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The number of days lost to industrial disputes in 2018 was the lowest since 2012, according to the annual report from the Workplace Relations Commission.

The number of adjudications heard last year increased by 20% on 2017, with 5,312 adjudication hearings held

The number of adjudication decisions up by 32%. Overall, the number of mediations increased by 220% compared to 2017.

In total, 4,050 days were lost to industrial relations disputes.

The WRC also carried out two focused inspection campaigns in the equine and fisheries sectors last year.

These two sectors had the highest level of breach rates of inspections concluded by the WRC in 2018.

Welcoming the report's publication, Minister of State Pat Breen said: "Last year was a very successful year for the WRC".

"As the economy continues to do well, we must ensure that those in work are paid what they are due and the WRC is playing a significant role in the pursuit of this objective," he said

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WRC says 4,050 days lost to disputes in 2018

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The number of days lost to industrial disputes in 2018 was the lowest since 2012, according to the annual report from the Workplace Relations Commission. The number of adjudications heard last year increased by 20% on 2017, with 5,312 adjudication hearings held The number of adjudication decisions up by 32%.

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Impact of Brexit on Financial Services sector

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A total of 28 companies have committed to relocating staff or operations to the capital since the June 2016 referendum

Dublin is still the most popular location for financial services firms relocating after Brexit, according to EY's latest Brexit tracker.

A total of 28 companies have committed to relocating staff or operations to the capital since the June 2016 referendum.

Frankfurt is second most popular with 21, with Luxembourg third on 19 and Paris fourth on 18.

The tracker does not provide detail on the scale of the staff/operations being moved here, but EY estimates that more than £1.1trn of assets could leave the UK.

"The number of jobs that could relocate from the UK to Europe in the near future stands at around 7,000," the professional services firm said.

According to recent IDA figures, 5,000 jobs from 70 different companies have been committed to Ireland as a whole because of Brexit.

Cormac Kelly, financial services Brexit lead for EY in Ireland, said: "It comes as no surprise that the ongoing political uncertainty surrounding Brexit is continuing to drive organisations to relocate business, people and balance sheet out of London to European centres, specifically Dublin.

"We are seeing this first-hand with the arrival of these firms who are taking new office space and recruiting talent as well as seconding experts from their worldwide offices into high-value, skilled roles in Dublin.

"Much remains to do for these firms, however their plans are well under way - plans which are not easy to reverse, certainly in the near-term. Whatever the political outcome, it is clear that Ireland is becoming a leading hub for financial services in Europe."

The report also tracks so-called 'Globally Systemically Important Banks' (GSIBs). It defines these as "banks whose systemic risk profile is deemed to be of such importance that the bank's failure would trigger a wider financial crisis and threaten the global economy".

Ireland comes in third place when it comes to attracting GSIBs, having attracted six here, EY said. Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank, was first with 12, with Paris second on eight.

EY Ireland chief economist Prof Neil Gibson said the tracker results were "a reminder that while disruption of any kind is challenging, it also brings with it opportunity."

He said the results show Dublin is "making the most of its potential".

Central Bank deputy governor Ed Sibley told the Irish Independent last week that financial firms' Brexit relocations would likely come in two phases.

After an initial shift by firms copperfastening EU access, a second phase will follow when the nature of Brexit eventually becomes clear.

"We are a long way through the first phase," Mr Sibley said, saying there had been more than 100 applications to the Central Bank seeking either a fresh authorisation for activity here or an extension to existing authorisations.

Indo Business

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Dublin top Brexit pick for financial firms fleeing UK - Independent.ie

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Dublin is still the most popular location for financial services firms relocating after Brexit, according to EY's latest Brexit tracker. A total of 28 companies have committed to relocating staff or operations to the capital since the June 2016 referendum. Frankfurt is second most popular with 21, with Luxembourg third on 19 and Paris fourth on 18.

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The importance of market research when Global Marketing

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Controversial St Patrick's Day t-shirt pulled from shelves as American retailer apologises for 'unintended offence' - Independent.ie

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An American clothing brand has apologised after manufacturing a St Patrick's Day t-shirt with Northern Ireland removed from the map of Ireland. J.Crew apologised for any offence caused and confirmed that they had removed the t-shirt from sale. The t-shirt was widely mocked on social media after images of it were shared on Twitter.

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Check out @VirginMediaNews’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/VirginMediaNews/status/1097590324975812608?s=09

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https://youtu.be/gHvGTHMhcLY

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Digital Camera Sales 2003-2018

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Apple has agreed to pay 10 years of back taxes to France, marking the latest victory for European governments pushing tech multinationals to pay their fair share in local markets.

The iPhone and iPad maker reportedly shelled out close to €500m (£440m) after reaching a confidential settlement with French authorities in December, according to the French news magazine L'Express.

Apple has not disclosed the size of the settlement, but said in a statement: "The French tax authority recently concluded a multiyear audit of our French accounts and the adjustment will be reflected in our publicly filed accounts.

Related: Facebook, Google and Amazon could pay 'fair' tax under EU plans

"We know the important role tax payments play in society and we pay all that we owe according to tax laws and local customs wherever we operate."

American tech firms such as Apple have been heavily criticised for the small amounts of tax they pay in EU countries including France and the UK relative to the billions of pounds in sales they report in these states.

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, recently announced plans to introduce a special digital services tax by 2020 on online firms making more than £500m globally per year. It's expected that the tax would raise more than £400m annually for government coffers.

Related: From Seattle to Luxembourg: how tax schemes shaped Amazon

France is also introducing its own "GAFA tax" - referring to Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon - which would affect tech companies with global sales of more than €750m and €25m in France. That law would be retroactive to 1 January and is expected to raise €500m this year.

The country's settlement with Apple follows a spate of successful challenges launched by European authorities over unpaid tax in recent years.

In 2016, Apple was ordered to pay €13bn in back taxes to Ireland by the European commission, which said the company paid a tax rate of just 0.005% on its European profits two years earlier.

Amazon also ended a protracted battle with France in 2018 after agreeing to pay the state €200m and saying it would start to declare all its earnings in the country.

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Apple to pay 10 years of back taxes to France

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Apple has agreed to pay 10 years of back taxes to France, marking the latest victory for European governments pushing tech multinationals to pay their fair share in local markets. The iPhone and iPad maker reportedly shelled out close to €500m (£440m) after reaching a confidential settlement with French authorities in December, according to the French news magazine L'Express.

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The movement of goods, to, from and through the UK will become more difficult once the UK leaves the EU.  Learn the key Customs processes and create an action plan with Enterprise Ireland’s free Customs Insights course. Register now!

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The movement of goods, to, from and through the UK will become more difficult once the UK leaves the EU.  Learn the key Customs processes and create an action plan with Enterprise Ireland’s free Customs Insights course. Register now!

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The movement of goods, to, from and through the UK will become more difficult once the UK leaves the EU. Learn the key Customs processes and create an action plan with Enterprise Ireland’s free Customs Insights course. Register now!
— Enterprise Ireland (@Entirl) December 19, 2018

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
The movement of goods, to, from and through the UK will become more difficult once the UK leaves the EU.  Learn the key Customs processes and create an action plan with Enterprise Ireland’s free Customs Insights course. Register now!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
The movement of goods, to, from and through the UK will become more difficult once the UK leaves the EU.  Learn the key Customs processes and create an action plan with Enterprise Ireland’s free Customs Insights course. Register now!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
The movement of goods, to, from and through the UK will become more difficult once the UK leaves the EU.  Learn the key Customs processes and create an action plan with Enterprise Ireland’s free Customs Insights course. Register now!

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I didn't think it was possible, but a #NoDealBrexit sounds an even dumber idea when you listen to American TV reporting it.

'When Big Ben strikes 11pm on the 29th of March the UK government will declare a critical incident."

#PeoplesVote #FinalSay #RevokeA50

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I didn't think it was possible, but a #NoDealBrexit sounds an even dumber idea when you listen to American TV reporting it.

'When Big Ben strikes 11pm on the 29th of March the UK government will declare a critical incident."

#PeoplesVote #FinalSay #RevokeA50 https://t.co/PaBiJPO5wD

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I didn't think it was possible, but a #NoDealBrexit sounds an even dumber idea when you listen to American TV reporting it.

'When Big Ben strikes 11pm on the 29th of March the UK government will declare a critical incident."#PeoplesVote #FinalSay #RevokeA50 pic.twitter.com/PaBiJPO5wD
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) February 1, 2019

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
I didn't think it was possible, but a #NoDealBrexit sounds an even dumber idea when you listen to American TV reporting it.

'When Big Ben strikes 11pm on the 29th of March the UK government will declare a critical incident."

#PeoplesVote #FinalSay #RevokeA50 https://t.co/PaBiJPO5wD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
I didn't think it was possible, but a #NoDealBrexit sounds an even dumber idea when you listen to American TV reporting it.

'When Big Ben strikes 11pm on the 29th of March the UK government will declare a critical incident."

#PeoplesVote #FinalSay #RevokeA50 https://t.co/PaBiJPO5wD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
I didn't think it was possible, but a #NoDealBrexit sounds an even dumber idea when you listen to American TV reporting it.

'When Big Ben strikes 11pm on the 29th of March the UK government will declare a critical incident."

#PeoplesVote #FinalSay #RevokeA50

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Midnight in Tokyo, 16:00 in Brussels. The #EUJapan agreement now applies to European products reaching Japan. And in a few more hours, to Japanese products reaching Europe. #EUTrade

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Midnight in Tokyo, 16:00 in Brussels. The #EUJapan agreement now applies to European products reaching Japan. And in a few more hours, to Japanese products reaching Europe. #EUTrade https://t.co/8HW6rrYv3H

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Midnight in Tokyo, 16:00 in Brussels. The #EUJapan agreement now applies to European products reaching Japan. And in a few more hours, to Japanese products reaching Europe. #EUTrade pic.twitter.com/8HW6rrYv3H
— Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 31, 2019

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Midnight in Tokyo, 16:00 in Brussels. The #EUJapan agreement now applies to European products reaching Japan. And in a few more hours, to Japanese products reaching Europe. #EUTrade https://t.co/8HW6rrYv3H

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Midnight in Tokyo, 16:00 in Brussels. The #EUJapan agreement now applies to European products reaching Japan. And in a few more hours, to Japanese products reaching Europe. #EUTrade https://t.co/8HW6rrYv3H

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Midnight in Tokyo, 16:00 in Brussels. The #EUJapan agreement now applies to European products reaching Japan. And in a few more hours, to Japanese products reaching Europe. #EUTrade

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Irish Entrepreneurs in Healthy Meals market

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Evelyn Garland and Luke Judge

Two young entrepreneurs behind an online Irish health food store have signed significant retail deals that sees its produce hit stores nationwide.

Evelyn Garland (25) and Luke Judge (27) established Simply Fit Food (SFF) in January 2016, delivering healthy meals and snacks using locally-sourced ingredients right to customers' doors.

Customer demand for on-the-ground access to their meals helped them find a foothold in the somewhat saturated market, leading to the opening of their first pop-up store in Drogheda last August.

The business duo are now stocking four performance-based meals in Dunnes Stores, Supervalu, Centra and Spar shops, available since the beginning of January in larger Dublin and Louth stores.

Over the next month, the new range will be rolled out nationwide, including 180 Spar stores across Northern Ireland, in collaboration with the Henderson Group.

Ms Garland said that the four month bricks-and-mortar pop-up, that first opened while the Fleadh Cheoil was taking place in Drogheda, proved that retail was the right direction to go in.

"It went really well and the feedback was really positive; it was the first time that we'd seen our customers in the flesh. It was great to dig deeper into that data, finding out what the demographics are, what else our customer wants," she told Independent.ie

"Now, with our produce on the shelves of bigger retailers, our sales have been steady since the start of the month and we know that it will work on a nationwide level."

It actually was a health scare that led to the origins of SFF; Judge was diagnosed with a heart condition called﻿ Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.

The couple were already passionate about fitness and GAA players for Skerries Harps and Dreadnots in Clogherhead respectively, but Luke wanted to change the way he was eating after he had an operation to treat his condition.

While SFF impressed the TV dragons in an appearance on RTÉ's 'Dragons' Den' in 2017, the pair walked away without funding. However, the company made over 18,000 meals in their first year, and are now shedding their original structure as they expand.

"We found a Louth-based BRC-accredited partner as our orders were becoming so big, we needed to outsource our production to allow us to grow a lot bigger, faster," said Evelyn.

"Our online presence is now gone; as an online business you have to have a techie mind, which we don't, and we used to rely an awful lot on people to update the website and fix glitches.

"When we started out, we had no idea what was involved when it came to selling. After 18 months of problems with delivery that constantly reduced the profitability of our business, we couldn't find a solution until we put the products into local stores."

With more freedom - and time - to spend on business strategy now that they are out of the kitchen, Garland and Judge are working on using what they've learned from past mistakes and turning that into future success.

The pair are intending to launch a snack line by mid summer in addition to getting their stock into as many locations as possible by the end of 2019 and beyond.

"By early 2020, we are hoping to export to other European countries and develop our product line more. We have ambitious targets but now we've solved our production problem, we're planning to take Simply Fit Food further afield."

Online Editors

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Young couple behind healthy food startup look overseas as produce hits stores nationwide - Independent.ie

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Two young entrepreneurs behind an online Irish health food store have signed significant retail deals that sees its produce hit stores nationwide. Evelyn Garland (25) and Luke Judge (27) established Simply Fit Food (SFF) in January 2016, delivering healthy meals and snacks using locally-sourced ingredients right to customers' doors.

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Google fined for non-compliance with GDPR

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Google has been fined 50 million euros (£44m) by the French data regulator CNIL, for a breach of the EU's data protection rules.

CNIL said it had levied the record fine for "lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding ads personalisation".

The regulator said it judged that people were "not sufficiently informed" about how Google collected data to personalise advertising.

In a statement, Google said it was "studying the decision" to determine its next steps.

Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix and Spotify face GDPR complaint

Complaints against Google were filed in May 2018 by two privacy rights groups: noyb and La Quadrature du Net (LQDN).

The first complaint under the EU's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was filed on 25 May 2018, the day the legislation took effect.

The groups claimed Google did not have a valid legal basis to process user data for ad personalisation, as mandated by the GDPR.

Although Google's European headquarters is in Ireland, it was decided among the authorities that the case would be handled by the French data regulator, since the Irish watchdog did not have "decision-making power" over its Android operating system and its services.

A lack of transparency

The regulator said Google had not obtained clear consent to process data because "essential information" was "disseminated across several documents".

"The relevant information is accessible after several steps only, implying sometimes up to five or six actions," the regulator said.

"Users are not able to fully understand the extent of the processing operations carried out by Google."

No valid consent

Additionally, the regulator said Google had failed to obtain a valid legal basis to process user data.

"The information on processing operations for the ads personalisation is diluted in several documents and does not enable the user to be aware of their extent," it said.

It said the option to personalise ads was "pre-ticked" when creating an account, which did not respect the GDPR rules.

"The user gives his or her consent in full, for all the processing operations purposes carried out by Google based on this consent (ads personalisation, speech recognition, etc).

"However, the GDPR provides that the consent is 'specific' only if it is given distinctly for each purpose."

The regulator said it was Google's "utmost responsibility to comply with the obligations on the matter".

In a statement, Google said: "People expect high standards of transparency and control from us. We're deeply committed to meeting those expectations and the consent requirements of the GDPR."

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Google has been fined 50 million euros (£44m) by the French data regulator CNIL, for a breach of the EU's data protection rules. CNIL said it had levied the record fine for "lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding ads personalisation".

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Charging an initial low price to gain market share

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Netflix price hikes likely to hit UK, says pricing strategy firm

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Simon-Kucher, a pricing strategy firm, is expecting to see Netflix's US price hike extend to the UK and elsewhere with few cancellations. The firm says it "expects to see price increases rolled out in the UK and elsewhere, with Netflix taking a localised approach based on their learnings in the...

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McDelivery

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McDonald's teams up with UberEATS to launch delivery service in Ireland

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McDonald's launched a delivery service in Ireland today. The fast food giant unveiled their McDelivery service, which will be available to customers through participating outlets in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The initiative will be delivered in partnership with UberEATS and will be available to anyone within one and a half miles of selected branches.

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Income investors love the money they get from dividend-paying stocks. For most investors, the more dividends they get, the happier they are about it.

Most dividend stocks make predictable, regular payments of income, often on a quarterly basis. But every so often, some stocks make truly massive dividend payments that can provide a nice windfall for investors. These special dividends can play a major role in making a stock attractive for long-term shareholders, and in some cases, they can be truly massive. Recently, one stock made the biggest dividend payment I've ever seen -- more than $100 per share! -- as part of a broader strategic plan to make a bigger splash in its industry.

Image source: Getty Images.

Turning drinks into dividends

In January 2018, beverage company Dr Pepper Snapple got an interesting, unexpected offer. Keurig Green Mountain, which had previously been a publicly traded company but which went private in a buyout led by private equity investor JAB Holding Company in 2016, offered to merge with Dr Pepper Snapple. Under the terms of the deal, the surviving entity would be called Keurig Dr Pepper (NYSE: KDP) and combine the cold-beverage sodas and still drinks of Dr Pepper, Snapple, and their other brands with the coffee specialist's prowess in both home-brewing and retail partnership operations.

What was particularly unusual about the deal was its structure. JAB and Keurig didn't offer to buy existing shares of Dr Pepper Snapple from shareholders. Instead, they proposed making an equity investment of $9 billion in Dr Pepper Snapple. But that wouldn't have been enough to give Keurig the commanding stake in the combined company that it wanted, so in addition, the merger agreement called for Dr Pepper Snapple investors to get a special dividend.

The size of that special dividend was impressive. With shares having traded at around $95 per share prior to the buyout announcement, Keurig proposed paying Dr Pepper shareholders a whopping $103.75 per share as a dividend. That added up to almost $19 billion in dividend payments to owners of the stock. By the time the deal went through, the share price had risen to almost $125, making the special dividend payout more than 80% of the value of the stock.

What goes up must come down

What followed the special dividend payment is something that every dividend investor needs to understand: The stock price plunged. In fact, it plunged by roughly the same amount as the $103.75 per share special dividend. Now you can buy stock in Keurig Dr Pepper for less than $23 per share.

The strategy for structuring the deal the way that Keurig did was ingenious. JAB and Keurig's other shareholders were probably ready for Keurig to come public again in order to get a payoff on their initial investment. Yet rather than going to the expense of doing an IPO of Keurig by itself, the merger with already publicly traded Dr Pepper Snapple allowed the private equity investors to translate their stake in privately held Keurig into an equivalent publicly traded stake in the combined company. Keurig investors got their liquidity, and Dr Pepper shareholders got their payday.

