Communication Department Archives

USCIB Member Marriott Wins Coveted Integrity Award

Published on October 30, 2018

 

USCIB member company Marriott International won the 2018 Corporate Leadership Award from the Coalition for Integrity, a leading U.S. anti-bribery, anti-corruption organization.  Marriott was awarded the prestigious Corporate Leadership award at the Coalition’s annual awards dinner held in Washington, DC on October 29.

Marriott International’s Chief Compliance Officer William Dempster accepted the award for Marriott and delivered brief remarks.  Marriott was singled out for its efforts to foster a culture of accountability and anti-corruption compliance.  The Ethisphere Institute has recognized the company for 11 years as one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies.”

For the fifth time in the eight years the Coalition has been presenting its Corporate Leadership award, a USCIB member company was honored. Marriott joins a distinguished list of other USCIB member companies including General Electric, Coco-Cola,  PepsiCo, and Bechtel which have also received the coveted award.

USCIB Vice President Shaun Donnelly, a member of the Coalition for Integrity’s Policy Advisory Board, and USCIB Senior Director for Trade, Investment and Financial Services Eva Hampl represented USCIB at the awards dinner.  Donnelly and Hampl lead USCIB’s anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy work, including with the U.S. Government and with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)  in Paris and other international partners.

“USCIB is delighted to one of our leading member companies win the Coalition’s Corporate Leadership Award again this year,” commented Donnelly.  Marriott is a great example of principled, proactive leadership in combating bribery and corruption.  We are proud of the work Marriott and other member companies are doing every day in this important policy area.”

Remembering Bruce Wilson, Who Grew USCIB’s ATA Carnet Service

Published on October 30, 2018
Bruce Wilson

USCIB members, friends and staff are mourning the loss of Bruce Wilson, an innovator in international trade, logistics and insurance who headed USCIB’s ATA Carnet department for more than a decade. Wilson passed away on October 17 at age 87.

“Bruce Wilson was a big part of my life and that of the USCIB,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter M. Robinson. “We learned a lot from his acumen, business sense and creativity.”

ATA Carnets are international customs documents than enable the temporary, duty-free importation of numerous types of products – including goods for trade shows and product demonstrations, as well as professional equipment – to scores of countries and customs territories for up to one year. The worldwide ATA Carnet system is overseen by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).

Joining USCIB as director of Carnet operations in 1987, Wilson helped to significantly expand and strengthen the organization’s role as the U.S. national guaranteeing association in the worldwide ATA Carnet system. The company he founded, Corporation for International Business, serves as one of two recognized USCIB service providers for ATA Carnets (the other is Roanoke Insurance Group, Inc.).

Wilson traveled extensively, representing USCIB at ICC and WCO gatherings, developing a deep understanding of both North American and international surety markets. One of his many accomplishments at USCIB was the development and implementation of a bilateral agreement between the United States and Taiwan, Province of China that mirrors the ATA Carnet system, thereby opening Taiwan to additional U.S trade and trade promotion.

“Bruce helped and mentored many people around him,” said Glendy Sung, USCIB’s director of Carnet operations. “His impact on others was exceptional.”

Darren Maynard, who has worked for several years with USCIB on the global development of the ATA Carnet system, added: “It is a significant loss to the Carnet world. Bruce helped shape the industry into what it is today.”

Wilson is survived by his wife Kathleen; a son Curt; daughters Leslie August and Moira; his former wife, Kathryn M. Hamann; and grandsons Nikolai, Henry, Chuck and Harrison.

Memorial services will be held on November 10 at Davenport Family Funeral Home and Crematory, 149 West Main Street in Barrington, IL. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made in Wilson’s name to The Salvation Army, Chicago Metropolitan Division or to Save the Children.

ICANN Focuses on Policy Priorities for Domain Names

Published on October 30, 2018

ICANN 63’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) wrapped up on October 25 in Barcelona, Spain, marking the 20th anniversary of ICANN. The AGM brought together roughly 3,000 participants from business, government, civil society, and the technical community from across the world to focus on policy priorities for the domain name system (DNS).

The meeting was dominated by ICANN stakeholder efforts to develop a formal policy to replace the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data (Temp Spec).

“The Temp Spec was designed to ensure that ICANN and the industry of more than 1,000 generic top-level domain (gTLD) registries and registrars meet existing ICANN contractual requirements concerning the collection of registration data, as well as comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),” reflected USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner. “A special group of ICANN’s policy-making body spent most of the meeting focused on moving forward the ‘expedited policy development process’ (EPDP) that must replace the Temp Spec by May 25, 2019.”

