News Stories Archives

USCIB to Prepare Recommendations on Next Steps for Trade

Published on December 9, 2011

At the December 1 meeting of USCIB’s Trade and Investment Committee, chaired by Scott Miller (director of national government relations with Procter & Gamble), members moved forward on planned USCIB recommendations on the international trade and investment agenda.

With the recent passage of three long-pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Korea and Panama, the continued lack of progress in the WTO’s Doha Round and growing protectionist sentiment in many key markets, a USCIB task force is developing broad yet detailed recommendations for the United States and other governments on what is needed to spur greater liberalization of trade and investment.  The recommendations are expected to be completed in February.

The committee held a discussion with Everett Eissenstat, trade counsel with the Senate Finance Committee, covering a wide range of trade issues including the recent APEC summit, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Russia’s accession to the WTO, Customs reauthorization, Trade Promotion Authority, Doha and other trade priorities for 2012.

In addition, the committee reviewed plans for a possible USCIB study of global production networks and their impact on U.S. competitiveness.  Members also heard an update on USCIB’s work USCIB on investment issues, especially state-owned enterprises and competitive neutrality.

Staff contact: Rob Mulligan

More on USCIB’s Trade and Investment Committee

USCIB Hosts ICC Officials From Throughout the Americas

Published on December 7, 2011

Last month, building on efforts to strengthen the network of International Chamber of Commerce national committees around the world, USCIB hosted three days of meetings among ICC representatives from across Latin America and the Western hemisphere.  The meetings, which coincided with USCIB’s International Leadership Award Dinner, provided a supportive environment for national committee heads and key staff from ICC headquarters in Paris to share best practices and discuss the world business organization’s key initiatives in policy advocacy and business services.

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L-R: Claudio Piacenza (Uruguay), Raquel Acosta (Costa Rica), François Gabriel Ceyrac (ICC), Patricia Hurtado (Bolivia), Mick Fleming (ACCE), Milagros J. Puello (Dominican Republic), USCIB Chairman Harold McGraw III, María Fernanda Garza (Mexico), USCIB President & CEO Peter Robinson, Yesica González (Mexico), Philip Kucharski (ICC), Fernanda Hurtado (Chile), Diana Droulers (Venezuela), Jeff Hardy (ICC), Gizelle Reginato (Brazil), Jordi Sellarés Serra (Spain), Louise Kantrow (ICC), Jorge Rubén Aguado (Argentina).

Following an exciting evening at USCIB’s award gala – where former President Bill Clinton helped honor Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris, and where USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson recognized them from the podium – the ICC delegates convened for a working lunch hosted by USCIB Chairman (and ICC Vice Chairman) Harold McGraw III, chairman and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies.  Discussion centered on the varying working conditions faced by ICC national committees in Latin America, resources available from ICC headquarters, and ways to coordinate action among national committees on important public policy matters, whether these be global, regional or in-country.

ICC representatives toured the renovations of the UN headquarters with UN Assistant Secretary General Michael Adlerstein (center), who is directing the work.
ICC representatives toured the renovations of the UN headquarters with UN Assistant Secretary General Michael Adlerstein (center), who is directing the work.

Then it was on the United Nations, where ICC’s permanent representative, Louise Kantrow, convened discussions with representatives from the UN Office for Partnerships as well as the Inter-American Development Bank.  ICC representatives also toured the major renovations currently underway at the UN Secretariat buildings and visited the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan.

In their meetings at USCIB, which were chaired by Maria Fernanda Garza, vice chair of ICC Mexico, participants discussed a range of common concerns, including the nuts and bolts of national committee operations, use of communications and social media, ICC’s 2012 program of action, the work of ICC’s World Chambers Federation and ICC arbitration activities in the hemisphere.

Staff contact: Peter Robinson

Video interview with ICC Mexico’s Maria Fernanda Garza (at USCIB’s Award Gala – YouTube)

Business Urges Vigilance on Postal Authorities

Published on December 4, 2011

As postal revenue dries up around the world, many publicly operated postal organizations may be tempted to get into new lines of business.  This presents a vexing challenge to private-sector companies that may find themselves in competition with these state-supported entities.

To address these concerns, last month USCIB and three other business groups sent a letter to the Obama Administration urging the U.S. to prepare diligently for the next ministerial-level congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), which will take place in Qatar in September 2012.

“We see potentially important issues on the table at the UPU session, including unhelpful efforts from some quarters to extend the scope of government-run postal monopolies into new areas, potentially competing with the private sector,” stated Shaun Donnelly, USCIB’s vice president for investment and financial services.  “Package delivery, insurance, financial services and retail are just some of the sectors where postal monopolies might try to encroach in an effort to offset shrinking volumes and financial losses in their postal services.”