Going forward, dividend investors will still be pretty happy with Keurig Dr Pepper. The drink giant has said that it will pay roughly $0.60 per share in annual dividends going forward, giving shareholders a nearly 3% dividend yield. That's not exactly 80%, but it shows Keurig Dr Pepper's ongoing commitment to returning capital to its investors through dividends.

Think big

Special cash dividends can be huge, and they can also serve a number of different purposes. It's always worth keeping your eyes open when a stock you own declares a special dividend, because it can represent a big inflow of cash that you'll need to decide how to reinvest. Whether you put that money back into additional shares of that stock or use it to pay living expenses, special dividends can provide a healthy chunk of liquidity to give you more flexibility in your financial decision making than you typically have with regular dividends.
More From The Motley Fool Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Income investors love the money they get from dividend-paying stocks. For most investors, the more dividends they get, the happier they are about it. Most dividend stocks make predictable, regular payments of income, often on a quarterly basis. But every so often, some stocks make truly massive dividend payments that can provide a nice windfall for investors.

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Leveraging influencers such as bloggers and YouTube stars to boost brand awareness and engagement has become the norm for many companies. What's not to like? Research by McKinsey shows that word of mouth generates twice as many sales as paid advertising. Recruiting a blogger or influencer with a large social following to help promote your brand through word of mouth (and a pretty Instagram picture) can lead to more sales and higher conversions.

Generally, the term influencer describes someone who creates content for their own web sites and/or social channels. But celebrities are on a whole other level, and they may be hired to endorse a product or brand simply because of their large fan base. But what about the celebrities that go beyond the usual endorsements?

Take, for example, Kanye West, who partnered with on a creative level to design his own line of sneakers and athleisure, dubbed Yeezy, and who is currently working with the brand to expand the collection into brick-and-mortar stores.

Adidas' partnership with West goes far beyond the standard celebrity posing for an ad campaign, as so many have done. The duo has created a company within a company that has reached cult status. The rapper's first shipment of Yeezy Boost sneakers sold out in a flash (and continues to sell out). Now the shoes can be found on eBay for more than double their $200 price tag.

In late 2015, Forbes reported that Adidas' revenue was increasing at an average growth rate of 3%. Once 2016 kicked off, the sportswear retailer announced revenue growth was up by 31% in North America alone. Could West be the cause? Maybe not entirely, but we've got to give credit where credit is due and it would be silly to say that West's Yeezy line didn't have some kind of effect on the brand's recent success.

But what's the reasoning behind the cult status, and how can other retailers deliver as successful a celebrity partnership as Adidas has done with West? Here are three ingredients to start with:

1. Get the celebrity involved from start to finish. Kanye West is a creative mind. Some may argue that he is a creative genius. Say what you want about a rapper, but you can't deny that he knows fashion and is willing to go on an embarrassing Twitter rant to stick up for his beliefs. It's one thing to hire a celebrity to promote a product on social media and star in a campaign, which can easily be perceived as inauthentic. It's another to hire someone who is so in touch with a particular industry and has the connections to deliver everything from the concept to the finishing touches of a partnership. The fact that West's designs aligned so perfectly with Adidas' didn't hurt either.

2. Be authentic. It's not just a celebrity/brand partnership; West turned the Yeezy brand into an empire. He didn't just show up to a few design meetings to give his input on how he wanted his sneaker to look. West went beyond that to create a full-blown clothing collection with Adidas, Yeezy Season 1 and the most recent Yeezy Season 2, which he showcased during New York Fashion Week. It was so clear that Adidas let the rapper have full creative say on the clothing and the way it was presented. Authenticity is really the key to a well-established celebrity/brand partnership.

Because of the success of the Yeezy x Adidas brand, the company recently extended its partnership with West to create a new business entity called "Adidas x Kanye West" and open retail stores. The stores will sell all Yeezy shoes and apparel, as well as new pieces that focus on "sport and performance." Not bad for a celebrity partnership, eh?

3. Social media is king. Before the Yeezy Boosts even launched, the hype for them on social media was huge thanks to a certain celebrity family affiliated to West. Both Kim Kardashian West (79.2 million followers on Instagram) and Kylie Jenner (70.4 million followers on Instagram) shared photos of the new sneakers before they launched, generating close to two million likes combined. Need I say more?

Think of it this way: Adidas' lifestyle brand handle @adidasoriginals currently has 13.5 million followers on Instagram. That's a lot of followers, right? Right. But not as many as Kanye West and his family and friends' social media following. If you look at the number of impressions the brand received from just Kardashian West and Jenner alone, a billboard and some magazine ad placements seem pointless, no?

Moral of the story is: find a celebrity that will put their heart and soul into the partnership, as Kanye West has done with Adidas. It's a win-win for both the brand and the celebrity - as long as it's authentic.

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Why Kanye West's Partnership With Adidas Is More Than An Endorsement - Retail TouchPoints

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Leveraging influencers such as bloggers and YouTube stars to boost brand awareness and engagement has become the norm for many companies. What's not to like? Research by McKinsey shows that word of mouth generates twice as many sales as paid advertising.

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Glanbia has agreed to buy diet brand SlimFast as part of a $350 million (€303 million) deal as it seeks to increase its exposure to lifestyle consumers.

The deal to buy the well-known brand from KSF Holdings and HNS Intermediate Corporation will also include nutritional supplement brands Healthy Delights and Nu-Therapy.

SlimFast, based in Palm Beach Gardens in Florida, is a leading brand in the $8 billion weight management nutrition market. In 2017, the company had net sales of $212 million and adjusted ebitda of $24 million. It reported a net loss of $12 million after non-recurring supply chain transition costs.

Consumer goods giant Unilever had acquired the business back in 2000 for $2.3 billion, before selling it on four years ago to KFS Holdings' parent, US private equity firm Kainos Capital.

Glanbia's managing director, Siobhan Talbot, said the deal complemented Glanbia's existing portfolio.

"It plays to global consumer trends focused on convenient formats and snacking. The transaction is in line with our strategic ambition to extend the reach of our Glanbia Performance Nutrition portfolio to related consumer needs," she said.

'Portfolio of products'

Jason Molins, an analyst with Goodbody Stockbrokers, said: "With a track record of over 40 years, SlimFast has built a portfolio of products across a range of categories including ready-to-drink and ready-to-mix, as well as nutritional supplement brands."

Mr Molins welcomed comments from Glanbia executives on a conference call on Thursday that they were comfortable with how the group's performance had been in the third quarter, ahead of a full trading update being issued in November.

The group currently expects its earnings per share to grow at between 5 and 8 per cent this year, excluding currency fluctuations.

The deal is expected to close before the end of 2018, subject to regulatory approval. Glanbia said that the transaction will be fully financed by its available banking facilities, and it is expected to add to net earnings from next year.

Davy analysts Cathal Kenny and Roland French said the deal was Glanbia's most significant since its 2008 purchase of Optimum Nutrition, the world's best-selling whey protein brand to gym-goers.

"It is the first time that Glanbia has acquired a storied brand with mass awareness," the Davy analysts said, adding that they expect the Irish group to boost SlimFast with its own innovation and expertise, which should sustain "the continued rejuvenation of the brand".

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Glanbia to buy leading brand SlimFast as part of €300m deal

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Glanbia has agreed to buy diet brand SlimFast as part of a $350 million (€303 million) deal as it seeks to increase its exposure to lifestyle consumers. The deal to buy the well-known brand from KSF Holdings and HNS Intermediate Corporation will also include nutritional supplement brands Healthy Delights and Nu-Therapy.

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Amazon

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Steve Jobs - One Last Thing (Documentary - worth a watch!

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Steve Jobs - One Last Thing (Documentary - worth a watch!

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Continuing our series on Creative Product Packaging (see part I here), we've handpicked another wonderful collection of unique and clever packages.

1. Creative Japanese Pastry Packaging

Creative product packaging idea from Japan. According to one Internet commenter "the packaging says "Black melon bread." More like a pastry snack out of a vending machine than just a cookie." ( link)

2. Note

Choosing plastic wrap for non-perishable is often a choice that is unjustifiable for the real needs of the product. To address this problem, Corinne Pant looked at the real needs of electronic parts packaging. In a poetic and very functional gesture, it shows us once again that "less is more". (Designer: Corinne Pant)

3. Honey Packaging for Klein Constantia Farm

The small white box resembles a bee have box with embossed ridges to denote planks of wood & nails. The famous Klein Constantia crest is gold foiled on the front of the box below the diecut slit that has one bee on its way into the box inviting you to open the packaging. The box opens to reveal a, bee covered, honey comb pattern as well as small diecut bees packaged inside each box. (Designer: Terence Kitching at At Pace design and Communication)

4. Smirnoff Caipiroska

To launch the new formula of the flavors of Smirnoff Caipiroska, the Brazilian drink that is popular worldwide, design agency JWT created bottles with the texture of the fruit for the flavors lemon, passion fruit and berries and a diagonal perforation, so that consumers could feel the unique experience of peeling a drink made of fruit. (Designer: JWT)

5. NYC Spaghetti

"I created this spaghetti packaging for a university project last year. The brief was to package one of 5 difficult items i.e. eggs, a rose, custard powder, spaghetti or marbles. I chose spaghetti." (Designer: Alex Creamer)

6. Butter! Better!

"Whenever we eat bread, at the picnic, in the cafe or airplane, we usually use disposable butter. I replaced its ordinary container lid with a wooden, knife shaped one. This way butter can be easily and quickly spread. Butter has 4 flavors which allow the user to make a choice, just as he would chose his favorite ice-cream. This container is not only easy and fast to use but also it makes daily routine of spreading butter more fun and exciting." (Designer: Yeongkeun)

7. Scanwood

Scanwood is Denmark's largest manufacturer of wooden kitchen utensils, selling their products in Europe and the Middle East. The company wanted to communicate the fact that their products are made through an environmentally friendly process and are of course also made from all natural materials. (Designer: Goodmorning Technology)

8. Blush Matches

Matches with a striking strip right on the panty. It just feels great to "light your fire". (Advertising Agency: BBDO Berlin)

9. Porkinson

The flamboyant bowtie design embodies Parkinson's quintessentially English personality while providing great standout and navigation on shelf. 'The bowtie leapt out as a strong symbol of English exuberance and class. It also offered a vast array of colour and pattern to enjoy. (Designer: Jones Knowles Ritchie)

10. Quick Fruit

The idea behind Quick Fruit packaging is a fruit sliced in half showing the core of the fruit as the lid of the product. A clean, simple logo with the letter "Q" depicting a cup with a spoon appears on the lid and side. (Designer: Marcel Buerkle)

11. The Tulip

Wine Innovations deleveloped this ingenious concept of a single serving wine glasses called The Tulip. Just like a container of yogurt it has a peal-off foil lid. The wine is sealed using patented technology to maintain wine quality and to give a shelf life of over 1 year. The wine glass are filled with red, white or rose wine and is made from plastic so there are no worries of broken glass. (Designer: unknown)

12. Guggle Bum

Packaging design for a fun and twisted bubble gum brand. Beneath the cutesy exterior lies an unexpected twist: removing the outer box reveals the skeleton of each "bum". (Designer: jjaaakk design)

13. Gloji Juice

The unusual light bulb shaped bottle is a nice reference to the energy-giving properties of the drink. ( link)

14. Medicom Pharma: Target Heavy Food

The aim was to show the affected people that (plant-based) Nobilin has the power to aid digestion. Advertising Agency: BBDO, Germany

15. Saliami Postmodern CD

This is the CD package design of Lithuanian musician SHIDLAS, album named "Saliami Postmodern". The CD is vacuumed like real salami and the sticker with contents is like it would be from meat shop. (Designer: Mother Eleganza)

16. Heresod T-Shirts

Heresod created a new line of t-shirts that are sold in simple & distinctive packaging that resemble the packaging of food found in gourmet supermarkets. For example, a 'pork' t-shirt is sold in the Styrofoam deli packaging used in the butcher's section of a supermarket. All the t-shirts in the product line are uniquely packaged to make their products more eye-catching and to create a fun & novel shopping experiences for consumers.The unique packaging created instant brand recognition amongst consumers which generated large volumes of word-of-mouth advertising. (Designer: Prompt Design)

17. Break Fast

A kind of taste pack for oatmeal. This package contains the right amount of oatmeal with added sugar and salt. You break your BREAK FAST pack over a bowl, add water and cook in the microwave. Then you can tentatively serve with cold milk. The idea is to target a new audience that otherwise would not eat oatmeal, but also to those who are usually in a hurry in the morning and tend to skip today's most important meal, breakfast. Break it fast and have a BREAK FAST! (Designer: Niklas Hessman)

18. Gortz 17 Shoelace Box

To boost the sales of a stylish shoe that's already a cult product, Kempertrautmann agency created new packaging that made the brand even more desirable in terms of look and functionality. (Advertising Agency: Kempertrautmann)

19. Kleenex

A professional designer appreciates something that is attractive, surprising, new, simple and devoid of useless information. The Kleenex "slice of summer" boast all of this at once. This packaging shows great maturity, because the consumer is not bombarded with information that he neither really needs nor wants. (Designer: Hiroko Sanders)

20. tPod Tea Packaging

If you use tea bags, you've probably already run into the problem of accidentally drowning the whole thing in your tea. This creative design is here to help you never drown the end part of your tea bag again.(Designer: Elisabeth Soos)

21. Ford Ranger Extreme: Matchbox

New Ranger Extreme with extendable cargo bed. (Advertising Agency: JWT, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

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21 More Creative Product Packaging Examples

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Continuing our series on Creative Product Packaging (see part I here), we've handpicked another wonderful collection of unique and clever packages. Creative product packaging idea from Japan. According to one Internet commenter "the packaging says "Black melon bread." More like a pastry snack out of a vending machine than just a cookie."

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Importance of Quality Control Procedures

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Importance of Quality Control Procedures

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Toyota said today that it was recalling a total of 2.43 million hybrid vehicles around the world over a hybrid system issue which can lead to stalling.

The recall, which includes Prius and Auris models, covers vehicles produced between October 2008 and November 2014.

It affects about 1.25 million vehicles sold in Japan, 830,000 vehicles in North America, and 290,000 vehicles sold in Europe.

Vehicles sold in China, Africa, Oceania and other regions are also affected.

In a statement, Toyota said that in "rare situations", some vehicles could fail to switch to a "failsafe" driving mode in the event of a fault with the hybrid system, which can lead to a loss of power and result in stalling.

The car maker said that it was not aware of any crashes due to the issue in Japan.

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Toyota recalls 2.4 million hybrid cars over crash fault

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Toyota said today that it was recalling a total of 2.43 million hybrid vehicles around the world over a hybrid system issue which can lead to stalling. The recall, which includes Prius and Auris models, covers vehicles produced between October 2008 and November 2014.

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ASAI clamp down on bloggers? Misleading Advertising

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The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland [ASAI] is cracking down on misleading online advertisements and has told EVOKE.IE that the public must be made aware if images have been edited.

CEO of the ASAI Orla Twomey said that the manipulation of images in online advertising has to be declared.

'If there is post-production techniques that has to be declared and transparent. It should be declared if the image has been physically altered and this disclaimer should be visible in the promotion material,' she said.

The warning by the agency may cause a a furrowed brow for online influencers some of whom have been called out in recent weeks by new Instagram page @bullshitcallerouter which has caused quite a stir for its biting commentary.

Rosie Connolly, one of the bloggers referred to in this Instagram feed, admitted this week that she had in the past edited an image when she was paid to promote a make-up product to her followers.

The selfie was an image of Rosie's face but appeared to be quite blurry and to have had the benefit of filters and photoshop.

Taking to her snapchat on Monday, Rosie said she had used editing tools on her camera and apologised to her followers.

The ASAI said that all online advertisements must adhere to their codes of conduct.

A spokesman for the ASAI said that 'editing of images and specifically the use of photo editing apps in order to mislead consumers falls directly under the misleading advertising section of The ASAI's Code of Standards for Advertising and Marketing Standards in Ireland (Section 4).'

'A marketing communication should not mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.

'Advertisers should not exploit the credulity, inexperience or lack of knowledge of consumers.

'The Code sections mentioned above could directly be applied to an advertisement whereby an advertiser (blogger or otherwise) is being paid to promote a product and where the advertiser has edited the image to create a misleading representation of the results achieved from using that product or service.'

There was also a shot across the boughs to brands as Mrs Twomey said that 'there has to be some disclaimer and there is also a responsibility on brands to ensure that the people they collaborate with adhere to the regulations.'

Last weekend the influencing community came under scrutiny when the Instagram page published pictures that appeared to have had the benefit of editing tools.

A number of bloggers hit back at what they perceived as bullying.

Louise Cooney, Suzanne Jackson, Joanne Larby and Rosie Connolly issued snap statements just hours after the page appeared and said they were standing up against bullying.

'Online bullying is wrong and dangerous,' Suzanne wrote. 'And this year I'm no longer ignoring it! Nor or any of the bloggers.'

A follow-up post read: 'We're going to get together to create a campaign to shut these people and pages down!'

'Slag our influence all you want, but watch what the power of our influence combined will do!'

She also said she was using her influence for 'the guy in his bedroom' or the girl who has body issues.

Follow us on Instagram at @evokedotie here.

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ASAI Cracks Down On Misleading Images From Bloggers And Influencers

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The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland [ASAI] is cracking down on misleading online advertisements and has told EVOKE.IE that the public must be made aware if images have been edited. CEO of the ASAI Orla Twomey said that the manipulation of images in online advertising has to be declared.

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Reminder: https://youtu.be/8MQH_WjHU9E
Comparative: https://youtu.be/pyMTSr8hbow

Informative:https://youtu.be/qXHUe516a88

Persuasive: https://youtu.be/SfAxUpeVhCg

Generic: https://youtu.be/a9d9kpUqn3E

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Reminder https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2nBBMbjS8w
Informative https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3IJSXU9AGrY
Persuasive https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VYj8o-fkxFA
Generic https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YUROMkzPhkk
Comparative

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Reminder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0eEqeizNCA
Persuasive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ysTdAuR7DE
Informative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko7TQUnkheg
Generic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLHYnRCd8sA
Comparative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slwVFwPjUx4

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https://youtu.be/5GKvnZlC1RM

Informative

https://youtu.be/0gHYd67OumQ

Reminder

https://youtu.be/wuolDtCniKc

Persuasive

https://youtu.be/R59TevgzN3k

Comparative

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https://youtu.be/ztYNGMWXr8U Persuasive

https://youtu.be/beKIgufv79U comparative

https://youtu.be/Vvy-vQ2i56Y informative

https://youtu.be/qIVDxL2lgN4 reminder

https://youtu.be/9h_-vBYui_U generic

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Q11

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10 companies that produce almost everything in Food/Drink/Household sector

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1 day ago

The calls were made following the most recent episode of RTÉ's This Week.