ICANN’s proposed Draft Framework for a Possible Unified Access Model for Continued Access to Full WHOIS Data (UAM) was also in the spotlight. At ICANN 63, the Business Constituency (BC), of which USCIB is a member, continued to press ICANN to undertake work to implement the UAM concurrent with the EPDP. In addition, the BC urged emergency interim measures to enable third-party access to WHOIS data, citing already extraordinary economic and security costs stemming from spikes in cybersecurity attacks, cybercrime, and brand and IP infringement.

Wanner participated in the October 20-25 meetings in her capacity as the BC’s representative to the Commercial Stakeholder Group (CSG), a position that has enabled greater input to policy discussions at the CSG executive committee-level on behalf of USCIB members and facilitated important meetings with senior ICANN officials and other key constituencies. At ICANN 63, in particular, this entailed coordinating with CSG partners to support the election of USCIB member Keith Drazek (VeriSign) to GNSO Council Chair, a position that will be key to shepherding work on the EPDP and third-party data access.

USCIB Defends Pro-Investment Policies at UNCTAD

Published on October 30, 2018

USCIB Vice President for Investment and Financial Services Shaun Donnelly was in Geneva last week (October 22-26) leading international business advocacy efforts at the annual World Investment Forum (WIF) hosted by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Donnelly led a small, but outspoken, group of business representatives, including the European Service Forum and BDI, Germany’s large business organization, and participated in a few sessions, being a constant business presence throughout the course of the week.

According to Donnelly, UNCTAD seems to remain a forum dominated by developing country representatives, academics, and non-government organization activists, often with anti-business orientations. UNCTAD did however include some leading CEOs from Novartis, Nestle, DeBeers and Ethiopian Airlines on opening plenary panels, all of whom provided excellent, candid remarks on why and how major businesses invest abroad. Donnelly and his colleagues followed suit.

“We spoke up forcefully the rest of the week on the important, indeed indispensable, role Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays in financing economic development and providing critical capital for achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing economies,” noted Donnelly.

Donnelly was included as one of the kickoff speakers (the only one representing business views) at the annual high-level experts meeting on International Investment Agreements (IIAs). “We all need strong, comprehensive investment agreements, including effective Investor-State Dispute Settlement (“ISDS”) enforcement provisions that are essential to support the required substantial FDI flows,” said Donnelly. “I also had the opportunity to directly challenge some European Union representatives pushing their bureaucratized ‘Multilateral Investment Court’ as an alternative to the proved ISDS systems.”

Donnelly also represented business on a side-event panel, alongside government representatives from Canada and Nigeria, that was organized by the UN Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the World Bank affiliate whose rules and procedures, currently being updated, have long governed most ISDS dispute processes.  Additionally, Donnelly was able to speak privately with senior government officials at, and on, the margins of various plenary sessions, panels and side events.

“We need to be realistic,” said Donnelly, reflecting on his week on the front lines of international investment policy debates. “After all, it’s UNCTAD and there are a lot of pressures out there, helpful or otherwise, pressing for major reforms of established treaties, rules, and procedures for protecting and incentivizing FDI flows.  ISDS is particularly under political attack.  A week on the front lines at UNCTAD, while not always fun, is something we need to do as a business community to be taken seriously in the global debates on investment policies, protections and procedures. I can’t say we carried the day but I hope we were able to give some of the serious, open-minded government representatives a few different perspectives on these important investment and SDG issues.  I emphasized that if the investment rules and procedures don’t work for business or aren’t perceived to fair and balanced, business isn’t going to invest. And no one wins.  If they truly are seeking productive solutions, governments and international organizations need to include business as a true partner in these investment policy debates and decision-making. Frankly, at this point, the jury is still out on whether that will really happen as governments consider moves to revise or replace investment long-established agreements. But we at USCIB intend to continue speaking up assertively on these important issues.”

Hampl Emphasizes Importance of Foreign Investment at OECD

Published on October 29, 2018

 

USCIB Senior Director for Investment, Trade and Financial Services Eva Hampl was in Paris last week participating in investment and trade related meetings at the OECD October 23-24. Hampl had a speaking role in every meeting, sharing business views, opportunities and concerns. Hampl’s speaking engagements kicked off with the Business at OECD consultation with the OECD Investment Committee. Business at OECD had submitted three short papers on issues of important to business in investment, covering issues such as investment policies related to national security, the importance of a well-designed investment protection mechanism and foreign direct investment qualities.

“We underlined the issue of global value chains and the rules-based trading system, specifically on the importance of strong investment protection mechanisms (ISDS), particularly in light of recent developments to erode those protection for many industries,” said Hampl. “The evening prior, we had an open and frank discussion with the Head of Investment in the OECD Secretariat, as well as the Chair of the OECD Investment Committee, which provided another opportunity to raise our various issues of concern in a more informal setting.”

