The Irish Independent reports that the fate of 350 highly-trained workers axed by mobile phone giant Motorola is being "closely tracked", Enterprise Minister Micheal Martin claimed yesterday.

The Irish Independent also reports that small companies will create fewer new jobs than during the previous year in 2007 for the third year in a row, according to the 13th annual survey by the Small Firms Association.

The Irish Times reports that fashion retailer A-Wear was sold yesterday by Brown Thomas to a management buyout group backed by Alchemy Partners, a British private equity company.

The sale price was not disclosed, but it is believed to have been just over €70 million. The deal is subject to approval by the Competition Authority, which is expected to make its decision in the next few weeks.

It is understood that the management team, led by managing director Annmarie Flood, has a small equity stake in the takeover company, with Alchemy providing most of the funds for the transaction. Ms Flood declined to comment on the deal.

Alchemy was formed in January 1997 and is led by managing partner Jon Moulton. The private equity group has advised on more than 100 transactions that involved £1.6 billion (€2.35 billion) of equity investment.

Alchemy has invested in Ireland before. In April 2003, it contributed $88 million to the $393 million taking private of Barry O'Callaghan's e-learning group Riverdeep from the Irish Stock Exchange. It exited 12 months later during a refinancing, doubling its money in the process.

Dublin-based businessman Pierce Casey is a director with Alchemy Venture Partners. No comment was available from Alchemy.

A-Wear was founded in the 1960s and was originally known as Gay Wear. Specialising in women's clothing and accessories, it operates from 28 stores - 25 in the Republic, two in Northern Ireland and a concession in Selfridges' store in Birmingham.

A-Wear is believed to have had earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of about €9 million on turnover of close to €70 million in the year to the end of January 2007.

The retailer opened one new store in 2006, at the newly-built Whitewater shopping centre in Newbridge, Co Kildare. No new stores were planned by Brown Thomas for this year, although the new owners are expected to grow the numbers of outlets over the next few years.

The decision to sell is believed to have been influenced by upcoming rent reviews that are expected to substantially increase A-Wear's cost base.

The fashion chain has also faced increased competition locally, with overseas rivals Zara and H&M successfully entering the Irish market in recent years.

Galen Weston, chairman of the Brown Thomas Group, said he was delighted that its management team would continue to play a role in its future growth.

Corporate finance house Key Capital in Dublin advised Brown Thomas on the sale, along with law firm Matheson Ormsby Prentice. Arthur Cox provided legal advice to Alchemy.

Other bidders reported to have expressed an interest in acquiring A-Wear included PCP One, a consortium backed by Bernard McNamara, which owns Champion Sports; Iceland-based investment group Baugur; and Seán Barron, who controls the Pamela Scott fashion retail business.

The Irish Times also reports that the Irish League of Credit Unions has won its Supreme Court appeal against claims by the Competition Authority that some of its activities are anti-competitive.

In a decision with far-reaching implications for credit unions North and South, the five-judge Supreme Court yesterday overturned a High Court finding that the league had abused an alleged dominant position in what it said were distinct "markets" for credit union representation and savings protection.

The authority had claimed the league abused an alleged dominant position in the "market" for savings protection by tying access to that service to membership.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that, because the savings protection service was not a "distinct product" for which there was a distinct product "market", the authority's claim must fail.

Given that finding, the court said it was unnecessary to address the issue of whether the league had a dominant position or had abused any alleged dominant position. There could also be no question of an abusive refusal to supply savings protection.

Mr Justice Nial Fennelly, giving the unanimous judgment, said the authority had failed to provide a convincing analysis of the league's activities as being anti-competitive.

The case arose after the authority brought proceedings against the Irish League of Credit Unions when the league proposed in 2003 to disaffiliate or expel credit unions that sought loan protection and life savings insurance from outlets other than through the ECCU Life Assurance Company Ltd, a company controlled by the league.

Credit unions that did not take out this insurance cover with ECCU faced loss of access to the league's savings protection scheme (SPS). The SPS is worth up to €90 million and provides maximum compensation of some €12,700 to individual members where a credit union experiences financial difficulties. The league's SPS is the only such scheme in the State.

The requirement for an SPS for credit unions was voluntary until the Credit Union Act 1997 provided that all credit unions formed from August 1st, 2001, must participate in an SPS. While there was no statutory obligation on credit unions formed before August 1st, 2001, to participate in a SPS, it was extremely important that they did so.

In the High Court in October 2004, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns held that the league breached the Competition Act 2002 and article 82 of the EU Treaty in tying access to its SPS to membership of the league on the one hand and also in its refusal to supply the SPS on an open, non-discriminatory basis.

In the Supreme Court judgment, Mr Justice Fennelly said an essential precondition to the case for the Competition Authority was a finding that credit union representation services and SPS be considered as distinct products in different relevant product markets. If they were not, issues relating to whether the league enjoyed, or abused, a dominant position in the market for either of those services, especially SPS, did not arise.