The Irish Heart Foundation has called for fast food to be hit with the highest rate of VAT to combat the growing obesity crisis.

This follows the news that nine young patients with obesity died on the waiting list for bariatric or weight loss surgery in Ireland in the past five years, with more than half of them developing a new obesity-related illness while on the list.

As it stands, take away food in Ireland benefits from a special 9% VAT rate introduced in 2011 as permitted by the EU. The reduced rate was designed to boost the Irish hospitality sector following the recession.

Responding to this, the Head of Advocacy at the Irish Heart Foundation, Chris Macey, said he believes that it makes no sense to tax sugary drinks as a health measure, without then also taxing unhealthy food.

"We would say that this rate should not just go back to 13.5% for hot takeaway food. It should be taxed at the highest rate," he said.

"Defibrillators that save people's lives are taxed at the highest rate, yet we have a situation where hot takeaway food that is contributing to the biggest health crisis in the history of the State is taxed at a low rate."

In 2011, Hungary placed a 4% tax on packaged foods and drinks that contain high levels of sugar and salt in certain product categories, including soft drinks, sweets, salty snacks, condiments, and fruit jams.

In 2013, Mexico followed suit by passing an 8% tax on all "non-essential" foods such as snacks, sweets, nut-butters and cereal-based prepared products.

Junk food consumption fell in both countries, due to the increased price and educational campaigns about the tax.

The Sugar Tax was introduced to Ireland in May of this year with the aim of slowing down the obesity problem ravaging Ireland's children. It applies to drinks with a sugar content of five grams or more.

It's feared that, unless the Government doesn't take action, a third of Irish adults will be obese by the year 2025.

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Calls for take-away food to be taxed at the highest rate of VAT | JOE.ie

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1 day ago The Irish Heart Foundation has called for fast food to be hit with the highest rate of VAT to combat the growing obesity crisis. This follows the news that nine young patients with obesity died on the waiting list for bariatric or weight loss surgery in Ireland in the past five years, with more than half of them developing a new obesity-related illness while on the list.

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Tweeting #NikeBoycott, some people were saying they were going to burn their Nike sneakers or cut the swoosh logo off their socks because of the ad with Kaepernick.

Some people were also saying Tuesday that former Arizona State University and Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman should've been the face of the new Nike campaign. Tillman left the NFL to join the army after 9/11 and later died in Afghanistan.

"While Nike has been doing relatively well in a sports market that is under pressure, it cannot afford to make bad decisions," said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail. "Anything which has the potential to damage market share, such as overtly political campaigns, should be avoided."

While industry analysts say the move by Nike is risky, others say risky moves are necessary to stay relevant and stay ahead. Furthermore, Nike is a global brand with a far-reaching audience - not all of its shoppers are paying attention to American football, Allen Adamson, brand expert and co-founder of marketing solutions business Metaforce, told CNBC.

"No matter which athlete they choose, they will offend some customers," Adamson said. "If you try to please all people all the time, you will end up pleasing nobody."

More and more, younger consumers want to know what their favorite brands stand for, he added. That gives Nike more of a reason to take a stance.

Nike has recently started to see a "return to growth" in North America, which has been a sluggish spot for sales for numerous athletic apparel and sneaker brands thanks to a wave of wholesalers' bankruptcies. The company has, as a result, been investing heavily in building out its own e-commerce platform and refreshing stores, with the goal of selling more directly to consumers.

Nike is set to report quarterly earnings later this month. Its shares have climbed about 27.5 percent so far this year. Nike has a market cap of roughly $127.4 billion.
- CNBC's Jessica Golden contributed to this story.

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Nike shares fall as backlash erupts over new ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick

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Tweeting #NikeBoycott, some people were saying they were going to burn their Nike sneakers or cut the swoosh logo off their socks because of the ad with Kaepernick. Some people were also saying Tuesday that former Arizona State University and Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman should've been the face of the new Nike campaign.

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New Coca Cola - Importance of listening to Market Research

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New Coca Cola - Importance of listening to Market Research

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New Coke was the unofficial name of a reformulation of the soft drink Coca-Cola, introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in April 1985. It was renamed Coke II in 1990, and discontinued in July 2002.

By 1985, Coca-Cola had been losing market share to diet soft drinks and non-cola beverages for several years. Blind taste tests suggested that consumers preferred the sweeter taste of the competing product Pepsi-Cola, and so the Coca-Cola recipe was reformulated. The American public reacted negatively, and New Coke was considered a major failure.

The company reintroduced the original formula within three months, rebranded "Coca-Cola Classic", resulting in a significant sales boost. This led to speculation that the New Coke formula had been a ploy to stimulate sales of the original Coca-Cola, which the company has vehemently denied. The story of New Coke remains influential as a cautionary tale against tampering with an established successful brand.

After World War II, Coca-Cola held 60 percent of the market share for cola. By 1983, it had declined to under 24 percent, largely because of competition from Pepsi. Pepsi had begun to outsell Coke in supermarkets; Coke maintained its lead only through venues such as soda vending machines and fast food restaurants, especially McDonald's.

Market analysts believed baby boomers were more likely to purchase diet drinks as they aged and remained health- and weight-conscious. Growth in the full-calorie segment would come from younger drinkers, who at that time favored Pepsi by increasing margins. Meanwhile, the overall market for colas steadily declined in the early 1980s, as consumers increasingly purchased diet and non-cola soft drinks, many of which were sold by Coca-Cola. This further eroded Coca-Cola's market share. When Roberto Goizueta became Coca-Cola CEO in 1980, he told employees there would be no "sacred cows" in how the company did business, including how it formulated its drinks.

Coca-Cola's senior executives commissioned a secret project headed by marketing vice president Sergio Zyman and Coca-Cola USA president Brian Dyson to create a new flavor for Coke. This project was named "Project Kansas", from a photo of Kansas journalist William Allen White drinking a Coke; the image had been used extensively in Coca-Cola advertising and hung on several executives' walls.

The sweeter cola overwhelmingly beat both regular Coke and Pepsi in taste tests, surveys, and focus groups. The southeastern United States, one of Coca-Cola's strongest and most reliable markets, narrowly preferred the new flavor; this preference widened once the testers revealed the new taste was also a Coca-Cola product. One bottling company threatened to sue the company if it did not put the drink on the market.

Asked if they would buy and drink the product if it were Coca-Cola, most testers said they would, although said it would take some getting used to. About 10-12 percent of testers felt angry and alienated at the thought, and said they might stop drinking Coke. Their presence in focus groups tended to negatively skew results as they exerted indirect peer pressure on other participants.

The surveys, which were given more significance by standard marketing procedures of the era, were less negative than the taste tests and were key in convincing management to change the formula in 1985, to coincide with the drink's centenary. However, the groups had provided a clue as to how the change would play out in the public, a finding the company downplayed.

Management rejected an idea to make and sell the new flavor as a separate variety of Coca-Cola. The company's bottlers were already complaining about absorbing other recent additions into the product line since 1982, after the introduction of Diet Coke; Cherry Coke was launched nationally nearly concurrently with New Coke during 1985. Many bottling companies had sued over the company's syrup pricing policies. A new variety of Coke in competition with the main variety could also have cannibalized Coke's sales and increased the proportion of Pepsi drinkers relative to Coke drinkers.

Early in his career with Coca-Cola, Goizueta had been in charge of the Bahamas subsidiary. He had improved sales by tweaking the drink's flavor slightly, and so was receptive to the idea that changing the flavor of Coke could boost profits. He believed it would be "New Coke or no Coke", and that the change must take place openly. He insisted that the containers carry the "New!" label, which gave the drink its popular name.

Goizueta also made a visit to his mentor and predecessor as the company's chief executive, the ailing Robert W. Woodruff, who had built Coca-Cola into an international brand following World War II. Goizueta claimed he had secured Woodruff's blessing for the reformulation, but many of Goizueta's closest friends within the company doubted that Woodruff understood Goizueta's intentions. Woodruff died in March 1985, a month before New Coke was launched.

New Coke was introduced on April 23, 1985. Production of the original formulation ended later that week. In many areas, New Coke was initially introduced in "old" Coke packaging; bottlers used up remaining cans, cartons and labels before new packaging was widely available. Old cans containing New Coke were identified by their gold colored tops, while glass and plastic bottles had red caps instead of silver and white, respectively. Bright yellow stickers indicating the change were placed on the cartons of multi-packs.

The press conference at New York City's Lincoln Center to introduce the new formula did not go well. Reporters had already been fed questions by Pepsi, which was worried that New Coke would erase its gains. Goizueta, Coca-Cola's CEO, described the new flavor as "bolder", "rounder", and "more harmonious", and defended the change by saying that the drink's secret formula was not sacrosanct and inviolable. As far back as 1935, Coca-Cola sought kosher certification from Atlanta rabbi Tobias Geffen, and made two changes to the formula so the drink could be considered kosher (as well as halal and vegetarian). Goizueta also refused to admit that taste tests had led the change, calling it "one of the easiest decisions we've ever made". A reporter asked whether Diet Coke would also be reformulated "assuming [New Coke] is a success," to which Goizueta curtly replied, "No. And I didn't assume that this is a success. This is a success."

The emphasis on the new formula's sweeter taste also ran contrary to previous Coke advertising, in which spokesman Bill Cosby had touted the original Coke's less-sweet taste as a reason to prefer it over the sweeter taste of Pepsi. The company's stock went up after the announcement, and market research showed 80 percent of the American public was aware of the change within days.

Coca-Cola introduced the new formula with marketing pushes in New York, where workers renovating the Statue of Liberty for its 1986 centenary were given cans, and Washington, D.C., where thousands of cans were given away in Lafayette Park. As soon as New Coke was introduced, the new formula was available at McDonald's and other drink fountains in the United States. Sales figures from those cities, and other areas where it had been introduced such as Miami and Detroit, showed a reaction that went as the market research had predicted. In fact, Coke's sales were up 8 percent over the same period as the year before.

Most Coke drinkers resumed buying the new Coke at much the same level as they had the old one. Surveys indicated that the majority of regular Coke drinkers liked the new flavoring. Three quarters of the respondents said they would buy New Coke again. The big test, however, remained in the South, where Coke had first been tasted and bottled.

To hear some tell it, April 23, 1985, was a day that will live in marketing infamy ... spawning consumer angst the likes of which no business has ever seen.

- The Coca-Cola Company, on the New Coke announcement

Though New Coke was accepted by many Coca-Cola drinkers, many more resented the change, as had happened in the focus groups. Many critics were from the southern US states, some of whom considered Coca-Cola part of their regional identity. Some viewed the change through the prism of the Civil War as a surrender to the " Yankees" as PepsiCo, the manufacturer of Pepsi, is based in Purchase, New York.

In a Chicago Tribune story about reaction in the South, a professor at the University of Mississippi observed that "changing Coca-Cola is an intrusion on tradition" and thus would not be well received in that region. An Alabama resident wondered why the company had introduced the new flavor in New York; elsewhere in the state an Anniston Star columnist, noting Goizueta's Cuban origins, insinuated that the flavor change was a Communist plot. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found a majority of patrons at The Varsity, a popular local restaurant in that city, favored the old formula. "Why didn't they test anybody here?" the co-owner asked.

The company received over 40,000 calls and letters expressing anger or disappointment, including one letter, delivered to Goizueta, addressed to "Chief Dodo, the Coca-Cola Company". Another letter asked for his autograph, as the signature of "one of the dumbest executives in American business history" would likely become valuable in the future. The company hotline, 1-800-GET-COKE, received over 1,500 calls a day compared to around 400 before the change. A psychiatrist whom Coke had hired to listen in on calls told executives that some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member.

There were critics from outside the region. Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene wrote some widely reprinted pieces ridiculing the new flavor and expressing anger at Coke's executives for having changed it. Comedians and talk show hosts, including Johnny Carson and David Letterman, made regular jokes mocking the switch. Ads for New Coke were booed heavily when they appeared on the scoreboard at the Houston Astrodome. Even Fidel Castro, a longtime Coca-Cola drinker, contributed to the backlash, calling New Coke a sign of American capitalist decadence. Goizueta's father expressed similar misgivings to his son, who later recalled that it was the only time his father had agreed with Castro, whose rule he had fled Cuba to avoid.

Gay Mullins, a Seattle retiree looking to start a public relations firm with $120,000 of borrowed money, formed the Old Cola Drinkers of America on May 28 to lobby Coca-Cola to either reintroduce the old formula or sell it to someone else. His organization eventually received over 60,000 phone calls. He also filed a class action lawsuit against the company (which was quickly dismissed by a judge who said he preferred the taste of Pepsi), while nevertheless expressing interest in securing the Coca-Cola Company as a client of his new firm should it reintroduce the old formula. In two informal blind taste tests, Mullins either failed to distinguish New Coke from old or expressed a preference for New Coke.

Despite ongoing resistance in the South, New Coke continued to do well in the rest of the country. However, the executives were uncertain of how international markets would react. They met with international Coke bottlers in Monaco; to their surprise, the bottlers were not interested in selling New Coke. Zyman also heard doubts and skepticism from his relatives in Mexico, where New Coke was scheduled to be introduced later that summer, when he went there on vacation.

Goizueta stated that Coca-Cola employees who liked New Coke felt unable to speak up due to peer pressure, as had happened in the focus groups. Donald Keough, the Coca-Cola president and chief operating officer at the time, reported overhearing someone say at his country club that they liked New Coke, but they would be "damned if I'll let Coca-Cola know that".

PepsiCo took advantage of the situation, running ads in which a first-time Pepsi drinker exclaimed, "Now I know why Coke did it!" Even amidst consumer anger and several Pepsi ads mocking Coca-Cola's debacle, Pepsi actually gained very few long-term converts over Coke's switch, despite a 14 percent sales increase over the same month the previous year, the largest sales growth in the company's history. Coca-Cola's director of corporate communications, Carlton Curtis, realized over time that consumers were more upset about the withdrawal of the old formula than the taste of the new one.

Roger Enrico, then director of PepsiCo's North American operations, declared a company-wide holiday and took out a full-page ad in The New York Times proclaiming that PepsiCo had won the long-running " Cola Wars". Since Coke officials were preoccupied over the weekend with preparations for the announcement, their PepsiCo counterparts had time to cultivate skepticism among reporters, sounding themes that would later come into play in the public discourse over the changed drink. After the announcement on April 23, PepsiCo gave its employees the day off saying, "By today's action, Coke has admitted that it's not the real thing."

Behind the scenes, some Coca-Cola executives had quietly been arguing for a reintroduction of the old formula as early as May. By mid-June, when soft drink sales usually start to rise, the numbers showed that new Coke was leveling among consumers. Executives feared social peer pressure was now affecting their bottom line. Several consumers even began trying to obtain "old" Coke from overseas, where the new formula had not yet been introduced, as domestic stocks of the old drink were exhausted. Over the course of the month, Coca-Cola's chemists also quietly reduced the acidity level of the new formula, hoping to assuage complaints about the flavor and allow its sweetness to be better perceived (advertisements pointing to this change were prepared, but never used).

In addition to the noisier public protests, boycotts, and bottles being emptied into the streets of several cities, the company had more serious reasons to be concerned. Coca-Cola bottlers, and not just the ones still suing the company over syrup pricing policies, were expressing concern. While they had given Goizueta a standing ovation when he announced the change at an April 22 bottlers' meeting at Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center, glad the company had finally taken some initiative in the face of PepsiCo's advances, they were less enthusiastic about the taste of new Coke. Most of them saw great difficulty having to promote and sell a drink that had long been marketed as "The Real Thing", constant and unchanging, now that it had been changed.

The 20 bottlers still suing Coca-Cola made much of the formula change in their legal arguments. Coca-Cola had argued in its defense when the suit was originally filed that the formula's uniqueness and difference from Diet Coke justified different pricing policies from the latter - but if the new formula was merely a high-fructose corn syrup-sweetened version of Diet Coke, Coca-Cola could not argue the formula was unique. Bottlers, particularly in the South, were also tired of facing personal attacks over the change; many reported that some acquaintances and even friends and relatives had ostracized them, or had expressed their displeasure in other emotionally hurtful ways. On June 23, several of the bottlers took these complaints to Coca-Cola executives in a private meeting. With the company now fearing boycotts not only from its consumers but its bottlers, talks about reintroducing the old formula moved from "if" to "when".

Finally, the Coca-Cola board decided that enough was enough, and plans were set in motion to bring back the old Coke. Company president Donald Keough revealed years later, in the documentary The People vs. Coke (2002), that they realized this was the only right thing to do when they visited a small restaurant in Monaco and the owner proudly said they served "the real thing, it's a real Coke", offering them a chilled oz. glass bottle of original Coca-Cola.

On the afternoon of July 11, 1985, Coca-Cola executives held a press conference and announced the return of the original Coca-Cola formula, 79 days after New Coke's introduction. Peter Jennings of ABC News interrupted General Hospital with a special bulletin to share the news with viewers. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, David Pryor called the reintroduction "a meaningful moment in U.S. history". The company hotline received 31,600 calls in the two days after the announcement.

The new product continued to be marketed and sold as Coke (until 1990, when it was renamed Coke II) while the original formula was named Coca-Cola Classic, and for a short time it was referred to by the public as Old Coke. Some who tasted the reintroduced formula were not convinced that the first batches really were the same formula that had supposedly been retired that spring. This was true for a few regions, because Coca-Cola Classic differed from the original formula in that all bottlers who had not already done so were using high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) instead of cane sugar to sweeten the drink, though most had by this time.

"There is a twist to this story which will please every humanist and will probably keep Harvard professors puzzled for years," said Keough at a press conference. "The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people."

Gay Mullins, founder of the organization Old Cola Drinkers of America (which had lobbied Coca-Cola to either reintroduce the old formula or sell it to someone else), was given the first case of Coca-Cola Classic. Later he complained that the drink now made him sick, which he blamed on the drink's use of HFCS; he also claimed that HFCS had dulled his taste buds, accounting for his preference for New Coke in taste tests.