Hampl also attended a joint meeting of the OECD Trade and Investment Committees, which included a presentation on the OECD Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) by the OECD. At the consultation, Hampl made an official intervention on behalf of Business at OECD, expressing USCIB’s support of the joint meeting, and raising some of USCIB’s priority issues, including the multilateral trading system (WTO reform), state-owned enterprises, and digital trade.

Additionally Hampl served as a discussant on behalf of Business at OECD at a Policy Network Meeting on the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Qualities, during which she expressed general support for the project and underlined the importance of investment. According to Hampl, the draft paper is quite good already, specifically stating that it is not attempting to categorize between good and bad investment, and is focused on measurable outcomes. Hampl also had the opportunity to underline the importance of an open investment environment and concern that recent trends of protectionist policies are harmful to business during her role as discussant in the First Roundtable on Investment and Sustainable Development.

 

USCIB Notes Importance of Free Data Flows for Economic Growth

Published on October 29, 2018
Eva Hampl (USCIB)

The OECD hosted its annual Global Forum on Trade on October 22 in Paris, which focused on Trade in the Digital Era. The agenda included sessions on digital transformation and what it means for trade, measuring digital trade, digital trade and market openness, data flows, and discussing priorities for trade policy makers.

USCIB Senior Director for Trade, Investment and Financial Services Eva Hampl participated in the event as a panelist in the session on data flows. Her fellow panelists included Deputy Assistant USTR for Telecommunications Policy Jonathan McHale, Head of Unit, Services, DG Trade Christophe Kiener, and Senior Policy Advisor, European Digital Rights Maryant Fernandez Perez. The session was moderated by OECD’s Julia Nielson, head of the emerging policy issues division. After a brief introduction from Nielson, OECD Trade Policy Analyst Javier Lopez Gonzalez set the scene by providing the audience with a short factual presentation on some of the key issues on data flows from a trade point of view.

“Free flow of data and information is critical for economic development and growth, and that data should be allowed to flow across borders in a secure manner,” said Hampl. “The free flow of data is now a central part of global value chains and a major requirement for a wide range of manufacturing and services industries. Consultation with business in the regulatory process is key in avoiding detrimental and counterproductive effects of problematic localization measures.”

“Looking forward, useful work in international forums includes continuing to address these issues in the G20, progressing the WTO E-Commerce initiative, and the OECD playing an important role not only in defining and quantifying these important issues, but also educating particularly non-OECD countries about the value of free data flows,” she added. Most of the panelists agreed that a fragmented approach is not sustainable.

The day-long event that focused on digital trade included engaged discussion in virtually every session, showing just how important this issue is to many countries. The OECD recognizes this issue as a key priority, and has several active work streams in this space.

Robinson Helps Celebrate World Food Prize

Published on October 23, 2018
L-R: Peter Robinson (USCIB), Jane Nelson (Harvard), Gov. John Hickenlooper, Ellen de Brabender (PepsiCo)
USCIB played an important role in marking this year’s World Food Prize, which was presented last week in Des Moines, Iowa
USCIB’s President and CEO moderated a panel on public-private partnerships to improve global nutrition

The World Food Prize is the foremost international honor recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. This year’s co-winner, Dr. Lawrence Haddad, brought the issue of nutrition to the forefront by using both economic and medical research to convince development leaders to make child nutrition an urgent priority in the global food security agenda. USCIB has partnered with Dr. Haddad’s organization, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to promote and strengthen public-private partnerships to help achieve global nutrition goals.

(Click here to read a Devex interview with Dr. Haddad.) A video of the event is posted below:

As part of this year’s World Food Prize celebration last week in Des Moines, Iowa, the 2018 Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium convened an impressive array of international leaders; policy makers; farmers; executives from agribusiness and non-governmental organizations; and scientific, academic and development experts to address the most critical issues facing global food security.

USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson moderated a panel discussion with Dr. Haddad to highlight the importance of public-private partnerships in achieving optimal nutritional outcomes, framed by the GAIN-USCIB Guiding Principles of Engagement between Governments and Business to Improve Nutrition.The panel featured Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, PepsiCo Senior Vice President for Research and Development Dr. Ellen de Brabander, and Jane Nelson of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative.

The future of food continues to be one of the most pressing global challenges, with malnutrition profoundly affecting every country. Progress towards the ambitious 2030 SDGs is too slow; the scale and complexity of the problem underscores the need for deepened collaboration and renewed commitment to improving nutrition outcomes for all, especially the most vulnerable. Countries cannot achieve their SDG goals without an aligned, motivated and incentivized private sector as a key partner. Improved dialogue and collaboration between government, business, civil society and international organizations is crucial for guiding engagement and focusing efforts where they can have the most sustainable impact and long-term success.

Global food and agriculture constitute a $7.8 trillion industry, employing up to 40 percent of the working population in many countries. In recognition of the essential role played by the private sector, a dialogue was convened in October 2017 in New York by the USCIB Foundation and GAIN. This event developed a draft set of “Principles of Engagement” between the public and private sectors to help guide and promote greater positive collaboration.