The business groups urged the administration to form an interagency committee to develop coordinated pro-market, pro-competition positions for the U.S. delegation leading up to and at the UPU congress.  They also recommend that the State Department, Postal Service and the U.S. interagency team work closely with relevant private-sector entities throughout this preparatory period.

Other groups signing the letter with USCIB were the American Council of Life Insurers, Coalition of Service Industries and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Staff contact: Shaun Donnelly

More on USCIB’s European Union Committee

Business Looking to Move Forward at UN Climate Conference, Even as Governments Wrestle With Developing Country Obligations

Published on December 1, 2011

4205_image002USCIB and its partner business groups are actively pushing for progress at the UN climate conference now underway in Durban, South Africa.  But governments are hamstrung by precedent-setting decisions taken two decades ago.

A number of USCIB member company representatives, as well as Norine Kennedy, USCIB’s vice president of environment and energy, are attending the conference.  They are in Durban as part of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) delegation. ICC has long served  as the business focal point in the climate negotiations.

Other groups are in Durban as well, working to ensure business engagement in support of meaningful action to address climate change.  Increasingly prominent in this regard is the Major Economies Business Forum on Energy Security and Climate Change (BizMEF), which consists of major business groups from G20 countries.

BizMEF has just released a series of important papers, with general perspectives on the Durban negotiations, and examining business engagement, the role of technology, establishing a green climate fund, the use of carbon offsets, and competitiveness issues.

Yesterday, Ms. Kennedy published an insightful column on the website GreenBiz that notes the varying expectations of business and the governments represented in Durban, and describes the genesis and work of BizMEF.  She writes that even as business presses for meaningful progress on global measures to address climate change, government delegates are laboring under the burden of precedent-setting decisions, made some two decades ago, to bifurcate climate obligations between developed and developing countries.

“Some countries that were developing countries then, such as China and India, are now growing rapidly and are major economic forces in their own right,” writes Ms. Kennedy.  “If current trends continue in the fastest growing developing country economies, reductions made in developed countries will be cancelled out and overtaken by emissions in the BRICs in coming years.”

The United States and countries including Australia, Canada, Russia and Japan have strongly encouraged a new framework obliging all major economies, whether developed or developing, to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But, Ms. Kennedy wrote, “as evidenced in the entrenched positions being expressed here, this is prevented by the precedents that do not allow updating to reflect today’s realities.”

Staff contact: Norine Kennedy

More on USCIB’s Environment Committee

USCIB Keeps Tabs on UN Discussions of Chemicals in Products

Published on November 30, 2011

4208_image002Helen Medina, USCIB’s director of life sciences and product policy, recently attended the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) meeting of the UN’s International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM) which was held November 15-18 in Belgrade.

In 2006, ICCM adopted the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) as a policy framework to foster the sound management of chemicals.  SAICM was developed by a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral preparatory committee, and supports the achievement of the goal – agreed at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development – of ensuring that, by the year 2020, chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on the environment and human health.

The functions of the OEWG are to consider the implementation, development and enhancement of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals, and to make recommendations for ICCM3, which will be held in September 2012 in Nairobi.

The overarching issue that impacted the discussions at the OEWG surrounded the financing and technical resources for implementing SAICM goals. This included the financing of the Quick Start Program and of SAICM itself. As such, many delegates felt that unless financing and technical issues were resolved, there was little point in discussing other issues for possible inclusion on the provisional agenda of ICCM3.

To deal with the issue of long-term and short-term finance issues, the president of the meeting created a “Group of the Friends of the President” and a “Committee of the Whole (COW)” to prepare draft decisions or resolutions for possible adoption by ICCM3. Although there were several issues of interest that USCIB followed during the meeting, it was the Chemical in Products project which has generated the most interest among USCIB’s members.

SAICM is a voluntary policy framework, implemented in a multi-stakeholder process, and sets as one of its main objectives that information and knowledge about chemicals contained in products “is available, accessible, user friendly, adequate and appropriate to the needs of all stakeholders.” As a step towards fulfilling this objective, the second session of the governing body of SAICM, the International Conference  for Chemicals Management (ICCM2), in May 2009 recognized chemicals in products as an emerging policy issue, and adopted a resolution which invited UNEP to lead a Chemicals in Products (CiP) project.

Since ICCM2, the UN Environment Program, the lead agency for this topic, has been focusing its work on understanding the availability of information on CiP. There were in-depth studies in specific sectors on this topic and a workshop was held to make suggestions on how to move this project forward. The major recommendation from the workshop was to develop a voluntary framework to facilitate the flow of information on CiP.