By the end of 1985, Coca-Cola Classic was substantially outselling both New Coke and Pepsi. Six months after the rollout, Coke's sales had increased at more than twice the rate of Pepsi's.

New Coke's sales dwindled to a three percent share of the market, although it was selling quite well in Los Angeles and some other key markets. Later research, however, suggested that it was not the return of Coca-Cola Classic, but instead the nearly unnoticed introduction of Cherry Coke, which appeared almost simultaneously with New Coke, that can be credited with the company's success in 1985.

The Coca-Cola Company spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out where it had made a mistake, ultimately concluding that it had underestimated the public reaction of the portion of the customer base that would be alienated by the switch. This would not emerge for several years afterward, however, and in the meantime the public simply concluded that the company had, as Keough suggested, failed to consider the public's attachment to the idea of what Coke's old formula represented. While that has become conventional wisdom in the ensuing years, some analyses have suggested otherwise.

This populist version of the story served Coke's interests, however, as the episode did more to position and define Coca-Cola as a brand embodying values distinct from Pepsi. Allowing itself to be portrayed as a somewhat clueless large corporation forced to withdraw from a big change by overwhelming public pressure flattered customers, as Keough put it, "We love any retreat which has us rushing toward our best customers with the product they love the most." Bottles and cans continued to bear the "Coca-Cola Classic" title until January 2009, when the company announced it would stop printing the word "Classic" on the labels of 16-US-fluid-ounce (470 ml) bottles sold in parts of the southeastern United States. The change was part of a larger strategy to rejuvenate the product's image.

Bill Cosby ended his long-time advertising for Coca-Cola, claiming that his commercials praising the superiority of the new formula had hurt his credibility. No one at Coca-Cola was fired for the change. When Goizueta died in 1997, the company's share price was well above what it was when he had taken over 16 years earlier and its position as market leader even more firmly established. At the time, Roger Enrico, then head of PepsiCo's American operations, likened New Coke to the Edsel. Later, when he became PepsiCo's CEO, he modified his assessment of the situation, saying that had people been fired or demoted over New Coke, it would have sent a message that risk-taking was strongly discouraged at the company.

In the late 1990s, Zyman summed up the New Coke experience thus:

Yes, it infuriated the public, cost us a ton of money and lasted for only 77 days before we reintroduced Coca-Cola Classic. Still, New Coke was a success because it revitalized the brand and reattached the public to Coke.

New Coke continued to do what it had originally been designed to do: win taste tests. In 1987, The Wall Street Journal surveyed 100 randomly selected cola drinkers, the majority of whom indicated a preference for Pepsi, with Classic Coke accounting for the remainder save two New Coke loyalists. When this group was given a chance to try all three in a blind test, New Coke slightly edged out Pepsi, but many drinkers reacted angrily to finding they had chosen a brand other than their favorite.

Goizueta claimed that he never once regretted the decision to change Coca-Cola. He even threw a tenth anniversary party for New Coke in 1995 and continued to drink it until his death in 1997.

In the short run, the reintroduction of original Coca-Cola saved Coke's sales figures and brought it back in the good graces of many customers and bottlers. Phone calls and letters to the company were as joyful and thankful as they had been angry and depressed. "You would have thought we'd cured cancer," said one executive.

But confusion reigned at the company's marketing department, which had to design a plan to market two Coca-Colas where such plans were inconceivable just a few months before. Coca-Cola Classic did not need much help, with a "Red, White and You" campaign showcasing the American virtues many of those who had clamored for its reintroduction had pointedly reminded the company that it embodied. But the company was at a loss to sell what was now just "Coke". Obviously, "The Best Just Got Better" could no longer be used. Marketers fumbled for a strategy for the rest of the year. Matters were not helped when McDonald's announced shortly after the reintroduction of Coca-Cola Classic, that it was immediately switching from New Coke back to original Coca-Cola at all of its restaurants.

Max Headroom print ad from the "Catch the wave" campaign

At the beginning of 1986, however, Coke's marketing team found a strategy by returning to one of their original motives for changing the formula: the youth market that preferred Pepsi. Max Headroom, the purportedly computer-generated media personality played by Matt Frewer, was chosen to replace Cosby as the spokesman for Coke's new "Catch the wave" campaign. With his slicked-back hair and sunglasses, he was already known to much of the U.S. youth audience through appearances on MTV and Cinemax. The campaign was launched with a television commercial produced by McCann Erickson New York, with Max saying in his trademark stutter, "C-c-c-catch the wave!" and referring to his fellow "Cokeologists". In a riposte to Pepsi's televisual teasings, one showed Headroom asking a Pepsi can he was "interviewing" how it felt about more drinkers preferring Coke to it and then cut to the condensation forming on, and running down, the can. "S-s-s-s-sweating?" he asked.

The campaign was a huge success. "Max's 'C-C-Catch the wave' spots for Coke," a Newsweek article said, "two of which were directed by Ridley Scott, may be the most cleverly structured pitches ever aimed at the under-30 viewer." John Reid, Coke's SVP of marketing, claimed that "76 percent of teenagers had heard of Max after our first flight of ads." Surveys likewise showed that more than three-quarters of the target market were aware of the ads within two days. Coke's consumer hotline received more calls about Max than any previous spokesperson, some even asking if he had a girlfriend. The ads and campaign continued through 1987, and were chosen as best of 1986 by Video Storyboard of New York.

By 1990 The Coca-Cola Company was ready to introduce a radically different marketing campaign for New Coke under the name Coke II, but in only one market - Spokane, Washington, a Pepsi stronghold. The company and bottler put significant resources into the launch of Coke II, including offering 16 oz. cans with 4 oz. free, new "We've Got Your Number" radio and TV ads, and on-air giveaways on KZZU. The new ads tried to explain the taste of Coke II as having "real cola taste plus the sweetness of Pepsi, two things that add up to smooth, refreshing Coke II." Pepsi struck back with legal challenges to the taste claim, lowered its in-store prices, and ramped up its own advertising. Coke II market share rose to 4% early in the test, but then fell back to 2.3%. The test was not extended past Spokane.

In a market already offering several choices of drinks calling themselves "Coke" in some fashion or another, the public saw little reason to embrace a product they had firmly rejected seven years earlier. By 1998, it could only be found in a few scattered markets in the Northwest, Midwest and some overseas territories. In July 2002, Coca-Cola announced that Coke II would be discontinued entirely.

On August 16, 2002, the Coca-Cola Company announced a change of the label of Coke Classic in which the word "Classic" was no longer so prominent, leading to speculation that it would eventually be removed and the last traces of New Coke eliminated. In 2009, Coca-Cola permanently removed "Classic" from its North American packaging.

"For a product so widely despised," noted blogger Tim Nudd in 2006, "New Coke (a.k.a. Coke II) still gets an admirable amount of ink." He noted Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005) by Malcolm Gladwell, and Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics (2005) by Paul Ormerod, that dealt with it at some length, as well as two recent mentions in and Sports Illustrated.

Within Coca-Cola, the role the company's bottlers had played in forcing its hand led executives to create a new subsidiary, Coca-Cola Enterprises, which bought out several of the larger bottlers and placed distribution and marketing efforts more tightly under Coca-Cola's control.

The Coca-Cola Company's apparently sudden reversal on New Coke led to conspiracy theories, including:

The company intentionally changed the formula, hoping consumers would be upset with the company, and demand the original formula to return, which in turn would cause sales to spike. Keough, the company president, answered this speculation by saying "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart."

The putative switch was planned all along to cover the change from sugar-sweetened Coke to much less expensive high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a theory that was supposedly given credence by the apparently different taste of Coke Classic when it first hit the market (the U.S. sugar trade association took out a full-page ad lambasting Coke for using HFCS in all bottling of the old formula when it was reintroduced). In fact, Coca-Cola began allowing bottlers to remove up to half of the product's cane sugar as early as 1980, five years before the introduction of New Coke. By the time the new formula was introduced, most bottlers had already sweetened Coca-Cola entirely with HFCS.

It provided cover for the final removal of all coca derivatives from the product to placate the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was trying to eradicate the plant worldwide to combat an increase in cocaine trafficking and consumption. While Coke's executives were indeed relieved the new formula contained no coca and concerned about the long-term future of the Peruvian government-owned coca fields that supplied it in the face of increasing DEA pressure to end cultivation of the crop, according to author Mark Pendergrast there was no direct pressure from the DEA on Coca-Cola to do so. This theory was endorsed in a Time article, as well as by historian Bartow Elmore, author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism, who claims the reformulation was made in response to the escalating War on Drugs by the Reagan Administration.

In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), Malcolm Gladwell relates his conversations with market researchers in the food industry who put most of the blame for the failure of New Coke on the flawed nature of taste tests. They claim most are subject to systematic biases. Tests such as the Pepsi Challenge were "sip tests", meaning that drinkers were given small samples (less than a can or bottle's worth) to try. Gladwell contends that what people say they like in these tests may not reflect what they actually buy to drink at home over several days. Carol Dollard, who once worked in product development for PepsiCo, told Gladwell: "I've seen many times where the sip test will give you one result and the home-use test will give you the exact opposite." For example, although many consumers react positively to the sweeter taste of Pepsi in small volumes, it may become unattractively sweet when drunk in quantity. A more comprehensive testing regimen could possibly have revealed this, Gladwell's sources believe.

Gladwell reports that other market researchers have criticized Coke for not realizing that much of its success as a brand came from what they call sensation transference, a phenomenon first described by marketer Louis Cheskin in the late 1940s: tasters unconsciously add their reactions to the drink's packaging into their assessment of the taste. For example, one of the researchers told Gladwell that his firm's research found 7-Up drinkers believed a sample from a bottle with a more yellow label was more "lemony", although the flavor was identical. In Coke's case, it is alleged that buyers, subject to sensation transference, were also "tasting" the red color of the container and distinctive Coca-Cola script. It was therefore, in their opinion, a mistake to focus solely on the product and its taste. "The mistake Coke made was in attributing their loss in share entirely to the product." said Darrel Rhea, an executive with the firm Cheskin founded. He points to PepsiCo's work in establishing a youth-oriented brand identity from the 1960s as having more bearing on its success.

Coke considered but rejected gradually changing the drink's flavor incrementally, without announcing they were doing so. Executives feared the public would notice and exaggerate slight differences in taste. In 1998, Joel Dubow, a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University, tested this "flavor balance hypothesis" and argued that it was not true. He and fellow researcher Nancy Childs tested mixtures of Coca-Cola Classic and Coke II and found that the gradual changes of taste were not noticed by a significant number of tasters. Coke, he said, would have succeeded had it chosen this strategy.

On May 21, 2019, Coca-Cola announced that the 1985 reformulation (once again bearing the name "New Coke") would be reintroduced in limited quantities to promote the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things. The show, set in 1985, included cans of New Coke in three of the season's episodes.

About 500,000 cans of New Coke were produced for the promotion, to be sold mostly online. So many people were eager to buy it, however, that the volume of orders crashed the Coca-Cola website. Many fans complained because they wanted to order some, and the company apologized for the delays on social media platforms. It was also available in select vending machines in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

The reintroduced drink got friendlier reviews than it had in 1985. A writer at said it was "nice and refreshing", lacking the lingering aftertaste of Classic Coke. "I would take this over other colas," said a colleague. staffers also had favorable impressions: "sweeter and smoother than regular Coke", "almost syrupy in a pleasant way", although an older one who recalled the original rollout said it had not improved for them.

Tim Murphy, a reporter for the progressive magazine Mother Jones, suggested that, in ultimately overcoming an initial resistance that he saw as reactionary, New Coke had won the war after losing the battle. "Soft-drink trends have also proven Coke right about a willingness to adapt to new tastes: A majority of Coke sales today are non-Classic products, such as Diet and Coke Zero," he wrote. This explained the favorable response from tasters. "It tasted weird then; it tastes like what's normal now."

Crystal Pepsi, early 1990s failure for that company that is occasionally reintroduced for limited periods

Dasani, bottled water brand produced by Coca-Cola that failed in the United Kingdom despite huge marketing push

MagiCan, failed Coca-Cola promotion in 1990

OK Soda, Coca-Cola brand intended to appeal to Generation X drinkers in early 1990s known for its counterintuitive marketing, managed by Sergio Zyman

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3. Hays, Constance L. (2005). The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company (Random House Trade pbk. ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-7364-8.

4. ^ Pendergrast, Mark (2004). For God, Country and Coca-Cola : The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company that Makes It (2. ed., rev. and expanded, [Nachdr.] ed.). New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-05468-8.

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11. En^ Erico, Roger; Kornbluth, Jesse (1988). The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars. New York, NY: Bantam Books. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-553-26632-0.

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16. John H. McConnell; How to Design, Implement and Interpret an Employee Survey, AMACOM Division of the American Management Association, ISBN 0-8144-0709-9, 2003, 3.

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19. ^ Gordon, Ian; Frank, Thomas (December 1999). "The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism". The Journal of American History. 86 (3): 1396. doi:10.2307/2568708. JSTOR 2568708.

20. ^ Dubow, Joel S; Childs, Nancy M (November 1998). "New Coke, Mixture Perception, and the Flavor Balance Hypothesis". Journal of Business Research. 43 (3): 147-155. doi:10.1016/s0148-2963(97)00220-8.

21. ^ New Coke is coming back and it's all because of Netflix's hit show "Stranger Things" CBS News, May 21, 2019

22. Fredette, Meagan. ""Stranger Things" Brought Back New Coke & Broke The Internet". www.refinery29.com.

Civille, Gail Vance; Lyon, Brenda G. (1996). Aroma and Flavor Lexicon for Sensory Evaluation. West Conshohocken, PA: American Society for Testing and Materials.

Hine, Thomas (1997). The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive Containers. Back Bay Books. ISBN 978-0-316-36546-8.

Imram, Nazlin (1999). "The role of visual cues in customer perception and acceptance of a food product". Nutrition & Food Science. 99 (5): 224-230. doi:10.1108/00346659910277650.

Leven, S.; Levine, D. (1996). "Multiattribute Decision Making in Context: A Dynamic Neural Network Methodology". Cognitive Science. 20 (2): 271-299. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog2002_4. Archived from the original on January 13, 2007.

Meilgaard, Morten; Civille, Gail Vance; Carr, B. Thomas (1999). Sensory Evaluation Techniques (Third ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Wilson, Timothy; Schooler, Jonathan (1999). "Thinking Too Much: Introspection Can Reduce the Quality of Preferences and Decisions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 60 (2): 181-192. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.60.2.181. PMID 2016668.

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New Coke was the unofficial name of a reformulation of the soft drink Coca-Cola, introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in April 1985. It was renamed Coke II in 1990, and discontinued in July 2002. By 1985, Coca-Cola had been losing market share to diet soft drinks and non-cola beverages for several years.

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The man was demoted after raising concerns about the company's accounts.

By Derek McKay MD, Adare Human Resource Management

'CONSTRUCTIVE DISMISSAL' IS a term that I come across regularly when dealing with conflict between organisations and former employees.

However, there is generally a misunderstanding about what constructive dismissal is and how it is assessed.

Unlike when an employee takes a claim for an unfair dismissal, it is initially up to the worker to prove that their exit was a case of constructive dismissal under the Unfair Dismissals Act.

This is gauged against two specific tests: the 'contract test' and 'the reasonableness test'. Initially, the employee is required to demonstrate a breach against these tests, which is a high bar, before the burden falls on the employer to defend the case.

This is the opposite to an unfair dismissal case, where the burden is automatically on the organisation to prove that a dismissal was fair.

Under the contract test, the employee argues that the actions of their employer show or prove that their boss no longer intends to be bound by the terms of the contract.

For the reasonableness test, the employee argues that although their employer may have acted within the terms outlined in their contract, the actions of the employer are so unreasonable that they are entitled to treat the contract as being at an end.

So while the actions of the employer may not have actually breached any of the conditions of the contract, those actions can still be classified as being so unreasonable that there is justification to the involuntary resignation of the employee.
A good example
The findings in a recent successful constructive dismissals case at the Workplace Relations Commission provide a good example. The complainant had been employed as a floor manager with a company since 2014 on an annual salary of €42,000.

In 2015, the complainant was offered a new role within the company as a duty manager on an increased salary of €55,000, plus a weekly cash payment of €100 for expenses. The terms and conditions were agreed verbally but never confirmed in writing.

Shortly after starting the new role, the complainant had a meeting with senior management from the company. At that meeting, he identified a number of issues including with the business accounts, which showed irregularities relating to rebates.

He stated at the WRC hearing that he was belittled at this meeting and his concerns were not taken on board.

Following that meeting he stated that there was a change in how he was treated within the company and that he was being excluded from management meetings. The agreed expenses of €100 were also not being paid.

In January 2016, a new manager was employed as the new general manager, who was also responsible for managing the complainant.

Later in the month, the complainant was informed that he was under-performing and his salary was cut to €44,000, which he objected to and notified the company of the same by email.

The complainant stated that when he tried to discuss the issue with the owner of the company, he was treated in a demeaning manner, which upset him.

Following a visit to his GP in February, he was certified unfit for work and he undertook a course of counselling. However, after a sustained period of time not working and only receiving social welfare payments, he felt he had to go back to work.

But he felt he couldn't cope and resigned in June 2016. Upon hearing the case, the WRC found in favour of the complainant and awarded him a total of €25,500.
Redress
There are three options for redress available if it is deemed that an employee has been unfairly dismissed: reinstatement to the position previously held, reinstatement to a different position that would be suitable for the employee, or compensation.

The adjudicator noted that they were satisfied that there was a relationship between the change in how the company treated the employee and the voicing of his concerns.

The adjudicator also noted the issues raised about the cut in salary and accusations of under-performance without the employee being provided with any specific details of the under-performance.

Also noted was the employment of a new general manager prior to the complainant's 'review'. From this, the adjudicator concluded the decision to demote the complainant was made in advance of this review.

She found that there was again a connection between the demotion of the complainant and his concerns of financial irregularities. Furthermore, she found that the company breached the complainant's contract of employment by cutting his salary.

While some of the elements of this particular case may seem obvious from the point of view of the complainant, it is still important to remember that the burden of proof is with the claimant and they must show that their resignation wasn't voluntary.
Derek McKay is managing director at Adare Human Resource Management. The company will be hosting a Workplace Relations Commission mock adjudication hearing on Tuesday, 17 April. Sign up to our newsletter to receive a regular digest of Fora's top articles delivered to your inbox.

