around the world who are working and producing in precarious and vulnerable conditions.  It is estimated that half of the global labor force and 90 percent of small businesses operate in the informal economy, with women and youth disproportionately engaged.

The panel discussion provided a platform for governments and development partners to explore how the transition from the informal to the formal economy could contribute to enhancing productivity, innovation and achieving inclusive growth and decent work for all. Panelists explored how the ILO recommendation can contribute to the fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and identified the policies needed to promote the transition from the informal to the formal economy.

Meyerstein addressed how the ILO recommendation is important to the business community and what the role of the private sector is in ensuring formalization.

(Meyerstein’s presentation begins at 1:27:00.)

“The employers actually proposed this recommendation,” Meyerstein said. “You can see this emphasis on economic growth and job creation expanding the attractiveness of the formal sector. That’s something we were pushing for and it’s good that it’s in the recommendation.”

Meyerstein provided examples of how businesses can facilitate the transition from the informal to the formal economy, including USCIB member Mastercard’s partnership with Egypt to provide all citizens with a national ID, thereby expanding financial inclusion. He noted that part of the solution to addressing informality is making the formal economy more attractive to businesses. He concluded by saying that employers can also help by addressing youth unemployment and the skills mismatch, and he mentioned the Global Apprenticeship Network, a project by the International Organization of Employers designed to teach youth the skills they need to join the formal economy.

USCIB’s Klein Tells Media Dispute Resolution is Crucial for BEPS

Published on October 16, 2015

taxes-portIn a Bloomberg BNA article, Carol Doran Klein, USCIB’s vice president and international tax counsel, explained that effective dispute resolution will be necessary for the success of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) project on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), designed to rewrite the rules of the international tax system. The OECD released its final BEPS recommendations on October 5.

At an international tax conference on October 15 in Toronto, Klein told attendees that BEPS’s new rules on profit attribution and allocation of risk will lead to more controversy, because there is no guarantee that governments will interpret these rules consistently. Effective dispute resolution is therefore key for the successful implementation of the BEPS recommendations.

“I think that the arm’s-length standard, as set out in the guidelines, can work—but only with real functioning dispute resolution,” Klein told Bloomberg BNA. “It is going to be key to resolve disputes early, for this process to have success,” she said. “You could have real transfer pricing reform, but only in my view if the dispute resolution is implemented as indicated in the guidance.”

Klein also said that questions risk analysis about risk analysis were likely to cause dispute, and the implementation could be subjective.

“It is clear that the risk-adjusted return depends on the credit-worthiness of the borrower and the riskiness of the investment, but there’s very little guidance on how these factors should be determined and weighted,” Klein told Bloomberg. “Tax administrations may also be examining the riskiness of a transaction after that risk has played out, so reaching agreement on a risk-adjusted return may be challenging.”

Read more: “Companies See Dispute Resolution as Crucial in BEPS” (Paywall)

 

 

ICC Launches Climate Website on the Road to COP21

Published on October 14, 2015

cop21_slider_sourceIn less than 50 days, over 40,000 participants will converge in Paris to conclude talks on a new global climate agreement. As the business focal point for the United Nations climate talks and the landmark Paris Climate Conference (COP21), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has launched a one-stop website to mobilize business in the run up to and during the two-week conference.

Launched during Climate Week, the dynamic website provides overviews of and access to global business positions and recommendations. The website’s newsroom will help visitors keep pace with developments, providing easy access to the latest climate policy news, ICC press releases, speeches, videos and infographics.

The user-friendly ‘Road to COP21′ website also provides a comprehensive overview of the range of briefings and events hosted by ICC and partners during COP21. These include the official COP21 Business Day on December 4 and the International New York Times’ Energy for Tomorrow 2015 conference on December 8.

“The COP21 website is ICC’s response to the need for bespoke support services for member companies of the world business organization,” said ICC Secretary General John Danilovich. “Our aim is to ensure that everything business needs to navigate COP21 is just a click away.”

Visit cop21.iccwbo.org

USCIB Cites Concerns Over End of “Safe Harbor”

Published on October 13, 2015

Digital GlobeUSCIB joined 22 other associations in signing a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker explaining how the wholesale invalidation of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor program will negatively impact the business operations of thousands of companies that rely on transatlantic commercial data transfers.

Established in 2000, the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor framework makes it easier for American companies to certify that they meet an “adequacy” standard for digital privacy protection, which under EU law is necessary to allow businesses to transfer data from EU countries. On October 6, the EU Court of Justice ruled that the 2000 U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Decision is invalid.

“This invalidation constitutes a serious disruption for the thousands of companies that have relied on the framework for commercial data transfers between the EU and the United States,” wrote USCIB and 22 other U.S. and EU tech-based associations in a joint letter to the European Commission. “These commercial data flows are central to facilitating transatlantic trade and the continued development of Europe’s data driven economy.”

The letter explained that “companies take their legal commitments very seriously when transferring data to the United States in compliance with European law,” and that the EU court’s judgement has created legal uncertainty. The letter urged the European Commission to come up with a harmonized implementation of the court’s judgement, so as to avoid “fragmenting the EU’s common approach to international data transfers.”

The joint letter also called on the European Commission to provide guidance for companies operating under the safe harbor framework, and for both the U.S. government and the Commission to urgently conclude their negotiations aimed at strengthening the Safe Harbor framework.

Read the full letter here.

Groundbreaking ICC Academy Goes Live

Published on October 13, 2015

The International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) educational platform, the ICC Academy has gone live today – providing millions of business professionals and students around the globe with access to a new standard in business education. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, DBS, OCBC Bank, Banco Santander, and Standard Bank have been announced as “early adopters” of ICC Academy training courses.

Launched earlier this year, the ICC Academy has now opened its virtual doors and unveiled its online curricula of courses – all designed and taught by leading industry experts – and its groundbreaking Learning Management System.

Five banks will be “early adopters” of the ICC Academy, enabling employees to access its initial trade finance programs. The Academy’s trade finance offering features over 70 online courses and two global certificates in trade finance (the “Global Trade Certificate” and “Certified Trade Finance Professional”). These initial courses have been designed drawing on the expertise and experience of the ICC Banking Commission – comprising more than 600 members across 110 countries.

ICC Academy courses feature insights from senior business leaders and policymakers, and can be accessed online by prospective students – professionals, academics, tertiary students or members of the general public – anywhere in the world, at any time. Not only does this make it convenient for those with busy schedules, it also means that students in regions where physical access to training is limited can have equal access to world-class professional education. What is more, upon completion of courses, students receive globally-recognized certification of their professional skills.

“The ICC Academy is an effective response to a global need for high-quality, flexible business education available on a large scale,” said John Danilovich, secretary general of ICC. “We hope our initial trade finance offering will help bridge skills gaps as regards trade finance instruments-both within the banking sector and wider industry. Academy courses have a key role to play in enhancing the supply of trade credit and ensuring that corporates understand the financing options open to them.”

By becoming “early adopters” of the ICC Academy, all five banking partners can ensure their employees are not only internationally certified trade finance professionals, but are authorities on the trade finance industry – regularly completing courses and attending various conferences or seminars that allow them to continually adapt to fit the evolving landscape.