For a more detailed report of the meeting please refer to the Draft Report of the Work of the Open-ended Working Group of the International Conference on Chemicals Management at its First meeting, the Addendum to the Draft Report of the OEWG, and the Draft Decisions Submitted by the Committee of the Whole.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

More on USCIB’s Product Policy Working Group

Business Groups Seek Reporting Relief for Employees at Worldwide Firms

Published on November 29, 2011

Earlier this month, USCIB joined several leading business groups in sending a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department, requesting less burdensome rules for Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) filings required by employees of worldwide American companies involved in global finance.

In the letter to James H. Freis, Jr., the director of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the business groups sought a reduced burden on employees of companies which report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The associations wrote: “Multinational companies are increasingly frustrated by changing rules that unnecessarily expand the FBAR filing requirements for their employees, create traps for innocent violations and potentially impose costly penalties.”

The letter stated that current FBAR rules are burdensome, complex and “create the potential for inadvertent errors by corporate finance employees.”  It said companies do not want to subject their employees to tax penalties for inadvertent failure to follow the “confusing” FBAR rules.

The primary objective of FBAR filings is to help the government detect money laundering or other criminal activity through the use of foreign financial accounts. The associations emphasized in the letter that their members do not pose a meaningful risk of such activities, and their employees should not be exposed to penalties for not making individual filings in any case.

Signing the letter in addition to USCIB were the National Foreign Trade Council, Financial Executives International Committee on Taxation, Software Finance and Tax Executives Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, TechAmerica and Information Technology Industry Council.

Staff contact: Carol Doran Klein

More on USCIB’s Taxation Committee

World Business Responds to Cannes G20 Summit Outcome

Published on November 7, 2011
ICC Chairman Gerard Worms (at right, with microphone) speaks at the B20 Summit in Cannes.
ICC Chairman Gerard Worms (at right, with microphone) speaks at the B20 Summit in Cannes.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the world business organization which USCIB represents in the United States, is urging G20 governments to put trade and investment at the heart of their Action Plan for Growth and Jobs in response to the outcomes of the Cannes G20 Summit.

“Trade has lifted millions out of poverty over the past 60 years by stimulating economic growth and job creation,” said ICC Chairman Gerard Worms.  “At a time when governments are grappling with excessive debt, a new approach to trade negotiations can be a cost-free stimulus to growth and job creation.”

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that for every 10 percent of trade that opens among G20 countries, around one million jobs are created.

ICC was encouraged by the G20’s recognition of “the merits of the multilateral trading system,” and its reaffirmation of its commitments to the Doha Development Agenda mandate and to avoid introducing new protectionist measures.  G20 leaders acknowledged the current stalemate in multilateral trade negotiations and that the Doha Round would not be concluded under current negotiating rules.

The G20 recognized the need to “pursue in 2012 fresh credible approaches to furthering negotiations” and it “directed its ministers to work on such new approaches” at the upcoming ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December in Geneva. It also encouraged the ministers to “engage into discussions on the challenges and opportunities to the multilateral trading system in a globalized economy” and to report back at the next G20 Summit in June 2012 in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Read more on ICC’s website.

More on ICC’s G20 Advisory Group (ICC website)

ICC Concludes Successful B20 in Cannes

Published on November 4, 2011

4194_image001The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), along with its partners including MEDEF (French business confederation) and the World Economic Forum (WEF), yesterday concluded an intensive two days of meetings in Cannes, France, for the G20 Business Summit (B20).

B20 CEOs, including the 20 members of ICC’s G20 Advisory Group, presented policy recommendations to G20 heads of state participating in the business summit. The policy recommendations were the product of a collaboration between the B20 working groups and those of WEF and ICC. The priorities shared with G20 leaders covered subjects including: trade and investment, financial regulation, commodities and raw materials, food security and global economic policy imperatives.

USCIB Chairman Harold McGraw III, CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies and also vice chairman of ICC, took part in the G20 Business Summit. The B20 Summit proceedings began with a briefing for participating CEOs hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris, and then continued with a series of roundtable meetings between the business and government leaders gathered in Cannes.

“Business leaders have come together to share policy priorities and to emphasize that G20 deliberations must be aligned with core business goals of open trade and investment, economic growth and job creation,” said ICC Chairman Gerard Worms. “We are responsible for ensuring that the voice of world business is heard.”

Among the G20 leaders participating in the B20 Summit were Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, South Korean President Myung-Bak Lee, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, South African President Jacob Zuma, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Russian Federation President Dimitri Medvedev.

Read more on ICC’s website.

Benefits of Self-Regulation in Marketing Put Forward at Chile Conference

Published on November 2, 2011
At the workshop in Santiago, Chile (L-R): Chris Martin (USCIB), Sebastian Goldsack Trebilcock (DMA Chile), Alvaro Díaz (AMF Variable Printing); DMA Chile President Rodrigo Edwards (Edwards Associates), Juan Pablo (Viva!), Martín Baeza (COPESA).
At the workshop in Santiago, Chile (L-R): Chris Martin (USCIB), Sebastian Goldsack Trebilcock (DMA Chile), Alvaro Díaz (AMF Variable Printing); DMA Chile President Rodrigo Edwards (Edwards Associates), Juan Pablo (Viva!), Martín Baeza (COPESA).