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What a worker's €25,000 payout can teach employers about 'constructive dismissal'

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The man was demoted after raising concerns about the company's accounts. By Derek McKay MD, Adare Human Resource Management 'CONSTRUCTIVE DISMISSAL' IS a term that I come across regularly when dealing with conflict between organisations and former employees. However, there is generally a misunderstanding about what constructive dismissal is and how it is assessed.

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Cuisine de France maker overturns payout for worker accused of showing up drunk

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Swiss-Irish firm Aryzta had previously been ordered to pay €12,500 to the ex-employee.

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He wasn't provided a written copy of the dismissal procedure.

By Derek McKay MD, Adare Human Resource Management

IT'S SIMPLY NOT enough to have HR policies in place in your organisation.

They must be followed and implemented correctly, particularly when dealing with termination of employment - otherwise it could significantly cost your business.
Dismissed based on allegation
The advice follows two recent decisions by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), which saw separate claimants receive tens of thousands of euro compensation due to the lack of due process and procedure.

In one of the cases, the claimant had sought adjudication by the WRC under the Unfair Dismissal Act 1977 having had her employment terminated after five years without any obvious justification.

The claimant had been dismissed by her employer, by email, based on an allegation against her made by co-employee. However, there was no investigation to substantiate the allegation nor did the employer follow any disciplinary procedure when terminating employment.

The WRC decision was in the amount of €18,400 compensation based on the fact the claimant was out of work for a period of time and when she did find alternative employment, it was at a substantially lower salary.

In accordance with legislation, all dismissals are considered unfair unless an employer can demonstrate otherwise.

Therefore, the employer must show that a reasonable decision was made when terminating employment and a fair procedure was followed.
Terms and conditions
In order to do this, it is important that an organisation retains adequate documentation to demonstrate adherence to the disciplinary process.

The second case saw the claimant seek adjudication by the WRC under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the Terms of Employment Act 1994, the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 and the Minimum Notice & Terms of Employment Act 1973.

The claimant was employed as a service adviser at a motor company for a period of 16 months from October 2015.

He had submitted that he had not received written terms and conditions of employment in accordance with the Terms of Employment (Information) Act.

Terms and conditions of employment must be furnished to an employee within the timeframe set out in the act: two months of the commencement date of their employment. This was not contested by the company.

It was stated by the complainant that he was dismissed during the course of a heated meeting and that the dismissal was substantively and procedurally unfair.

He also said that the company was in breach of the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Act for failing to pay his statutory notice. He had also said that the working environment was very pressurised and stressful.

In the evidence given during the WRC hearing, the company submitted that there had been issues around the performance of the claimant carrying out his duties, poor attendance and for misleading them.

They countered that the claimant had taken 41 days sick leave in a 14-month period, without medical certification and that he had also lied in relation to outstanding customer payments.

The WRC upheld the complaint that the employer was in breach of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 and awarded the claimant €1,500.

It was also found that the claimant was dismissed without the application of fair procedure.

The adjudicator also found that the claimant was working in an unsupportive environment and the lack of any procedures, as would normally be set out in terms and conditions of employment, was a contributory factor in his failure to challenge the performance issued raised.

He was awarded €12,000 compensation. He was also awarded a further week's salary for monies not paid to him during his notice period.

There may well be legitimate reasons to terminate an employee's contract for disciplinary or performance related issues.

But if the employee has not been provided with a written copy of the employer's dismissal procedure no later than 28 days after they have commenced work, then the employer is in breach of the Unfair Dismissals Act.

As this case shows, it is in the employer's own interest to have a clear and comprehensive set of procedures governing dismissal and ensure that employees are fully aware with the procedures.

And again, the employer must be able to clearly demonstrate that a dismissal was based on reasonable decisions and fair procedure was followed.
Derek McKay is managing director of Adare Human Resource Management, which will host a mock WRC adjudication hearing on 17 April.
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By not following the right and fair policies and procedures set out in legislation, employers leave themselves open to significant financial penalties, regardless of the reasons for dismissal.

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A worker fired at a 'heated meeting' won €12,000 - here are the lessons for employers

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He wasn't provided a written copy of the dismissal procedure. By Derek McKay MD, Adare Human Resource Management IT'S SIMPLY NOT enough to have HR policies in place in your organisation. They must be followed and implemented correctly, particularly when dealing with termination of employment - otherwise it could significantly cost your business.

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https://jobs.nike.com/benefitshttps://jobs.nike.com/benefits

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https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/business/perks-that-work-employee-benefits-becoming-ever-more-enticing-1.1797509%3fmode=amphttps://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/business/perks-that-work-employee-benefits-becoming-ever-more-enticing-1.1797509%3fmode=amp

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https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/working-health/working-nhs/nhs-pay-and-benefitshttps://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/working-health/working-nhs/nhs-pay-and-benefits

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https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/best-things-about-working-at-apple-2016-1

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http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-employee-

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Microsoft Careers: Benefits and perks for US employees

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We're a company of pioneers. It's our job to make bold bets, and we get our energy from inventing on behalf of customers. Success is measured against the possible, not the probable. For today's pioneers, that's exactly why there's no place on Earth they'd rather build than Amazon.

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https://www.inc.com/business-insider/best-google-benefits.html

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Sir, - On first reading, Project Ireland 2040 offers little or no cheer to the commuters in the southeast of Ireland, and while current road improvement works on the M11 bypassing Enniscorthy, and the New Ross ring road are listed, these are already under construction. There is nothing in this plan regarding the development of Rosslare Port post-Brexit and the maintenance of the rail links to the port, and while money is being allocated to reopen the western rail line to link Athenry to Claremorris, the line between Waterford and Rosslare, which closed over six years ago, and the line between Rosslare and Dublin, do not seem to feature at all.

The N11/M11 is one of the busiest commuter roads in the country, and the journey times on this road are getting longer and longer. The rail line is not being used to capacity south of the Dart corridor, and despite representations from commuters and Government officials, there is no prospect of any improvement to the timetable on this line. The commuter towns in both counties Wicklow and Wexford badly need a reliable public transport system to access the city, careful planning and a better timetable on the rail service would reduce the number of cars on the N11 daily, and there is also a need for feeder bus services to provide access from these towns to the Dart network at off-peak times , as the current Bus Éireann services do not provide connections in this regard. - Yours, etc,

ROBIN D HEATHER,

Wicklow Town.

Sir, - Navan, with a population of 31,689, is the fifth-largest town in Ireland, and the tenth-largest urban settlement, gets only one project in the National Development Plan. Clearly those who produced this extravagant wish-list have a sense of humour. Their one solid proposal, for the next 22 years, is the building of a new county courthouse. Are they expecting a surge in criminal activity in Navan? - Yours, etc,

DORCHA LEE,

Navan,

Co Meath.

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Sir, - On first reading, Project Ireland 2040 offers little or no cheer to the commuters in the southeast of Ireland, and while current road improvement works on the M11 bypassing Enniscorthy, and the New Ross ring road are listed, these are already under construction.

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Diesel excise duty rise justifiable - ESRI report 
 http://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0222/942595-esri_diesel_duty/

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President Donald Trump has said he is considering proposals to promote concealed carrying of weapons by trained school employees to respond to campus shootings.

Meeting with students and parents affected by school shootings, Mr Trump is responding to a call to arm teachers and other school employees so they can react before law enforcement arrives.

The President said he believes the proposal could "solve the problem" of school shootings, by making potential attackers think twice and noted that some airline pilots have carried concealed weapons since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Florida Republicans block weapons ban, label porn a 'safety risk'

"An attack has lasted on average about three minutes, it takes five to eight minutes for responders, the police, to come in, so the attack is over," Mr Trump said.

"If you had a teacher that was adept at fire arms they could very well end the attack quickly."

Mr Trump recognised that the proposal is a contentious one, and asked for a show of hands in the East Room of those for and against giving teachers and military veterans concealed weapons permits. Some in the room indicated support, while others said they were against the idea.

Florida shooting - in pictures

"Certainly it's controversial, but we'll study that, along with many other ideas," the President told his guests.

Mr Trump was joined by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Vice President Mike Pence during the listening event. The three heard from survivors of the Parkland shooting, as well as parents from past school shootings, including some parents who lost their children during the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Questioned last week on whether she supported the arming of teachers, Ms DeVos said it was "an important issue for all states to grapple with". After she was pressed for her personal view, she said decisions had to be made "at the local level and at the state level. Communities need to share best practices and results from the steps that they take to ensure that kids have a safe environment in which to learn."

"This is not a difficult issue. You're absolutely right. There are solutions and this administration has the ability to put them in place," Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed in the Newtown shooting, said. Ms Hockley continued to say that she does not think that arming teachers is the solution to address America's gun violence epidemic, and instead said that she would like to see teachers armed with the knowledge to prevent future attacks.

Mr Trump also indicated that he is interested in exploring how mental health treatment or awareness could help to stop future mass shootings. The idea is not a new one for the President, who said during a speech Thursday that Americans need to keep an eye out for people who they believe could act dangerously, and who may be suffering from mental illness and likely to turn to violence. At one point he floated the idea of ending gun free school zones as well.

Julia Corsover, the student body president at Stoneman, said that, no matter what politicians decide in the end, something must be done.

Another student, Sam Zeif, said that, shared the story of his experience during last week's shooting. He said that he was worried about his brother, who was also in the building that was shot up, and that he later learned one of his best friends was among those killed.

"I lost a best friend," Mr Zeif said. He said that he doesn't think that assault-style weapons should be up for sale. He "was practically a brother. And I'm here to use my voice because I know he can't. And I know he's with me, cheering me on to be strong, but it's hard. And to feel like this, it doesn't even feel like a week. Time has stood still."

In the aftermath of the shooting that left 17 dead and at least a dozen more injured, many of the students have spoken up in favour of gun control. That has included an organising effort for a mass march in Washington next month, which has grown to include several other march locations across the country.

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Trump says he is considering arming teachers after shooting tragedy

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President Donald Trump has said he is considering proposals to promote concealed carrying of weapons by trained school employees to respond to campus shootings. Meeting with students and parents affected by school shootings, Mr Trump is responding to a call to arm teachers and other school employees so they can react before law enforcement arrives.

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Staff Productivity levels "up 25%" in Arup Engineering

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Engineering consultant firm Arup have become the first in Ireland, and the ninth in Europe, to receive the WELL Certification by the International WELL Building Institute for its Cork office.

The offices, which accommodate 170 staff, were designed around the seven categories of building performance; air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.

Employees are now encouraged to change up their working locations and postures throughout the day at the sit-stand desks, in the huddle spaces, the booth seating and the standing-up meeting spaces.

The Albert Quay office also has specialised acoustic design throughout the open-plan areas so background distractions are reduced and privacy levels are increased, without the need for physical walls.

There are also focus rooms, booths and break-out spaces so employees can relax.

Furthermore, the air flow of each ceiling vent was simulated and particular air diffusers were carefully selected for all locations within the office, to eliminate any uncomfortable downward drafts.

Arup also have a sensor kit in the office that records and maintains air quality in the office, so there are no post-lunch headaches.

They said staff have indicated a whopping 25pc improvement in performance since they made the changes.

Cork office manager Liam Luddy said they aimed for a workspace that would make people "happier, healthier and more productive".

"With our busier lifestyles, it is important that we place an increased focus on health and wellness at work," Mr Luddy said.

"By specifically focusing on including well-being features into the design of workplaces, we can create spaces where people are happier, healthier and more productive.

"We are delighted to be the first office in Ireland to achieve this innovative certification."

Arup's Boston office received the certification in 2017.

Online Editors

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The ultimate place to work? Office becomes first in Ireland to get the gold medal for workspace wellbeing - Independent.ie

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Engineering consultant firm Arup have become the first in Ireland, and the ninth in Europe, to receive the WELL Certification by the International WELL Building Institute for its Cork office. The offices, which accommodate 170 staff, were designed around the seven categories of building performance; air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.

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KFC has taken to Twitter to inform its customers why its stores across Cornwall and the rest of the country have been forced to close for the past few days.

Falmouth and Bodmin have been closed for several days, after stores ran out of ingredients including chips and chicken and restaurants in other parts of the UK, including Plymouth, Exeter, Manchester and Londonwere also affected.

But on Saturday afternoon the company blamed a new supplier for the issues they have suffered, the Plymouth Herald reported.

The tweet said: "We've brought a new delivery partner onboard, but they've had a couple of teething problems - getting fresh chicken out to 900 restaurants across the country is pretty complex!

"We won't compromise on quality, so no deliveries has meant some of our restaurants are closed, and others are operating a limited menu, or shortened hours.

"Shout out to our restaurant teams who are working flat out to get us back up and running again."

Notices have appeared in the windows telling customers they are sorry, but they do not want to offer a reduced menu and so are closed until new deliveries arrive.

In Cornwall it affects Falmouth and Bodmin, with the Penzance branch closed for health and safety reasons. St Austell, however, remained open this afternoon.

At lunchtime a staff member said it was "bizarre" that they had not been affected and by 4pm they said they were still open and were "busy".

Falmouth had also said earlier it hoped to receive a delivery soon, but later a staff member said: "I am not sure we will be open today."

A spokesperson for KFC had previously revealed there has been issues with its delivery system, and that its restaurants would be open again as soon as possible.

They said: "We deliver fresh chicken to our restaurants, but we're having a few hiccups with our delivery system at the moment.

"We're really sorry for any inconvenience, and we're working to have all our restaurants back up and running as soon as we can!"

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As most of Cornwall's KFC stay shut here's what went wrong

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KFC has taken to Twitter to inform its customers why its stores across Cornwall and the rest of the country have been forced to close for the past few days. Falmouth and Bodmin have been closed for several days, after stores ran out of ingredients including chips and chicken and restaurants in other parts of the UK, including Plymouth, Exeter, Manchester and Londonwere also affected.

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https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/delivery-driver-sues-south-dublin-pub-for-defamation-after-barman-said-10-note-was-fake-high-court-hears-36587091.html

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Govt tax revenue surplus

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The Government's tax revenues for January represent a solid start to the year, according to the Department of Finance.

Tax revenues of €5.019 billion were collected last month, an increase of 4.9% or €236 million on January 2017. This year-on-year improvement was driven by strong performances across a range of taxes.

The revenue figures show a surplus of €1.529 billion was recorded in January, which compares to a surplus of €1.470 billion in the same period last year.

According to the department, this year-on-year improvement of €59 million was primarily due to increased tax revenues, which, was offset by increases in voted and non-voted expenditure.

Despite concerns around Christmas spending, VAT receipts surged over the festive period, indicating strong consumer spending. January is generally the largest month of the year in terms of VAT receipts as collections in the month primarily relate to the November/December trading period. Receipts in the month amounted to €2,445 million, which represents a strong year-on-year increase of €5.7% or €132 million.

Government spending overall was up 5.4% year-on-year but the exchequer related to the general government still recorded a surplus of €607 million, a significant improvement on last year.

Income Tax performed robustly, with receipts of €1,750 million collected in January. This represents a year-on-year improvement of 6.6% or €108 million.

As expected, January is traditionally a quiet month for Corporation Tax and receipts of €25 million were recorded, which equates to a €39 million decrease when compared to January 2017.

Excise duties amounted to €478 million in January, representing a marginal year-on-year increase of approximately 2.3% or €11 million.

€124 million was collected in Stamp Duty receipts in January, up 47.3% or €40 million year-on-year.

Capital Gains Tax receipts amounted to €62 million, an increase of €38 million when compared to January 2017.

Capital Acquisitions Tax receipts of €13 million were down €4 million when compared to the corresponding month last year.

Since January 1, 2018, Local Property Tax is paid directly into the Local Government Fund, rather than being directed to the Exchequer, as a result of the Water Services Act 2017.

Motor Tax receipts are now paid directly into the Exchequer instead of the Local Government Fund.

€87 million was received in the Exchequer in respect of Motor Tax receipts in January, down €9 million in year-on-year terms.
Customs receipts of €17 million were collected in January, which represents a year-on-year decrease of €5 million.

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Government tax revenues are 'solid start' to year

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The Government's tax revenues for January represent a solid start to the year, according to the Department of Finance. Tax revenues of €5.019 billion were collected last month, an increase of 4.9% or €236 million on January 2017. This year-on-year improvement was driven by strong performances across a range of taxes.

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https://t.co/OZD5afFvMdhttps://t.co/OZD5afFvMd

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In a move that could revolutionise the way we buy groceries, Amazon has opened a supermarket with no checkout operators or self-service tills.

Long queues formed outside the Amazon Go store in Seattle before it opened its doors to the public on Monday.

It uses hundreds of ceiling-mounted cameras and electronic sensors to identify each customer and track the items they select.

Purchases are billed to customers' credit cards when they leave the store.

On entering the store, shoppers walk through gates similar to those in the London underground, swiping their smartphones loaded with the Amazon Go app.

Then they are free to put any of the sandwiches, salads, drinks and biscuits on the shelves straight into their shopping bags.

There's no need for a trolley or basket, since you won't be unpacking it again at the till. In fact, unless you need to be ID-checked for an alcohol purchase, there's also no need for any human interaction at all.

With the help of sensors on the shelves, items are added to customers' Amazon Go account as they pick them up - and delete any they put back. An electronic receipt is issued as they exit.

Virtual assistants and mobile shops: the changing face of shopping

Amazon finally arrives in Australia

The store opened to employees of the online retail giant in December 2016 and had been expected to allow the public in more quickly.

But there were some teething problems with correctly identifying shoppers of similar body types - and children moving items to the wrong places on shelves, according to an Amazon insider.

Gianna Puerini, head of Amazon Go, said the store had operated well during the test phase: "This technology didn't exist - it was really advancing the state of the art of computer vision and machine learning."

How does it work?

Grab-and-go shopping has been the "future of retail" for some time now.

But now Amazon believes its time has come - or at least that it is ready for real-world testing.

They're calling it "Just walk out" and while they won't spill the beans on just how it works, they say it uses "computer vision, deep learning algorithms and sensor fusion, much like you'd find in a self-driving car".

You scan a QR code as you enter. After that, your phone can go back in your pocket.

Hundreds of infra-red ceiling cameras have been trained (with Amazon employees as guinea pigs) over the past year to differentiate between customers as they move around the store, and between items for sale, even those with similar appearances, such as different flavours of the same canned drink.

There are weight sensors on the shelves to help indicate if an item has been taken or put back. And some items carry a visual dot code, like a bar code, to help cameras identify them.

Amazon isn't offering any information on how accurate the system is.

However, one journalist attempted to shoplift some cans of soft drink - but the system spotted it and added them on his bill.

Amazon has not said if it will be opening more Go stores, which are separate from the Whole Foods chain that it bought last year for $13.7bn (£10.7bn).

