Google is to pay French authorities almost €1bn (£900m) to end a long-running investigation into its taxes. The settlement includes a €500m fine and additional taxes of €465m, but it is less than the tax bill authorities had accused Google of evading.

It rounds off a four year investigation that saw authorities raid Google’s Paris headquarters in 2016. Investigators said Google owed about €1.6bn in unpaid taxes amid a wider crackdown on tax planning of big firms. French authorities had been seeking to establish whether Google, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, failed to declare some of its activities in the country.

The search giant, which is part of Alphabet, pays little tax in most European countries because it reports almost all of its sales in Ireland. It is able to do that thanks to a loophole in international tax law. However, that loophole hinges on staff in Dublin concluding all sales contracts. The agreement allows Google “to settle once for all these past disputes,” said Antonin Levy, one of the firm’s lawyers.(BBC)…[+]

A woman who says she was raped by a man she had been on a date with has told the BBC she was left “devastated” after prosecutors decided to drop her case. Annie Tisshaw says her mental health “really suffered” during the year-long investigation, and she was then told the CPS would not proceed further.

A report shows the number of rape convictions in England and Wales is at its lowest level since records began. There were 1,925 convictions in 2018-19 – a 27% drop from the previous year. This was in spite of allegations of rape reaching a high of 58,000 in England and Wales. Campaigners say the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has changed its approach in rape cases – no longer building rape prosecutions, but screening cases out if they think a jury will not convict. This is denied by the CPS, which has announced a review of its decisions in rape cases.

Annie, who has waived her right to anonymity, told the Victoria Derbyshire show that she was raped in her own flat after she had been on a date with a man she had met a few times before. She says she reported the incident straight after it happened, handed over her phone, and the case was passed by police to the CPS, who told her it was “a positive case”.

“I’ve done everything right that you should do and then at the end, nearly a year later, I was told there were inconsistencies in the case.” Those included CCTV from earlier in the night, which showed she wasn’t looking “particularly scared or nervous”, and text messages sent before the alleged rape, she says. “This was a guy that I trusted, this was a guy that I had met before, so obviously at that time I didn’t know it was going to happen,” she says.(BBC)…[+]

GRAND CAYMAN– Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) will pay The Bahamas approximately US$10,936,103 following the passage of hurricane Dorian that caused widespread devastation in the northern part of the 700-island archipelago,  on  September 1, and battered the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama, in the north of the archipelago, for two days.

The Bahamas has three tropical cyclone policies with CCRIF, each one covering a section or zone of the archipelago – North West, South East and Central. It is the tropical cyclone policy for the North West Zone – which includes the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama that was triggered.

CCRIF’s payouts are made within 14 days of an event, but in this case CCRIF made an advance payment of 50 percent of the payout to allow the government to begin to address its most pressing needs. The remaining 50 percent to be paid within the 14-day window for all CCRIF payouts.

CCRIF chief executive officer (CEO) Isaac Anthony, contacted the government of The Bahamas to inform them of the payout and to express the facility’s own commiseration for the many lives lost and to pledge support to the government as it seeks to recover and rebuild not just infrastructure but also lives.  In acknowledging the destruction and damage wrought on the northern islands of The Bahamas, Anthony expressed some relief that Dorian spared most of the other islands.

This additional support that could be provided by CCRIF to the government of The Bahamas will come from the facility’s corporate social responsibility or technical assistance (TA) programme…[+]