With business facing calls from Chilean legislators for significant new regulation in marketing and advertising, Chile’s Direct Marketing Association invited Chris Martin, USCIB’s manager for marketing and ICT policy, to address an October conference promoting self-regulation as a better alternative.  USCIB’s Marketing & Advertising Committee is focused on promoting strong and effective marketing self-regulation around the world.

In response to some privacy concerns around the potential tracking of consumer information, Chile is considering an across-the-board “opt-in” provision, which would require consumers to opt in to marketing communications on any platform, including mail, telephone, and digital.  While some countries have privacy laws around marketing and advertising, very few have in place or are considering quite as sweeping regulation as that being proposed in Chile.

“It is important for Chilean businesses and policymakers to understand how self-regulation is addressing similar privacy issues in other jurisdictions like the U.S. and Europe,” said Mr. Martin.  “Especially with regard to digital advertising, the U.S. business community has pioneered self-regulation that responds to privacy concerns and USCIB has been a forceful advocate for harmonizing a global self-regulatory approach, one that balances these important privacy issues with the need to ensure that innovative content and services on the Web can continue to be funded through advertising in order to keep them free or low-cost to consumers.”

As the U.S. affiliate to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), USCIB actively promoted new principles and standards around online advertising in the ICC’s recently revised Marketing & Advertising Code.  Available and searchable online at www.codescentre.com, the Code sets the international gold-standard for ethical standards in marketing by providing guidance to global industry and self-regulatory initiatives.

“The problem in Chile, as well as other regions that are considering privacy-focused regulation, is that policymakers often do not understand the impact of the laws they are proposing,” said Sebastián Goldsack Trebilcock, Executive Director, DMA Chile.  “Having USCIB come down and speak in Chile about what business is doing in the U.S. and globally helps us in our local efforts to educate regulators and inform the business community about self-regulatory models being deployed in other markets.”

While it may seem counter-intuitive to put forward self-regulation as an effective means of addressing privacy concerns, it has proved effective in many ways, according to Mr. Martin.  “What would the Internet look like today if strident privacy regulation had been in place at the outset of the Internet?” he asked.  “Would we have all the free content and services we enjoy today, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, free news sites and any number of these things that we take for granted?  It is worth considering.  I hope the next big idea has just as much opportunity to take hold and change our world.”

Staff contact: Chris Martin

More on USCIB’s Marketing and Advertising Committee

Silicon Valley General Counsels Learn About Emerging Global Legal Challenges

Published on November 1, 2011
USCIB’s Charlene Flick
USCIB’s Charlene Flick

On October 21, Charlene Flick, director of intellectual property and competition at USCIB, addressed the Silicon Valley Association of General Counsel in Santa Clara, California.  Ms. Flick discussed emerging legal challenges for U.S. companies as they expand internationally, and specifically how USCIB helps American industry navigate an increasingly complex global marketplace.

USCIB recently updated its Legal Issues Overview, which presents a number of key international policy issues with strong legal components as a reference for corporate counsel and other legal professionals.

“The objective of USCIB’s work,” Ms. Flick noted, “is to foster fair and predictable legal and regulatory regimes across borders to enhance seamless transactions across borders.”  Ms. Flick discussed how USCIB capitalizes on its extensive industry network to influence policy at both national and international institutions.  She then offered a selection of legal challenges that she confronts regularly in her work at USCIB, ranging from questions of jurisdiction and extraterritoriality to the adequacy of a country’s intellectual property regime and whether or not the U.S. notion of due process is respected in foreign jurisdictions in the course of a foreign enforcement action.

“Of particular interest to the general counsels was the realization that legal privilege as U.S. lawyers understand it – that communications between corporate executives and in-house lawyers are privileged and not discoverable — does not apply in all foreign jurisdictions,” Ms. Flick observed.  “The European Union, for example, does not accept this notion of legal privilege, and it is important for American companies to understand that communications internally across borders may be subject to different legal norms in the course of a foreign investigation, and how best to deal with this reality.”

Ms. Flick emphasized that advocacy should not be limited to the legislative bodies, but that influencing policy objectives should be approached on the executive and judicial fronts, as well.  She noted that as the markets globalize, policymakers will be forced to harmonize their own regulatory landscape with that of other countries to benefit their own economies.  “U.S. industry is global industry,” Ms. Flick concluded, “and it should insist upon being at the table where regulations and policies are conceived that will dictate global business.”   This, of course, is where USCIB really provides value to its members.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

USCIB Legal Issues Overview

More on USCIB’s Intellectual Property Committee

More on USCIB’s Competition Committee