As yet the company has no plans to introduce the technology to the hundreds of Whole Foods stores.

However, retailers know that the faster customers can make their purchases, the more likely they are to return.

Making the dreaded supermarket queue a thing of the past will give any retailer a huge advantage over its competitors.

The Seattle store is not Amazon's first foray into bricks and mortar retailing. In 2015 the firm opened its first physical bookshop, also in Seattle where the company is based. There are now 13 in the US - as well as dozens of temporary pop-up outlets.

In its third quarter results in October, Amazon for the first time put a figure on the revenues generated by its physical stores: $1.28bn. Yet almost all of that was generated by Whole Foods.

While its stores may not yet be moneyspinners, analysts have said Amazon is using them to raise brand awareness and promote its Prime membership scheme. Prime members pay online prices at its bookstores, for example, while non-members are charged the cover price.

Brian Olsavsky, Amazon chief financial officer, recently hinted that rivals should expect more Amazon shops in the months and years ahead.

"You will see more expansion from us - it's still early, so those plans will develop over time," he said in October.

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I nearly died from the president's herbal HIV 'cure'

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In a move that could revolutionise the way we buy groceries, Amazon has opened a supermarket with no checkout operators or self-service tills. Long queues formed outside the Amazon Go store in Seattle before it opened its doors to the public on Monday.

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Airport worker awarded €50,000 after being sacked for refusing to drive uninsured vehicle

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The man refused to drive a company vehicle that didn't have tax, insurance or NCT discs.

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https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/fake-bids-being-used-to-drive-up-house-prices-fianna-f%C3%A1il-claims-1.3280626https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/fake-bids-being-used-to-drive-up-house-prices-fianna-f%C3%A1il-claims-1.3280626

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The handling of the recent breach of healthcare data belonging to about half the population of Norway has been criticised because of the delay in notifying people whose data may have been stolen by hackers.

Some security commentators said the incident should be a wake-up call for organisations planning to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018.

On 15 January 2018, Health South-East RHF, a healthcare organisation that manages hospitals in Norway's southeast region, confirmed that that healthcare records of 2.9 million citizens may have been exposed, seven days after being notified of the breach by HelseCERT, the country's computer emergency response team for the healthcare sector.

HelseCERT had identified suspicious traffic coming from Health South-East's computer network, and an investigation by the IT staff at Sykehuspartner HF - Health South-East RHF's parent company - revealed evidence of a severe data breach, reports Bleeping Computer.

"This is a serious situation and measures have been taken to limit the damage caused by the incident," said Health South-East RHF and Sykehuspartner HF in a joint statement.

In a standard face-saving statement, Health South-East RHF said the attacker appeared to be "an advanced and professional player", and that it has taken measures to limit the impact of the breach, but gave no further details.

"There is close dialogue with the hospitals about this and there is so far no evidence that the burglary has had consequences for patient treatment, patient safety or that patient data has been overlooked, but it is too early to conclude," said Cathrine Lofthus, CEO of Health South-East RHF, in a statement.

"The best resources in Hospital Partners are now working together with the foremost expertise in the country to get an overview and resolve the situation."

Norwegian law enforcement and the country's national Cert, NorCERT, have been notified, while investigations into the breach are reportedly continuing to determine the full extent of the breach.

Norwegian health authorities have yet to confirm whether the cyber attackers were able to access and exfiltrate personal healthcare data.

Read more about healthcare data security

Health South-East RHF manages healthcare units in nine of Norway's 18 counties, including Akershus, which is home to Norway's capital, Oslo.

Andy Norton, director of threat intelligence at security firm Lastline, said the GDPR requires organisations to notify those affected by a personal data breach within 72 hours.

"In this particular case, before notifying authorities and affected parties, the actual evidence-gathering and notification has taken much longer than the GDPR requirement," he said.

According to Norton, automated breach prevention is the only appropriate security mechanism for GDPR notification requirements because of the fairly short notification period allowed by the new data protection legislation.

Healthcare data is a popular target for cyber criminals because it provides all the personal details necessary for ID theft and related fraudulent activity.

A survey published in April 2017 revealed that one in eight consumers in England have had private medical information about them stolen from systems that lack the right level of security.

The survey of 1,000 people in England showed that most (78%) think healthcare providers should be responsible for protecting this information, while only 40% believe they themselves have responsibility.

The findings, from a survey of 7,580 people carried out by Accenture in seven countries, revealed that more than half (56%) of data breaches in England concerned medical identity theft and that people who have experienced a breach lost an average of £172 as a result.

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Norwegian healthcare breach alert failed GDPR requirements

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The handling of the recent breach of healthcare data belonging to about half the population of Norway has been criticised because of the delay in notifying people whose data may have been stolen by hackers. Some security commentators said the incident should be a wake-up call for organisations planning to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018.

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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/new-data-protection-laws-create-hive-of-activity-in-irish-jobs-market-1.3363128?mode=amphttps://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/new-data-protection-laws-create-hive-of-activity-in-irish-jobs-market-1.3363128?mode=amp

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A male duty manager at a Dublin Airport-based food franchise firm lost his senior post after a disputed "kiss" incident with a junior female colleague.

In the case, Select Service Partner Ireland, trading as SSP Ireland, fired Albert Fordjour arising from the incident in March 2016 outside a lift at the airport.

In the incident, Mr Fordjour was waiting for a lift to open and, after it did, a junior female employee from one of the units he supervised exited. As she did so, Mr Fordjour placed his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him.

The woman said that he tried to kiss her on the cheek or on the lips while Mr Fordjour maintains that he was hugging her as he was of the view that they were friends and did not attempt to kiss her in any way.

Fifteen days later, the woman made a complaint to the SSP Ireland regarding the incident and this culminated in Mr Fordjour's sacking in May 2016.

SSP Ireland fired Mr Fordjour for gross misconduct and found that his behaviour was unacceptable and incompatible with his status as a manager in a position of authority.

Mr Fordjour claimed unfair dismissal and an adjudication officer found that his claim was well founded, that he was unfairly dismissed and ordered that he be re-instated.

However, SSP Ireland appealed this ruling to the Labour Court and the Labour Court's examination of CCTV of the incident shows Mr Fordjour "leaning towards her but is inconclusive on the question of whether he tried to kiss her on either the lips or the cheek".

Mr Fordjour did admit to placing his hand on the employee and to pulling her towards him to hug her.

In its determination, the Labour Court found Mr Fordjour's behaviour "unacceptable, and an invasion of her right to bodily integrity".

The court stated that it found Mr Fordjour's actions as "an abuse of authority in the workplace that cannot be treated lightly".

The Court also found Mr Fordjour's explanation of his actions as a friendly gesture of salutation that he made while speaking on the phone as "wholly unconvincing".

The court further found that such action without a context of consent would warrant dismissal.

However, it said Mr Fordjour wasn't afforded fair procedure by his employer in the investigation in that it failed to interview two witnesses put forward by him who would give evidence on the relationship between Mr Fordjour and the woman.

The court found that in those circumstances that the dismissal was unfair. In its recommendation, the court recommended that SSP Ireland re-employ Mr Fordjour but that he demoted to one level below duty manager level and pay to be associated with the new role.

The court has ruled that Mr Fordjour commence his work from Monday, January 8th and the period from the date he was sacked in May 2016 to January 8th be considered as a period of suspension without pay.

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Airport manager was fired over disputed 'kiss' with colleague

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A male duty manager at a Dublin Airport-based food franchise firm lost his senior post after a disputed "kiss" incident with a junior female colleague. In the case, Select Service Partner Ireland, trading as SSP Ireland, fired Albert Fordjour arising from the incident in March 2016 outside a lift at the airport.

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False claim

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Graham Dunne pictured wearing a 'Gaelforce West 2013 t-shirt' and inset, Croagh Patrick

A man questioned in court about competing in a triathlon five weeks after suffering "incapacitating injuries" responded: "Oh, I see you've been looking at my Facebook."

Graham Dunne (41), of Castlecurragh Park, Blanchardstown, had his €60,000 claim thrown out of the Circuit Court on Wednesday on the basis he gave misleading information regarding his previous medical history.

Exclusive pictures obtained by Independent.ie show the father-of-two wearing a 'Gaelforce West 2013' t-shirt while out running.

Gaelforce West is a one-day adventure race which involves kayaking, a 58km cycle and a 15km run up Croagh Patrick.

When asked about his participation in Gaelforce West, Mr Dunne said the last time he competed in that race was 2014.

Evidence of him wearing a t-shirt from the event in 2013 was then put to him and he admitted that he had participated in the event in 2013 - five weeks after he suffered injuries in a biking accident allegedly involving a hit and run driver.

Under cross-examination it was also put to him that he undertook a course in Krav Maga, an extreme martial art fighting self-defence class which the Israeli Defence Forces are trained in.

He admitted taking part in this also.

Conor Kearney, counsel for the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland, which compensates victims of untraced motorists, told the court that Mr Dunne had misled a doctor about his past medical history.

He said that during an examination by Dr Pat O'Neill, a sports injury specialist, Mr Dunne had concealed information about a second accident at the National Aquatic Centre in which he had sustained head and neck injuries and which he had settled out of court for €20,000.

Mr Dunne denied that he deliberately intended to do this.

Judge Groarke dismissed the claim and remarked that those who fail to disclose material facts do so at their peril.

Mr Dunne was contacted for comment but did not respond.

The verdict was welcomed by David Fitzgerald, chief executive of the MIBI.

Mr Fitzgerald told Independent.ie that the MIBI are taking a "tough stance" on suspicious claims and have adopted a "fighting fraud" strategy.

"We're prepared to spend money fighting these cases in court as in the long term, we are getting some good results from the judiciary. We want to make sure that there is enough money available there for genuine people," he said.

The MIBI generated over €2.5 million in fraud savings in the first nine months of last year, while 266 cases were flagged as suspicious and investigated.

Online Editors

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Pictured: Man who had €60k claim thrown out says 'Oh, I see you've been looking at my Facebook' - Independent.ie

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A man questioned in court about competing in a triathlon five weeks after suffering "incapacitating injuries" responded: "Oh, I see you've been looking at my Facebook." Graham Dunne (41), of Castlecurragh Park, Blanchardstown, had his €60,000 claim thrown out of the Circuit Court on Wednesday on the basis he gave misleading information regarding his previous medical history.

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Social Influencers and Advertising Legislation (NCA=CCPC)

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The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has said it is reviewing issues relating to social media and consumer protection at a European level.

It comes after a week when the Irish influencer community came under pressure from social media users to become more transparent.

An influencer is described as a person with the ability to sway potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.

Groups are claiming they are misleading their online followers with digitally enhanced products they are promoting or editing pictures beyond real-life recognition.

The discussion over influencer practice also escalated when a Dublin hotel hit out at one social media influencer after they contacted the hotel and asked for a free stay in exchange for a mention on their social media channels.

In Ireland, there is no consumer protection legislation governing the advertising sector and no specific reference to blogging or social media influencers in general consumer law.

The Consumer Protection Act 2007 prohibits traders from providing false or misleading information that could affect a consumer's decision making process.

The CCPC has said they are aware of recent media reports on this specific matter, however the commission has not received any consumer complaints in relation to it in either 2017 or so far in 2018.

It says as an enforcement body, the CCPC cannot take action on anecdotal evidence alone and that its decisions to act on any particular issues are on the basis of a number of criteria, including contacts to its consumer helpline.

The Irish influencer community is coming under pressure from social media users to become more transparent. Here's my report for @morningireland: https://t.co/frYlpx3469
- Jackie Fox (@jackiefox_) January 19, 2018

The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland has also weighed in on the social media influencer issue.

ASAI Chief Executive Orla Twomey has said the number of complaints about social media influencers is on the rise.

Ms Twomey said two years ago it had received no complaints about influencers but they now represent 5% of its overall complaints. She labelled the rise as "significant".

She said: "It's important to note that the rules for advertising apply to all media. So it doesn't matter what publication is being used. The rules are don't mislead and don't offend.

"If you are advertising a slimming product and if you take a before and after photograph and if you alter the after photograph and make yourself look thinner, well then you are implying that the product will achieve that result and that's likely to mislead."

Dublin blogger and social media influencer Grace Mongey said the manipulation of images is wrong when working with a brand.

She said it is important to be open and honest, and to be "completely transparent is the best way to do things".

Grace left her job two years ago to become a full-time blogger and has gained almost 120,000 followers on Instagram and a reach of 40,000 on Snapchat.

She described the negativity surrounding social media influencers at the moment as "scary".

Another Irish full-time blogger and stylist Lorna Weightman has said influencers can learn from the last few weeks.

She said that hopefully this will make the industry more open, transparent and honest.

As the controversy continues, the ASAI is appealing to social media users that if they see a problem to report it.

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Commission to review role of social media 'influencers'

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The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has said it is reviewing issues relating to social media and consumer protection at a European level. It comes after a week when the Irish influencer community came under pressure from social media users to become more transparent.

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Garda watchdog 'doesn't have the staff to deal with whistleblower claims'

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Insurance Scam Backfires on Scammer || ViralHog

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Occurred on July 2, 2017 / UK Info from Licensor: "Dashcam shows a man intentionally trying scam driver for a possible insurance claim. Little did the scammer know the driver had a dashcam of her own." TO SEE THE HOTTEST VIRAL VIDEOS DAILY...

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The self-made businessman admits that genuine claims, such as those he's experienced first-hand in the fast-food industry are "a fact of life", but "it's the totally fraudulent and exaggerated claims that cause the problems".

McDonagh has faced a number of difficulties with conmen orchestrating falls in his stores; at one point he faced 125 live cases claiming injury occurred on Supermacs premises.

"This was at a time when the number of outlets we had was not near the amount we have today," he said. "I was going in to work wondering what new claim would be on my desk when I went in - all my energy was focused on that rather than the actual business itself."

Footage taken from a Supermacs store in Cork was provided to independent.ie to show an example of the type of claim McDonagh faced.

"In that instance, the man made a dramatic fall, an ambulance had to be called and the store had to be closed," he said.

"When it went to court, the judge commented: 'Did you ever look at YouTube? Well this is one for YouTube.'"

McDonagh appeared on the 'The Late Late Show' last month to highlight this issue of phoney personal injury claims here but believes a lot more needs to done.

Because the costs have gone up so much in the courts, this has encouraged insurance companies to try and settle cases, said McDonagh.

He said that the 'compo-culture' in Ireland today, where claimants are exaggerating their claims by as much as 50pc, is leading to an increase in insurance costs.

"What that leads to is people not willing to get or unable to afford insurance, especially on the motor insurance side of things," he said.

"This kind of claim culture doesn't happen to this extent in the UK or on the continent."

Irish Independent

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'Compo-culture' drives up insurance costs, says founder of Supermacs - Independent.ie

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The self-made businessman admits that genuine claims, such as those he's experienced first-hand in the fast-food industry are "a fact of life", but "it's the totally fraudulent and exaggerated claims that cause the problems". McDonagh has faced a number of difficulties with conmen orchestrating falls in his stores; at one point he faced 125 live cases claiming injury occurred on Supermacs premises.

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IT'S the backlash that insurance companies and hard-pressed policy-holders have been demanding for more than 30 years.

Compensation payments are being cut, awards are being overturned and claims are being dismissed outright as the chancers and fraudsters finally get their comeuppance.

At last, those who look to milk an overly generous system by hyping up an injury to secure an easy cheque will think twice before practicing their limp and perfecting their sob story.

That's certainly how it appears as the two-year-old Court of Appeal begins to make an impact and judges take a tougher line with claimants and the evidence they present.

But does this clampdown represent a real culture change or is it just a passing phase, and is it targetting the right people or is there a danger that scepticism will take the place of scrutiny and genuine claimants will be denied justice?

And will it make any difference to the ever-increasing insurance premiums that are crippling businesses, organisations and private citizens alike?

The clampdown is real, according to Liam Moloney, a Kildare-based solicitor who has specialised in personal injury cases for 20 years. "There has been a tightening up in the courts since the introduction of the Court of Appeal [in November 2014]," he says.

Prior to the creation of the dedicated Court of Appeal, if a defendant wanted to challenge an award or the scale of damages handed down in the High Court, they had to apply to the Supreme Court which had a four-year backlog of cases.

They had probably already spent four or more years waiting to get to the High Court in the first place so the option of appealing was understandably not at all appealing. Likewise, the delays in the High Court deterred appeals from the Circuit Court.

In its first full year of operation, the Court of Appeal got through 750 civil cases with an averaging waiting time of 10 months so it is making its presence felt.

"There have been a number of decisions from the Court of Appeal that have overturned awards dramatically, sometimes by 50%," says Moloney. "What that has done is cause a significant reduction in awards for certain injuries in the High Court because judges now know what the Court of Appeal will do if the award they make is challenged."

FAULT

It's not just the level of awards that has changed either. "The law of evidence in relation to personal injuries has been tightened up considerably," he says.

"In contested liability cases fault has always been decided on the balance of probabilities - is it more likely that the defendant was at fault than wasn't - so you just had to tip the balance over 50%.

"The law is still that you have to prove your case on the balance of probabilities but in my opinion the threshold isn't as low as 51% any more."

Moloney has no objection in principle to the tightening up of the process but he is concerned that some people may be unfairly squeezed.

"In relation to fraudulent and exaggerated claims, nobody wants that in their economy. It's wrong and it should be stamped out but there is a fine line between what is fraudulent and what is someone's legitimate right to pursue an action for compensation.

"Injuries can be quite subjective in nature. An injury to one person might be different to an injury to another person. A fit person can recover quickly enough but maybe somebody who isn't as fit will be affected more.

"It's also recognised that whiplash injuries take longer to recover in someone who has a pre-existing anxiety or depressive condition. So what might sound like exaggeration it might not be exaggeration at all."

CAUTION

Ernest Cantillon says insurers are acting in their own interest.

Cork-based solicitor Ernest Cantillon, whose firm has secured the biggest personal injuries pay-outs in Irish legal history, has similar concerns.

"There are, in every walk of life, those that will abuse the system but I think caution is required," he says.

"If, for example, we had a drunk driver - who caused injury to an innocent person - complain that he did not want to pay the amount a court determined he should pay because he felt the claim was exaggerated, we would give no heed.

"Yet we have the representatives of the drunk drivers - the insurance industry - saying we want to keep as much money in our pockets to pay dividends to our shareholders, and we think that you should get less so that object of profitability can be obtained.