A second high-level dialogue will be convened next month in Rome to explore practical, tangible ways to implement and scale coordinated initiatives to put the draft Principles into practice. The program will focus on both under-nutrition and the rise of overweight and obesity, as well as the associated diet related non-communicable diseases. Those invited to contribute to this dialogue will include leaders of governments, development agencies and the private sector, from a wide range of countries, with a particular focus on developing countries with high burdens of malnutrition.

USCIB Outlines AI Policy Priorities

Published on October 23, 2018
Digital technologies and the online environment enabled by them present unprecedented opportunity to raise productivity and generate economic growth.
Close cooperation with business can ensure that regulatory approaches create a holistic framework that enables business investment.

In response to a Federal Register request for information concerning the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Development Strategic Plan, USCIB submitted comments outlining AI policy priorities.

“USCIB members believe that digital technologies and the online environment enabled by them present unprecedented opportunity to raise productivity, foster creativity and innovation, generate economic growth, build trust, and enhance social prosperity,” said USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner. “Key to realizing these social and economic benefits, however, are policies that ensure an open, safe, secure, stable, interoperable, seamless, and sustainable Internet.”

The comments submitted by USCIB emphasized that serving as essential complements are policies that encourage both private investment and public-private partnerships in the R&D needed to drive innovation and realize the potential of AI and other emerging technologies. Such policies are most effectively developed when informed by stakeholder engagement.

“Government policymakers can benefit from close cooperation with business, academia and other stakeholders to ensure that the legal, policy, and regulatory approaches implemented create a holistic framework that enables sustainable business investment in infrastructure and product innovation, includes technically feasible solutions, and offers appropriate privacy and human rights protections,” added Wanner. “The participation of a full complement of stakeholders best ensures that decisions concerning R&D and related policies avoid unintended consequences or outcomes that fall short of expectations. Importantly, a multistakeholder approach will help to build trust and dispel fears that could undermine realization of AI’s economic and societal benefits.”

Robinson Contributes Letter to FT on Making Internet Affordable to All

Published on October 23, 2018

FT featured a letter by USCIB CEO and President Peter Robinson in response to an editorial “The web should be open to all the world’s citizens” on October 11.

In the letter, Robinson emphasizes the important role of public-private partnerships as crucial to broadening access to the internet, noting that companies such as Google, Ericsson, Facebook, Intel and Microsoft are already moving ahead in this regard.

“Focused on driving prices down to meet the UN Broadband Commission target of entry-level broadband services priced at less than 5 percent of monthly income, they are working with governments and other stakeholders in countries as diverse as Nigeria, the Dominican Republic and Myanmar to make the internet more affordable and accessible,” writes Robinson.

The full letter can be found here, subscription to FT required.

Donnelly Talks USMCA Investment Developments at Sidley Austin Panel

Published on October 23, 2018
An impressive audience of trade and law experts from around Washington attended and peppered the panel with questions.
Early reactions to the new USMCA agreement included questions and criticism in business circles that the new pact seems to reduce well-established investment protections, especially ISDS arbitration procedures to settle disputes.

 

USCIB Vice President for Investment and Financial Services Shaun Donnelly joined senior officials of the Canadian and Mexican embassies in Washington on a panel on “What Does NAFTA 2.0 Mean for Investor Protection in North America and Beyond?”  The session was hosted by a leading Washington law firm, Sidley Austin, and co-sponsored by the American Society of International Law.

An impressive audience of trade and law experts from around Washington attended and peppered the panel with questions. Both the Embassy officials, Minister Counselor form the Canadian Embassy Colin Bird and Mexico Embassy Counselor Aristeo Lopez Sanchez, had been intimately involved in the long-running NAFTA/USMCA negotiations on the Investment Chapter. Early reactions to the just announced new USMCA agreement has included many questions and some criticism in business circles that the new pact seems to reduce well-established investment protections in the NAFTA, especially the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (“ISDS”) arbitration procedures to settle disputes between foreign investors and host government. According to Donnelly, the discussions and questions at the panel were very detailed and candid.

“I thought we had an excellent and very candid discussion,” said Donnelly. “The two Embassy experts were outstanding and very knowledgeable. The moderator, Sidley Austin Partner Marinn Carlson, did a great job of setting the context and focusing the session on specific provision of the new USMCA. I appreciated the opportunity to represent broad U.S. business views, questions, and concerns. We at USCIB and our member companies are currently trying to dig into the detailed provisions on the USMCA on investment and other important chapters. This Sidley/ASIL session really helped me to both get more detailed information from the government experts and to lay on the table some important questions and concerns we in the business community are looking at.  It was an excellent session.”