Last Tuesday, the European Commission raided the offices of oil companies Shell, BP and Statoil in an investigation of suspected manipulation of oil prices, one of the biggest cross-border actions since the Libor rigging scandal. Authorities have sharpened their scrutiny of financial benchmarks around the world since imposing substantial fines on some of the world’s biggest banks for rigging interest rate benchmarks. The EC said it was investigating major oil companies over suspected anti-competitive agreements related to submission of prices to leading oil pricing agency Platts, a unit of McGraw Hill Group. The inspections took place in two EU member states and one non-EU country, it said. “The commission has concerns that the companies may have colluded in reporting distorted prices...

Time stops when you pass through the doors of the Flatiron Room, a ‘spirits parlour’ in Manhattan, according to New York magazine: “Fifties-era Italian floral wallpaper, rolling library ladders, and a chandelier that once hung in the Smithsonian set the anachronistic mood; live jazz, performed on a velvet curtained stage, seals ye olde deal.” But, it says, what really takes a tippler back is the whisky. In its ‘Where To Drink Now’ section last week, the magazine helpfully noted that at the Flatiron Room, if you take a liking to a particular spirit and buy a bottle, it’ll be tagged with your name and stored in a private locker. And of the nearly 700 bottles available, it name-checked two; a 27-year-old limited run Glenmorangie Pride – “sip slowly; it’s $800 per dram”...

It was a good start to the week. A Bank of Scotland survey of around 600 purchasing managers in Scottish companies recorded the fastest increase in business activity for 12 months. In turn, firms had responded by creating more jobs with employment rising at the fastest pace in nine months. The expansion was broad-based by sector, with a return to growth in factory output accompanying a further rise in activity at services firms. Not only that, Scotland outperformed the UK as whole. Donald MacRae, Chief Economist at Bank of Scotland, said last Monday: “April’s PMI climbed to a twelve month high signalling growth in the private sector of the Scottish economy at the start of the second quarter of the year. “Both business activity and employment grew in the manufacturing and services...

TOPICAL QUESTION TIME 14.05.13: North Sea oil and gas production Rhoda Grant (Highlands and Islands) (Lab) asked the Scottish Government whether it considered that North Sea oil and gas production will continue for the rest of the century. The Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing said it was estimated that 24,000 million barrels of oil are still to be recovered, with a potential wholesale value of up to £1.5trn: “However, some industry estimates suggest that the figure could be substantially higher. Despite numerous predictions from London that the oil was running out in the 1980s, the 1990s and the noughties, today we still have an industry that continues to thrive and expand. Indeed, the industry itself predicts that capital investment will rise to more than...

When his communications team read that 15 per cent of Scottish people have red hair, Mark Treacy was considered a natural choice to be despatched north. Treacy, actually from Carlow in Ireland, was in Glasgow last month to speak at Digital 2013, the annual conference for Scotland’s digital and creative industries. Formerly with Google in Dublin, Treacy is now an international account director with LinkedIn, based in London and working with large enterprises to help them reach and influence key audiences in the online network for professionals. It’s a testament to our times that he made the switch from the search giant, first to the London School of Business and Finance, where he transformed its online presence, then LinkedIn. Treacy joined in February 2011 – just as the company was...