"Profitability for insurance companies is fine, but is it fine on the backs of paraplegics? The difficulty is that this debate is being led by the representatives of the wrong-doers, be it insurance companies or the State, and they have a vested interest in suggesting that claims are too high or exaggerated. There is no cohesive body representing the victims."

LOTTO

Cantillon deplores the use of the term 'compo culture' and the perception that successful claimants are "all sunning themselves in the Caribbean like modern day Lotto winners".

The reality for many, he says, is that they live in chronic pain, eking out their compensation to pay for carers to get them up in the morning.

"We see court reports frequently of judges dismissing claims because they are either false or exaggerated but these are very much in the minority, although they attract the greater level of publicity.

"In fact, the media campaign orchestrated by the insurance industry is so good at highlighting exaggerated claims, that genuine claimants are discouraged from bringing claims for genuine injuries, as they feel that they may be tarred with the same brush.

"We have people who come in to us with broken limbs, who have been injured in traffic accidents, and who have said to us expressly we don't want to claim damages for our injury, we just want a claim for our financial losses - damage to our car or loss of earnings - because we don't want to get the reputation of being part of the compensation culture."

He says he only wishes as much emphasis was placed on accident prevention as fighting compensation.

"We see local authorities disclosing what sums they have paid out each year in claims. This is spun as if it is an example of avarice of the local population in sponging off their local authorities. It is nothing of the sort - it is merely a representation of countless examples of carelessness by local authorities.

"We look at it all the time as if the victim has done something wrong. I really think that we need to re-calibrate our focus and see there are people who are causing catastrophic damage.

"It drives me crazy that I'm paying my taxes and rates for the purposes of paying money to people who have been unnecessarily injured but no-one seems to be held accountable for not fencing off a hole that's been dug and carelessly left open at the weekend for someone to fall into. We say the claimant is bad for breaking a leg. Why don't we say, who left the hole unguarded?"

WHIPLASH

And don't get him started on the backlash against whiplash. "Whiplashes are much maligned," he says.

"I'm sure there are exaggerated whiplashes. But there are people who've had whiplash who will come in to you as if they've got a poker stuck up inside them. They are so stiff that they can't move one way or another and you ask them what they think of it and they'll tell you in no uncertain terms that it's a debilitating illness.

"It is open to abuse but we often see the other side of it where people say they're grand and they're not grand at all. They minimise it because they just want to get on with things. There are undoubtedly exaggerated cases but there are people who underplay it as well."

It's true you don't hear much about those who play down their suffering, probably because they're drowned out by a constant refrain from the insurance industry railing against those go the opposite route.

Insurance Ireland, the industry's representative body, repeatedly cries that insurance fraud costs the industry more than €200m every year.

There are also costs in terms of court time, Garda resources and the waste of emergency services when accidents are staged or hammed up, which is harder to quantify.

Insurance Ireland set up Insurance Confidential, a hotline for the public to spill the beans on people they knew to be faking injury or loss, and, since its establishment in 2003, it claims to have led to 9,000 cases of suspected fraud being reported and investigated.

InsuranceLink, a group of insurers, state bodies and some major employers, also formed to share information about claims they have received in the hope of catching out serial claimants and fraudsters.

COURTS

And yet the number of claims has continued to rise. In 2015, the most recent year for which the Courts Service has figures, there were 18,992 new personal injury suits filed in total in the District, Circuit and High Court - a 7% increase on 2014.

Just 1,142 were filed in the District Court, which can deal with claims for up to €15,000 while 10,631 were filed in the Circuit Court, where awards can reach €60,000, and 7,219 went to the High Court where there is no official ceiling on payouts.

The highest amount awarded in the High Court in 2015 was €13.5m, but the lowest was €2,500 so it doesn't always pay to aim high.

About half the total number filed was resolved in the same year, automatically creating a danger of worsening backlogs.

As Liam Moloney pointed out, the Court of Appeal is beginning to speed things up and, potentially, help weed out cases that should never go to court in the first place.

DISMISS

The greater willingness of defendants to make 'Section 26 applications' in recent times is also having an effect.

Section 26 is part of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 and provides powers to allow judges dismiss a claim where it is found that a plaintiff gave false or misleading evidence.

It was greeted with some caution when first enacted, partly because there is an onus to prove the plaintiff knew the evidence was false or misleading which, in the case of exaggeration as opposed to outright lie, can be too subjective to conclusively assess.

Also, a dismissal may not be ordered under Section 26 if to do so would result in an injustice to the plaintiff. So where a plaintiff was genuinely injured and the defendant was at fault, but the plaintiff misled the court as to the extent of their suffering and loss, it would be considered unjust to throw out their entire claim.

And just to get to the point of making an application means getting to court and being prepared for the consequences if a judge rejects it so the case has already cost a lot of time and money and insurers may find it cheaper to just settle a claim.

Nevertheless, it does seem to be invoked more often lately, particularly in conjunction with greater use of surveillance video and photograph evidence obtained by private investigators employed to catch out those who lie about the extent of injuries.

GENEROUS

But there's still a view that because compensation payments are generous in Ireland and legal fees are high, it's worth putting in a claim in the likelihood that insurers will often want to settle rather than risk more costly litigation.

"In terms of Europe we are quite generous," says Liam Moloney. "Awards in England are about 50%-60% of what they are here. For an injury where you'd get about €16,000-€17,000 here, you'd probably get €7,000-€8000 in England."

He believes the Injuries Board may actually be part of the problem in terms of the number of personal injury claims made, and their still fairly tortuous route through the courts.

The board has been spending between €250,000 and €330,000 annually on advertising and information campaigns in recent years.

"Isn't it ironic that the body established to reduce costs associated with personal injury claims is of itself seeking people to lodge claims?" he says.

"Remember, the Injuries Board does not test evidence - it only evaluates the injury," he adds. The implication is that people whose claim might not stand up to court scrutiny may be enticed to make one through the board that they would not otherwise chance.

The Injuries Board is also achieving acceptance rates of 20%-30% for the awards it makes so after going through the process, which is mandatory for personal injury claims, the vast majority of plaintiffs and defendants still want to go to court.

Curious cases of flying coins, nightclub falls and   the injured musician on the bongo drums

Personal injuries cases used to grab attention for the size of the awards paid out but recently they've been making headlines for the throw-out, not the pay-out.

One of the best known is from some time back, 2001, when Supermacs founder Pat McDonagh, fed up with the constant stream of spurious claims made against his chain of fast food restaurants, installed security cameras in the hand washing area of the toilets.

He famously captured footage of two men deliberately splashing water on the floor and one of them practicing sliding on it before lying down and pretending he'd fallen while his friend raised the alarm. The 'injured party' pretended to have been knocked out cold, was treated as a possible neck or spinal injury case and was taken by ambulance to hospital.

The footage has been much aired since it was presented in court where the subsequent claim for IR£30,000 in damages was speedily withdrawn after the plaintiffs heard their non-award-winning performance was to be replayed, and many business owners have followed Mr McDonagh's example since.

The following are some more recent examples of cases dismissed by judges who were far from convinced that the claims made and circumstances described were genuine.

THE FLYING COIN

Even before the judge mentioned the goat, it was clear the only money Valerie Purcell was going to see out of her personal injury claim was the coin she said hit her in the leg after it was sent flying by a council lawnmower.

The 39-year-old Cork woman had sued Cork City Council for damages, claiming she was injured while sitting on a bench in her local park on a summer day in 2014 while grass-cutting was going on.

She said as it passed her by, the sit-on mower sent a one euro coin flying in her direction and that it hit her on the leg, leaving a circular imprint on her skin and resulting in a weakness that caused her to fall the next day, giving her back trouble for the next six months.

The judge was immediately sceptical, pondering aloud if the imprint had any cash value as in the fictional case of the cheque written on the back of a cow in order to frustrate the taxman.

By the time Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin asked if the council should perhaps employ a goat to graze public parks instead of risking using lawnmowers, it was no surprise he would declare the claim "fanciful" and move on to the next case.

UP IN SMOKE

Smoking is bad for you but lying about the effects of it can be even worse, as hotel guest Jason Platt discovered when he exaggerated injuries he said he received when he fell out of the hotel's window while leaning out to have a cigarette after a day's drinking.

Initially the High Court was inclined to accept that there was an inherent danger in the design of the window at the Old Bank House Hotel in Kinsale, although when the evidence of the plaintiff's alcohol intake was presented, it was decided he was 40% responsible for the accident.

But when the extent of his injuries were challenged, his case fell apart completely. He had claimed his back was so severely damaged, there were days he could only move five feet from his bed to his sofa and couldn't manage without crutches or a wheelchair at the best of times.

The hotel had surveillance footage of him not only managing fine without any supports but driving, grocery shopping, carrying heavy objects and moving about with ease. His €1.8m claim was dismissed in its entirety.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Three men who claimed to have back injuries after a rental car tipped their vehicle near Dublin Port were accused of making it up as they went along when their stories stretched credibility at Dublin Circuit Court.

Two of the three, all of whom were Pakistani nationals, had near identical medical reports which they could not explain. Claiming they feared for their lives and vomited with fright on the roadside did not stack up with the Garda investigation which established the incident as a low-impact tip that left a minor scratch on one car.

Two other men had withdrawn matching claims before the hearing and the remaining plaintiffs could not agree on where they had been sitting in the vehicle.

Hearing the case, which was for damages totalling €180,000, Judge Raymond Groarke said he couldn't believe a word the plaintiffs said and rejected some of the more outlandish aspects as a "charade" before dismissing the entire claim.

QUICK ON THE WITHDRAW

Taxi driver Stephen McAuley withdrew his claim for €60,000 damages after facts about his previous claim were revealed.

A taxi driver reconsidered his position and withdrew his claim for €60,000 damages after his hearing revealed facts about his previous claims, forgery and suspicious insurance arrangements.

Stephen McAuley had claimed for a soft tissue injury he said he sustained when the car he was travelling in was hit by another car at a roundabout.

But while the 39-year-old Dubliner disclosed two previous accidents he had claimed for, the opposing insurers had found "many" more. He also failed to disclose that when he claimed for the theft of a brand new car the previous year, the claim was dismissed because his policy was voided by the fact that he lied to his insurers by forging a no-claims bonus.

Strangely enough, his car subsequently turned up again. Even stranger, the driver who allegedly struck him at the roundabout had only taken out insurance two weeks earlier and cancelled the policy two weeks later.

Judge James O'Donohoe told McAuley's legal team that the plot "was thickening and there could be serious consequences for their client." After a brief adjournment to consider the judge's remarks, McAuley decided not to test that hypothesis and withdrew the claim.

STAR TURN

A musician who claimed he could not play gigs for a year after falling into a moat when he stepped outside a Martello tower to relieve himself in the dark was filmed soon after on bongo drums and a trampoline.

Philippe Clark from Kilmanagh, Co Kilkenny, claimed he injured his groin and shoulder in the fall while taking part in rehearsals at the private venue.

While conceding he had exited the door and turned left into the garden instead of right to the toilet as instructed, he said he had done so to admire the sea view but the area should have been better lit to enable him see the edge of the one-metre-deep dry moat.

Evidence was produced that he had been to the venue in daylight previously so would have seen the moat, and that he was active - on bongo drums and trampoline - shortly after the accident.

It was also claimed he initially took responsibility for the fall, explaining he had been "spinning around looking at the stars". His claim was dismissed.

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Ireneusz Larus, leaving the Four Courts after the Circuit Civil Court dismissed his claim for damages.

A lorry driver awarded €12,500 in a traffic accident claim against his wife had the money seized less than an hour later to pay legal fees when he lost a claim against another driver for another apparent accident.

Ireneusz Larus's two cases came before different Circuit Court judges on the same morning, the first arising out of a claim that he was hurt as a passenger in his wife's car when she hit a wall after swerving to avoid a cyclist.

He accepted a €12,500 settlement offer, but saw it frozen less than an hour later when his claim to have been injured when he had to swerve into a kerb to avoid a lorry that had encroached on his lane was dismissed.

The court heard he had sought to recover the cost of repairs to his car despite evidence that there was no damage to the vehicle and that not even the tyres were scuffed. There was also a discrepancy between his sworn statement to the court and accounts he gave to two doctors over whether or not he had received physiotherapy.

Judge Jacqueline Linnane threw out the case and got an undertaking from Mr Larus's solicitor that when the cheque issued from the earlier case, it would not be passed on to the plaintiff.

FALL FROM GRACE

A nightclub reveller who climbed up on to a fellow clubber's shoulders and then fell off when he stumbled, tried unsuccessfully to sue the venue for causing her injuries by allowing her human climbing frame to get drunk and unsteady on his feet and for failing to properly supervise the behaviour of clientele.

Tasha Fitzsimons took the Barcode nightclub in Clontarf, Dublin to the High Court for a cut she sustained to her forehead and a fracture to her left elbow in the fall from the man who was not a party to the proceedings.

The court considered her claim in detail, and conducted much analysis on the duty of care venue management have towards their customers, before deciding that, in this case, to find the nightclub negligent in not monitoring the actions of every patron at every moment would be one step too far.

NO BUMPER PAY-OUT

Two in-laws who sought damages for neck injuries they claimed they suffered when the car in which they were passengers rear-ended another car were sent packing after a doctor told the court said the 'crash' was like bumper cars coming into contact at a fairground.

Eileen Ward and Charlie Ward were suing Mr Ward's wife's insurers at Letterkenny Circuit Court when the doctor's damning report emerged. The court also heard the student whose car had been rear-ended as he was stopped at traffic lights had suffered no injuries at all and only had to have repairs done to his tow bar, which cost him just €100 and for which he made no claim. The judge threw out the case.

NO ONE TO BLAME

A student who had to wear runners to her debs after injuring her ankle in a slip while playing hockey took her school to the High Court claiming the ground was slippy and poorly lit. The judge dismissed the case, saying: "Strange as it may seem, accidents can happen where 'somebody else' is not to blame."

'She strutted around in her six-inch heels not a bother on her'

The main insurance companies have private investigators working full-time for them.

IT SOUNDS too good to be true but the would-be insurance fraudster who instagrams or tweets a picture of themselves parasailing in Lanzarote while 'crippled' with a back injury is no urban myth.

"Facebook is brilliant," says one Cork-based private investigator. "Some people just can't resist showing off what a great time they're having even if they're supposed to be in such a bad way they can never leave the house."

The private investigator, who asked not to be named, has one such case currently on his files. A woman claimed to be badly hurt at a tourist facility but she had a physically demanding hobby and just couldn't stay away from it.

"I heard she was back with her club but it took me three months to get the proof. But eventually, sure enough, there was a big gala event and there she was doing a star turn at it. I filmed it but then she put it up on Facebook too."

Photographs and video recorded live or copied from social media sites are now common tools used by insurers to defend claims and discredit claimants.

The main insurance companies have private investigators working full-time for them while those such as the Cork practitioner are often employed by policyholders who are unhappy that their insurer wants to settle a claim that they believe could be successfully defended.

"We have another case of a lady who said she hurt herself at a hotel. Staff saw her walking around fine afterwards but she put on a limp and made a complaint the next day and said she was leaving and booking into another hotel but this was all orchestrated.

"We checked the CCTV in the new hotel and she was strutting around in her six-inch heels not a bother on her. What's interesting is that the insurer wanted to settle but the policy said the hotel had a say in whether a claim was settled up to a certain value so it's worth reading the small print."

Private investigations don't even need to be particularly covert to gather evidence. "The Data Protection Act is a big thing now. People think, you can't do this to me and you can't do that but if they're in a public place you can take photographs.

"If you're investigating insurance claims and they're meant to be crippled and they're mountain biking or running around The Lough here in Cork, you're quite entitled to take photographs of that.

"Most insurance companies will pay out up to about €30,000 without questioning because it would cost them more to defend it in the courts but if they used private investigators routinely, it would never get to court.

"I know you think, he would say that, wouldn't he, but if you had a claim in and it wasn't genuine and you had to watch your every move, you could be putting your life on hold until the claim is settled which could take, in the district court, up to two years, and if it's the High Court it could take four years.

"If you're prepared to take the chance with a false claim, put your life on hold for it and say I can't go on holiday, I can't go to the gym, I can't do things with my kids, then maybe you think it's worth it but it's something you have to weigh up very carefully."

What price can be put on pain?

Justice for the victims of unfortunate accidents has the difficulty of being subjective on a case-by-case basis.

YOU can't put a price on a life, so the saying goes, but agreeing the cost of a life blighted by pain and suffering, even temporarily, is not much easier.

In personal injuries cases, claimants generally seek compensation in the form of both general damages and special damages, the former for the pain and suffering the injury caused and/or continues to cause them and the latter for the out of pocket expenses they have incurred and will incur, plus loss of earnings to date and/or into the future.

A bit of guesswork is involved in the latter because it's hard to predict the future and how financially successful the plaintiff would have been in terms of career advancement if they weren't held back by injury.

But the maths is much less emotive than when the calculators come out to tot up general damages.

A landmark appeal to the Supreme Court in 1984 illustrates the problem. A young man left paraplegic in an accident was awarded IR£800,000 in general damages by a jury clearly sympathetic to his plight.

On appeal, however, the Supreme Court reduced the award drastically to £150,000, ruling that general damages should not be punitive and should take into account the impact on wider society.

Chief Justice O'Higgins stated in his judgement: "Since money cannot possibly compensate [for quadriplegia], a jury may question whether it matters what sum is awarded.

"The answer must be that it does matter. It matters to the defendant or his indemnifiers, and would be a ground for legitimate complaint if the sum awarded were so high as to constitute a punishment... rather than... an attempt to compensate the injured.

"It also matters to contemporary society if, by reason of the amount decided upon and the example it sets for other determinations of damages by juries, the operation of public policy would be thereby endangered."

The sum of IR£150,000 was widely viewed as a cap on general damages which future awards should not exceed. But fairly quickly, the cap was tossed away and awards for similar and lesser injuries rose and, in 1988, legislation was passed to remove juries from personal injury cases, leaving them in what was considered the more objective hands of judges alone.

Judges needed guidance, however - particularly when they tended to recoil from the notion of involving wider society in their decisions - and with the establishment of the Injuries Board in 2004, came a Book of Quantum, updated last year, which set out in detail the sums considered reasonable to compensate for any one of hundreds of different injuries to just about every part of the body.

While the book was meant primarily for use by the out-of-court Injuries Board assessors, it was presumed it would have a knock-on effect on awards in cases.

Litigation costs an issue for years

THE latest focus on the costs of personal injury claims is just that - the latest in a long line of crusades.

In 1962, then minister for justice, Charles Haughey, set up the Committee on Court Practice and Procedure to, among other things, "inquire into the operation of the courts and to consider whether the cost of litigation could be reduced".

