Shell's fair weather friends show faces

Current Account: Its been a tough 12 months for the embattled staff of Shell's Irish operation.

Accused of various heinous crimes against the west of Ireland, the company has had to endure a sustained campaign of opposition. Some opponents of the Corrib pipeline have stated that their struggle is on a par with Michael Davitt's fight for land reform. When put in those epic terms it is no surprise Shell executives have constantly been painted as the bad guys.

But what may come as a surprise to many casual observers of this long-running dispute is that Shell is only one of three shareholders in the Corrib project. Marathon and Statoil are also shareholders. Not that you would necessarily know this. Their role in the whole saga has been somewhat . . . muted over the last few months.

For months all press releases concerning the project made little or no mention of either company, just Shell. While this is understandable - Shell is after all the operator - surely the more sensitive statements, particularly about the Rossport Five, might have prompted the other two shareholders to stick their heads above the corporate parapet.

Well - surprise, surprise - when the good news emerged this week about a positive safety review, Marathon and Statoil appeared back in the limelight welcoming the report.

EU sets example in price-fixing fines

The EU Commission has handed down fines totalling €338 million on seven members of a chemicals cartel that fixed prices for bleaching chemicals used in the production of textiles.

Big as they were, such penalties were but the third-largest to be imposed by the commission. This serves to illustrate the risks run by the biggest of price-fixers, who have rather a lot to gain by restricting competition and the fair operation of the market.

But if the recent conviction of a home-oil cartel in Galway city and county indicates that the Irish authorities are finally getting their act together, the fines were paltry by comparison with the EU chemcials case.

The 12 individuals and companies already penalised by the courts received fines for a grand total of €61,500. No doubt, the Galway affair was of a somewhat modest nature when compared with the scale of the chemical conspiracy.

Neverthelesss, the fact that the biggest individual fine was €15,000 is hardly a deterrent to people who wish to fix prices.

Putting the smee in SME

Current Account has noticed that the jargon-heavy worlds of technology and management have produced yet another linguistic abomination - the "smee".

A smee - or smees in the plural - is a small or medium-sized enterprise, often described as an S-M-E.

But management-speak gurus couldn't leave it at the initials, which are bad enough, they had to go the whole hog and blend them into smee.

In a world where even lawyers, who've been speaking in a hotch-potch of French and Latin for centuries, have decided to opt for plain English, it's ridiculous that some business people are determined to invent a language all of their own.

Seriously jargon lovers: you should lighten up and try plain English. It will aid you in aligning the skill sets necessary to achieve improved interpersonal interaction (in short, it might help you to make some friends).

Buffets tips ukeleles

Warren Buffett has a knack for creative fundraising for his favourite charities. Buffett, whose annual shareholder meeting takes place this weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, plans to auction an autographed ukelele on eBay, with proceeds going to the Omaha Children's Hospital. The auction starts on May 15th and, given Buffett's cultish following, is likely to raise quite a lot for the cause.

In 1999, Buffett auctioned his 20-year-old wallet - which held the name of a stock. And in a similar charity auction last year, a bidder paid $351,100 for the chance to have dinner with the billionaire.

We will soon find out whether a ukelele designed to look like a Dairy Queen ice cream cone commands a higher price than a meal with the man who owns Dairy Queen.