Planet business

LAURA SLATTERYperuses the week in business

Court date

The Icelandic parliament has voted to send former prime minister Geir Haarde to a special court, called the Landsdomur, on charges of negligence over his role in the financial crisis that crippled Iceland’s economy at the end of 2008. An investigation committee found that Haarde and his ministerial colleagues should have realised the extent of Iceland’s financial problems months before the crash but “lacked both the power and the courage to set reasonable limits to the financial system”. Haarde, who claims he is the victim of political revenge, has branded his indictment “absurd” and notes that bringing charges against him will set a “terrible precedent”.

Dictionary Corner: 'A pig in a poke'

No business jargon this week, but an archaic phrase resurrected in the context of the bank guarantee. Government backbencher Ned O'Keeffe claimed "we were sold a pig in a poke", an expression in English (with varieties in other tongues) going back to at least the 16th century to describe the foolish acceptance of a deal or plan without either prior examination or a full understanding of its basis.

$5 billion

The sum that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is investing in Greece as part of “a new phase for the Greek economy”, according to its investment minister.

Anger is not a policy

- Ireland’s debt management tsar Brian Lenihan tries to stave off the arrival of concrete mixers at Leinster House.

STATUS UPDATE:Ranking triumph: Ireland has climbed from 14th to sixth place in a Forbes ranking of Best Countries for Business, thanks to its friendly lack of red tape and low tax burden for corporate entities.

Safety game: Bob Dudley, the new boss of BP, has created a safety division with "sweeping powers" in order to "rebuild trust" after the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe. Is it possible to sweep oil?

Scooter death: James Heselden (62), the owner of the company that makes Segway electric scooters, has died after plunging from a cliff, apparently while touring his property on a Segway.

Should workers be forced to clock off for cigarette breaks?

"Workers might not be paid for cigarette breaks" is a headline sure to strike a combination of fear, anger and despair into the lungs of die-hard smokers for whom workplace walls transmogrify into a giant curtain of fog once a couple of nicotine-free hours grind by. Irish workers who don't already smoke on their own time can relax their tensing shoulders for the moment, however. The headline in question applies to a council in Norfolk that is set to join the increasing number of British public bodies to either ban smoke breaks during work hours, prohibit smoking outside the premises or force staff to make up time spent with their beloved packet of 20.

Rather than own up to a doomed attempt to boost productivity through micro-management, council authorities claimed the move was designed to make it fairer for individuals who did not smoke. This theme was taken up by the Daily Mail, which said it was a “constant source of friction among workers” that smokers were allowed to “pop out for a cigarette while non-smoking workers continue to toil”.

Planet Business does not smoke, but nevertheless sides with one Simon Clark, of smokers lobby group Forest, on this one. “Are they going to introduce clocking in and off for people who go on the internet or on Facebook, or people who want to have a cup of coffee?” Nooooo.

Indeed, while some workers enjoy a good grumble about the work ethics of their colleagues, others pragmatically claim equality of downtime by informally totting up smokers’ drag duration and applying it to such pursuits as fantasy football team management, Sudoku proficiency, Twitter lurking, muffin savouring and (old-time office favourite) staring vacantly into space. Smokers are not slackers, declared Clark – well, perhaps they are, but no more or less so than anyone else.

The advice is, in effect, that of the Latin caveat emptor or buyer beware, but it has a literal origin, dating from a time when pig meat was scarce and valuable, but cats were not. Unsuspecting victims of confidence tricksters who went to buy a pig in a poke often later discovered that the wriggling sack or bag (the “poke”) did not contain a piglet, but a cat – and, as all good cooks know, cats are useless in a casserole.