3. By way of derogation from paragraph 2 and notwithstanding the fact that a parent undertaking may not meet the conditions established in Article 16(1) , the Board may decide on resolution action with regards to that parent undertaking when one or more of the subsidiaries which are institutions comply with the conditions established in Article 16(1), (3) and (4) and their assets and liabilities are such that their failure threatens an institution or the group as a whole and resolution action with regard to that parent undertaking is necessary for the resolution of such subsidiaries which are institutions or for the resolution of the gro ...[+++]up as a whole.

(i) persons dealing on own account in financial instruments as an ancillary activity to a business of theirs or of another undertaking in the same group, or providing investment services in commodity derivatives to the clients of a business of theirs or of another undertaking in the same group as an ancillary activity to that business, provided that business is not the provision of investment services within the meaning of this Directive or banking services under Directive 2000/12/EC;

A Co-ordination Centre is an undertaking belonging to a multinational group providing services to other members of the group. Under a 10-year license granted by the tax authorities, the taxable revenues of a Co-ordination Centre are determined according to the so-called "cost-plus" method. The cost plus method is normally aimed at avoiding double taxation and limiting tax avoidance. In the cost plus method, the taxable profit is calculated as a percentage of the aggregated operating costs. Although this method of taxation does not con ...[+++]stitute State aid per se, its practical application may well give rise to State aid. With respect to the Belgian scheme, the Commission has concluded that the Belgian authorities apply the cost-plus method in a way that gives raise to State aid. Firstly, Belgium systematically uses a default mark-up rate of 8% without verifying whether this rate reflects the economic reality of the services provided by the Co-ordination Centres. Secondly, the way in which the expenditure of the Centre is calculated excludes significant operating cost items of the Centre. Thirdly, the Belgian Co-ordination Centres enjoyed additional tax advantages such as a withholding exemption on income distributions and a real-estate property tax exemption. The benefits reduce the amount of taxable profits and thus grants an advantage not justified under the EU State aid rules.

At the same time, e-commerce brings a whole new dimension to the Internal Market, notably in terms of making cross-border trade a practical option both for companies, irrespective of their size or location, and for consumers.

However, certain additional provisions were considered appropriate to reinforce supervisors' ability to monitor the entities coming within their supervisory remit, i.e.: (1) the addition to the list of authorization conditions of a further condition under which any group of which the credit institution, insurance undertaking or investment firm is a member must be transparent i.e. must be such as to permit effective supervision of the entity on an individual basis; (2) an additional requirement whereby credit inst ...[+++]itutions and insurance undertakings must maintain their head offices in the same Member States as the registered office as otherwise effective supervision by the home Member State competent authorities would be made more difficult (this has already been laid down for investment firms); (3) a widening of the list of bodies with whom confidential supervisory information can be exchanged by the competent authorities; (4) the imposition on auditors of an obligation to report to the competent authority where in the carrying out of their function asstatutory auditors of the financial undertaking concerned irregular circumstances become known to them which might be detrimental either to the customers of the institution, to the financial system or to the soundness of the financial undertaking itself.

The report notes that there are an increasing number of regional and sectoral attempts to develop binding rules on FDI, but they leave import areas uncovered and risk creating overlap and confusion. - Reinforcing co-operation between the European Union and Asian countries to assure more effective implementation of their respective efforts to promote FDI. - Working towards a comprehensive multilateral framework of ground rules for FDI. - Participation by Asian developing countries in the voluntary Investment Policy Review process recently launched by UNCTADand what companies themselves should do The study concludes that the main drive in ...[+++]the effort to extend and deepen the economic links between the European Union and Asia can only come from business itself.