Fast forward to 1986 and an Oireachtas committee headed by then Fine Gael deputy, Ivan Yates, produced a report seeking urgent action on the problem, which he said was strangling small businesses. Its main recommendation was to provide an alternative to the courts for settling claims.

In 1996, Pat Rabbitte, then a Democratic Left junior minister, commissioned an independent report from consultants, Deloitte and Touche, which chronicled similar problems and made similar recommendations.

That led to another report, in 1997, jointly compiled by the unions, employers, and government departments. This concluded that an independent personal injuries tribunal should be set up.

By then, the term 'compo culture' was embedded in public and political debate and feelings were running high, as evidenced by the statement of then minister for defence, Michael Smith.

"We have to strongly attack the compensation culture, which is eating at the heart of our society and which has the potential to cause grievous harm to our economy," he warned.

"To put it very simply. If compensation is to be paid out to somebody for every one of life's little mishaps, the cost will eventually make the State economically uninhabitable."

Smith was dealing with the army deafness claims - which would go on to cost the State €290m - so his alarm was understandable.

Arguably, it was also justifiable. In 1986, when Ivan Yates called for urgent action, lititgation costs were about 15% the cost of insurance claims. By 1996, when Pat Rabbitte was doing the same, the figure was 25%. By the time then minister for enterprise, Mary Harney, tried to reign in costs, they had risen to 42%.

Her department headed up the government's Insurance Reform Programme, one aspect of which was the establishment, in 2004, of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board. The aim was to provide a court-free, lawyer-free procedure for claimants and defendants, and their insurers, to settle claims in a cheaper, faster way.

The very fact that, last year, the latest government set up a Working Group on the Cost of Insurance, shows it didn't have quite the desired effect.

The working group published its first report in January, looking specifically at motor insurance, and called for the setting up of a Personal Injuries Commission to examine the whole area.

Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns has been appointed chair and is due to report back in the middle of 2018.

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Special report - Compensation culture: Fraudsters hit hard in 'compo culture' crackdown

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IT'S the backlash that insurance companies and hard-pressed policy-holders have been demanding for more than 30 years. Compensation payments are being cut, awards are being overturned and claims are being dismissed outright as the chancers and fraudsters finally get their comeuppance.

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Insurance Compo Culture

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Within hours of the news on September 15 that thousands of Ryanair flights had been cancelled in Europe, pilots' WhatsApp groups exploded with pent-up frustration.

While management explained away the cancellations as a one-off rostering screw-up, pilots believed there was a deeper problem - that disaffected colleagues were leaving in droves.

The pilots saw an opportunity to shift the balance of power in a company where they feel they are treated, in the words of one serving captain, "like janitors".

A hectic five days of Facebook and WhatsApp exchanges and meetings later, representatives of 20 of Ryanair's 87 bases were demanding new contracts.

In December, pilots in Italy, Ireland and Portugal called strikes that would have been the first of their kind in the airline's history.

"The discontent has always been there - but the cancellations triggered everyone to mobilise," one pilot said.

Their manoeuvre worked. On December 15, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary recognised unions for the first time, crossing what for him had always been a red line.

The full implications of union recognition for Ryanair's pioneering ultra low-cost business model will take months to become clear. The market's view was immediate - its shares fell 9% in a single day.

In his first interview since the cancellations, O'Leary told Reuters the decision did not indicate management weakness or pilot strength but the fact that the airline was facing the prospect of compensating 150,000 passengers in Christmas week.

"If you need to go on strike just to test our mettle, then go ahead," Michael O'Leary said in his Dublin office on Tuesday.

"But not in Christmas week. And not one that disrupts all our customers across Europe," he added.

The blunt-speaking CEO, who once crossed a picket line of baggage handlers to help load a plane, also indicated a grudging respect for the pilots: "In fairness, their timing was good."

Analysts have been concerned that rising staff costs could destroy one of the main pillars of the airline's cost advantage, pushing it into the crowded middle ground occupied by EasyJet and restructured legacy carriers such as Air Lingus.

Michael O'Leary counters that a "tiny proportion" of its advantage over rivals is due to staff costs. "There will be an uptick in labour costs next year, but will it alter the model? No."

The first signs that something was awry at Ryanair came in early summer, according to union officials and three pilots who asked not to be named because their contracts forbid them to talk to the media.

By May, the rostering department had begun calling pilots to ask them to work during their annual month off, a first.

Calls on days off also increased in frequency and on short notice, measures one pilot said were seen as a sign of "desperation."

"From the start of the summer schedule there were very, very clear signs that there issues in crew control," said the pilot, a captain who works at a base in northwest Europe.

O'Leary acknowledged in the interview that there were "all these little bits of mismanagement", including training pilots being sent to fly passengers and a backlog of newly hired pilots unable to fly.

By mid-summer, punctuality was suffering. In-house statistics show the number of flights arriving on time deteriorated from 91% in April to 83% in July, its worst level since 2010.

In early September, it had collapsed to the mid-60s, causing cascading delays and cancellations.

Management put out a call on September 13 offering pilots more money to work extra days, with management "not quite realising how serious it was," O'Leary told Reuters.

Two days later, Ryanair bowed to the inevitable and announced the cancellations.

Management has maintained the problem was triggered by a regulatory change. Starting in 2018, Irish airlines will have to calculate pilots' annual 900-hour flying time limits on the basis of the calendar year, like the rest of the European Union, rather than the customary April to March.

The rostering department responded by over-allocating annual leave in the final four months of 2017, which meant almost half of the company's pilots took a month off between September and December compared to 40% in a normal year, O'Leary said.

Many pilots believe the key factor was the high number of pilots leaving, and questioned management's distinction between a "standby pilot shortage", which it admitted, and a "pilot shortage", which it denied.

O'Leary told investors on September 18 that the annual turnover among Ryanair's 4,400 pilots was less than 5%.

On Tuesday, however, he admitted turnover had reached "high single digits" for captains and "low teens" for First Officers in 2017, more than double the churn rate of below 4% reported by EasyJet.

The number of pilots leaving has "undoubtedly stepped up this year," O'Leary said. "The uptick in First Officer resignations is highly unusual."

After the September cancellations O'Leary announced an extra €10,000 a year to pilots in several bases and "goodies" to pilots at others. If pilots misbehaved, however, "that will be the end of discussion on goodies," he said.

The approach did not have the desired effect and a week later the airline was forced to cancel another 18,000 flights and cut its growth plans, grounding 25 planes in the winter and 10 next summer.

While management was suffering setbacks, the pilots were growing in confidence.

By the end of September, they had set up an unofficial pan-European body with its own web site and WhatsApp group, allowing information to be shared instantly among a majority of pilots for the first time.

In October, the airline made its next move, hiring back its former director of flight operations, Peter Bellew, after just over a year as CEO at Malaysia Airlines to lead a "significant transformation in the way we reward and interact with our pilots."

In a meeting with pilots in London in mid-December, Bellew conceded the airline had lost pilots' trust, according to a recording of the meeting.

The airline's administrative staff appeared determined to give pilots a hard time, he said.

"With the anger there is around the place, if we don't manage to turn that around, we're going to lose more people, so we need to change that," Bellew said.

Michael O'Leary made it Ryanair's trademark to treat pilots more like bus drivers than what he saw as the pampered rock stars of aviation's golden age.

While Ryanair says it pays some of the highest salaries in the sector, pilots counter that pay varies widely.

They cite a "toxic" culture that included making them pay for uniforms, training and snacks on planes.

"Everybody you talk to is either in an interview process or looking," the captain based in northwestern Europe said.

But they said Ryanair could become a very attractive employer if pilots were allowed to conduct collective bargaining that would provide them with legally binding fixed conditions.

The airline's system of 5 days on, 4 days off, combined with its large pool of base cities, was a winning formula, they said. Management cited the potential for rapid promotion and one of the youngest fleets in Europe as other pull factors.

"There will be a mass exodus if they don't implement genuine collective bargaining for pilots," the captain based in southern Europe said. "If they start to change things, they will hold on to a lot of people."

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Within hours of the news on September 15 that thousands of Ryanair flights had been cancelled in Europe, pilots' WhatsApp groups exploded with pent-up frustration. While management explained away the cancellations as a one-off rostering screw-up, pilots believed there was a deeper problem - that disaffected colleagues were leaving in droves.

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Aldi Ireland have announced the introduction of a new minimum rate of pay of €11.70, matching the Living Wage rate recommended by The Living Wage Technical Group.

The new rate will come into effect on February 1 and represents a 20c increase on the entry-level pay for Aldi Store Assistants, Stock Assistants and Caretakers.

The decision will make Aldi the first supermarket in Ireland to commit to the Living Wage rate recommendation.

Aldi have ranked as the country's highest paying supermarket for over a decade with store employees already earning up to €14 per hour.

Giles Hurley, Group Managing Director, Aldi Ireland, said: "Our store colleagues are the cornerstone of our business. Without their hard work and dedication day in, day out, we would be unable to provide customers with the lowest grocery prices in Ireland. We are committed to offering the best pay and benefits in the industry and will continue to do so."

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Aldi Ireland to introduce Living Wage rate of €11.70

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Aldi Ireland have announced the introduction of a new minimum rate of pay of €11.70, matching the Living Wage rate recommended by The Living Wage Technical Group. The new rate will come into effect on February 1 and represents a 20c increase on the entry-level pay for Aldi Store Assistants, Stock Assistants and Caretakers.

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Today's entrepreneurs have shown they know the culture required to build a business in a technologically driven, digital environment.

However, we are still only average in creating new business start-ups compared to the rest of the EU according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Our new business birth rate has improved dramatically according to the OECD, from being the laggard across the EU in 2014 for business start-ups; we are now slightly higher than the average across Europe.

Recent government data confirms that number of new company start-ups has grown to 22,091 in the 12 months to September 2017 - a very healthy jump of 10% over the prior year.

However, in their detailed profile on Ireland, the OECD points to the substantial untapped potential still in the population, particularly among women. For example, women are three times less likely than men to be self-employed, which is well below the EU average.

Particular emphasis is focused on women entrepreneurs, or lack of them. The OECD states that to increase the quantity and quality of entrepreneurship activities by women, it is important to understand the barriers they face in business creation.

Two thirds of women report their lack of skills and knowledge to start a business, have a fear of failure much higher than men, are more risk averse, more pessimistic about the growth potential of their business, and less likely to provide innovative goods.

Ensuring that women entrepreneurs realise their full business potential is now a major priority for Enterprise Ireland.

The Enterprise Ireland Female Entrepreneurship Unit was established in response to an under-representation of women entrepreneurs in Ireland.

As part of the initiative it has co-funded a number of key specific tailored development programmes to support ambitious women optimise their business success with DCU Ryan Academy, in which I delivered workshops on internationalising the business.

A similar programme was co-funded with CIT Rubicon in Cork.

However, there are now numerous other programmes directed at women to encourage them into starting a business. Is it enough?

No such fears for those in the 50 to 64 age bracket who top the poll for self start-ups across Europe, reports the OECD. Ireland's Smart Ageing Exchange is having its impact.

Its Build your Own Business programme in which I delivered Dublin workshops, recently went regional, announcing in October a partnership with Cork County Council and its Local Enterprise Offices, to specifically tailor a programme to meet the needs of regional mature adults.

The eight-week programme includes workshops, bespoke mentoring, networking and the opportunity to pitch to a panel of investors on the finale night.

Anne Connolly, chief executive of the network, said: "It's a myth that starting your own business is only for young people".

The writing was on the wall for the Government in 2009 when the economy went from recession into depression, our business failures peaking to the highest rate in Europe, our new business start-up rate the laggard of Europe.

A national entrepreneurship forum was set up which finally gave direction in a published comprehensive National Policy on Entrepreneurship.

In it, the Government planned to deliver an ambitious increase in the numbers of quality start-ups over five years from 2015 to 2019.

Many of the targets are being met according to the Government's business and innovation department, which points to a survival rate of 94% of companies set up since 2015. This is well up on the EU average and double that of the UK.

However, the more intractable issue remains that not enough start-ups manage to scale-up and become large global corporations.

Whereas in the UK, there is a much higher failure rate than in Ireland, they lead the way in Europe for start-ups that go on to scale-up to €100m-plus revenue.

I don't buy into the mantra "fail fast, fail often".

However, having sufficient funds to scale without running out of money, has to be balanced against scaling too slowly and risk losing momentum and vital opportunities.

It is a trick that Irish entrepreneurs - male or female - must learn to pull off.
John Whelan is an expert in global trade

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Ireland's entrepreneurs step up a gear but still a way to go

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Today's entrepreneurs have shown they know the culture required to build a business in a technologically driven, digital environment. However, we are still only average in creating new business start-ups compared to the rest of the EU according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

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Sales of electric and hybrid cars exceeded half of new registrations in Norway in 2017, a record aided by generous subsidies that extended the Nordic nation's lead in a shift from fossil-fuel engines.

Pure electric cars and hybrids, which have both battery power and a diesel or petrol motor, accounted for 52% of all new car sales in 2017 in Norway against 40% in 2016, the independent Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said.

"No one else is close" in terms of a national share of electric cars, OFV chief Oeyvind Solberg Thorsen said.

"For the first time we have a fossil fuel market share below 50%."

Norway exempts new electric cars from many taxes and road tolls and owners often get free parking and charging.

Norway also generates almost all its electricity from hydropower, so the shift helps to reduce air pollution and climate change.

Last year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Norway was far ahead of other nations such as the Netherlands, Sweden, China, France, and Britain in electric car sales.

By the IEA yardstick, which excludes hybrid cars which only have a small electric motor that cannot be plugged in, electric car sales in Norway rose to 39% in 2017 from 29% in 2016, when the Netherlands was in second on 6.4%.

"The shift has gone faster than we'd thought, and the big car makers say they're going all in to produce non-fossil cars," Mr Thorsen told Reuters.

Norway's electric car policies contrast with its big offshore oil and gas production.

Christina Bu, head of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association which represents owners, said it was too early to reduce incentives for electric cars, noting that parliament has set a goal of phasing out sales of fossil fuel vehicles by 2025.

"It's an ambitious goal only seven years away," she told Reuters.

A plan last year by the right-wing government to trim electric car incentives in the nation of 5.3 million people, dubbed a "Tesla Tax", was dropped in negotiations on the 2018 budget.

Norwegian car sales in 2017 were topped by the Volkswagen Golf, BMWi3, Toyota Rav4 and Tesla Model X.

The Tesla is pure electric and others have electric or hybrid versions.

Overall, sales of pure electric cars in Norway rose in 2017 to 21% from 16% in 2016.

Sales of diesel cars fell most in 2017, to 23% from 31% in 2016.

Some regions in Norway have started to charge higher road tolls for diesel cars than for petrol-driven vehicles.

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Over 50% of new Norway car sales now electric or hybrid

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Sales of electric and hybrid cars exceeded half of new registrations in Norway in 2017, a record aided by generous subsidies that extended the Nordic nation's lead in a shift from fossil-fuel engines.

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Data Protection Issues

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Security researchers have disclosed a set of security flaws that they say could let hackers steal sensitive information from nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and ARM Holdings.

One of the bugs is specific to Intel but another affects laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and internet servers alike.

Intel and ARM insisted that the issue was not a design flaw, but it will require users to download a patch and update their operating system to fix.

"Phones, PCs, everything are going to have some impact, but it'll vary from product to product," Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said yesterday.

Researchers with Alphabet's Google Project Zero, in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries, discovered two flaws.

The first, called Meltdown, affects Intel chips and lets hackers bypass the hardware barrier between applications run by users and the computer's memory, potentially letting hackers read a computer's memory and steal passwords.

The second, called Spectre, affects chips from Intel, AMD and ARM and lets hackers potentially trick otherwise error-free applications into giving up secret information.

The researchers said Apple and Microsoft had patches ready for users for desktop computers affected by Meltdown. Microsoft declined to comment and Apple did not immediately return requests for comment.

Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology who discovered Meltdown, called it "probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found" in an interview with Reuters.

Gruss said Meltdown was the more serious problem in the short term but could be decisively stopped with software patches.

Spectre, the broader bug that applies to nearly all computing devices, is harder for hackers to take advantage of but less easily patched and will be a bigger problem in the long term, he said.

Intel's Krzanich said Google researchers told Intel of the flaws "a while ago" and that Intel had been testing fixes that device makers who use its chips will push out next week.

Before the problems became public, Google on its blog said Intel and others planned to disclose the issues on 9 January.

Google said it informed the affected companies about the "Spectre" flaw in June last year and reported the "Meltdown" flaw after the first flaw but before 28 July.

The flaws were first reported by tech publication The Register. It also reported that the updates to fix the problems could causes Intel chips to operate 5-30% more slowly.

Intel denied that the patches would bog down computers based on Intel chips.

"Intel has begun providing software and firmware updates to mitigate these exploits," Intel said in a statement.

"Contrary to some reports, any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time," it added.

ARM spokesman Phil Hughes said that patches had already been shared with the companies' partners, which include many smartphone manufacturers.

"This method only works if a certain type of malicious code is already running on a device and could at worst result in small pieces of data being accessed from privileged memory," Hughes said in an email.

AMD chips are also affected by at least one variant of a set of security flaws but that it can be patched with a software update. The company said it believes there "is near zero risk to AMD products at this time."

Google said in a blog post that Android phones running the latest security updates are protected, as are its own Nexus and Pixel phones with the latest security updates.

Gmail users do not need to take any additional action to protect themselves, but users of its Chromebooks, Chrome web browser and many of its Google Cloud services will need to install updates.

Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing service used by businesses, said that most of its internet servers were already patched and the rest were in the process of being patched.

The defect affects the so-called kernel memory on Intel x86 processor chips manufactured over the past decade, The Register reported citing unnamed programmers.

It allows users of normal applications to discern the layout or content of protected areas on the chips.

That could make it possible for hackers to exploit other security bugs or, worse, expose secure information such as passwords, thus compromising individual computers or even entire server networks.

Shares in Intel were down by 3.4% following the report yesterday but nudged back up 1.2% to $44.70 in after-hours trading.

Shares in AMD were up 1% to $11.77, shedding many of the gains they had made earlier in the day when reports suggested its chips were not affected. company's reputation.

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Security flaws put phones and computers at risk

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Security researchers have disclosed a set of security flaws that they say could let hackers steal sensitive information from nearly every modern computing device containing chips from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and ARM Holdings. One of the bugs is specific to Intel but another affects laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and internet servers alike.