The judge said he had reached the clear conclusion that SPS was not a distinct product and that the authority had also failed to show SPS was in a separate product market. It had been shown that not only did no such service exist on the insurance market, no insurer was willing to provide it.

He said the essential case of the authority was that SPS was the alleged "tying" product and the league was alleged to be dominant in the market for its supply.

SPS must be an independent product before the tying theory could be applied but the evidence showed there was no market for SPS.

The Irish Examiner reports that Dublin and Cork are among the 50 most expensive and desirable places in the world for residential property.

According to The Wealth Report 2007, from estate agents Knight Frank, Dublin ranks in 17th place in the list of the world’s most expensive cities for prime location properties.

Cork, which was not included in the city survey but in a separate survey on counties and towns, was ranked 24th place in the world.

London holds the number one position as the most expensive city, just above Monaco.

The report said prime residential property in Dublin costs €7,400 a square metre and €5,753 a square metre in Cork. This compares with €36,800 a square metre in London and €25,600 in New York.

The Wealth Report 2007 is the first report to examine the attitudes of high net worth individuals to prime residential property.

They define a high net worth individual as somebody who holds more than €7.35 million (£5m) in investable assets.

In terms of price growth, the report said the crucial players to watch are: St Petersburg and Moscow; Delhi and Mumbai; and Guangzhou and Beijing.

The report said: “Although London has seen prime market growth in excess of 30% in 12 months, this rate is dwarfed by the growth seen in the main Russian, Chinese and Indian city markets, where growth well above 40% and even 50% has not been unusual.

“These areas have seen high growth on the back of rapid economic development, together with the creation of new wealthy sections of society. This has led to intense competition for the best apartments and villas in secure prime neighbourhoods.”

The report also highlighted the Irish obsession with residential property saying people familiar with the British, US, Irish or Australian residential markets will be surprised to hear that not all countries share a fascination or an obsession with property prices.

The Financial Times reports that European finance ministers on Tuesday issued a concerted warning to Nicolas Sarkozy to stop undermining the European Central Bank by blaming it for France’s economic problems, in a determined defence of the bank’s independence.

The incoming French president was warned there was no enthusiasm for his election calls for the ECB’s mandate to be amended to focus it on creating jobs and growth as well as fighting inflation.

Mr Sarkozy’s desire to see the bank’s interest rate decisions to be more open to influence through a dialogue with politicians were denounced by finance ministers during a two-day meeting in Brussels.

“I don’t think that the ECB can be taken, or should be taken, on a leash,” said Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister and chairman of the meeting.

The extent to which Mr Sarkozy continues to attack the bank could affect his early relationship with Angela Merkel, German chancellor, who believes its independence is a cornerstone of the euro.

Their relationship could be further tested if Mr Sarkozy’s reputation for “dirigiste” economic nationalism follows him to the Elysée palace.

On Tuesday, Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union committed itself to free trade but threatened retaliation against activist governments that threatened German commercial interests through protectionism.

Mr Sarkozy, a former French finance minister, has blamed the ECB’s obsession with fighting “inflation that doesn’t exist” for forcing up interest rates and the value of the euro against the dollar and other world currencies.

He has echoed concerns from French exporters, including Airbus and Air Liquide, that they are being priced out of world markets. “Independence doesn’t mean indifference,” Mr Sarkozy said last December.

On Tuesday, a number of Mr Sarkozy’s former Ecofin colleagues rejected his ideas. Wouter Bos, Dutch finance minister, said the new French president could “increase the pressure but it is not a good idea”.

Wilhelm Molterer, Austria’s finance minister, said: “No politician should put pressure on the ECB. The ECB is an independent bank.”

Behind the rhetoric is a fear in some European finance ministries that Mr Sarkozy might demand a change to the ECB charter to make it more growth-focused in exchange for supporting the revival of the European Union’s constitutional treaty.

“I don’t think there’s any possibility that Germany would support an institutional change, or Italy and Spain,” said George Alogoskoufis, Greek finance minister. “It would not have much support.”

Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, said he expected Mr Sarkozy to lay off the ECB for a while but that it was a convenient “scapegoat” if France’s economy does not take off.

“If he does it for domestic consumption it doesn’t really matter, but if he really wants to make an impact and links ECB reform to his support for a new treaty, it does start to matter.”

The FT reports that China’s stock market brushed off a central bank warning about the danger of an asset bubble on Tuesday and rose to another record high in a sign of the government’s waning ability to control share prices.

At least three state-run newspapers ran prominent stories about the warning from Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, in Basle on Sunday. When Mr Zhou was asked if he was worried about a bubble forming in the stock market, he said he was.

But his comments, the latest in a series of official public statements expressing alarm about the level of the market, were ignored by investors, who bid up the index by nearly 3 per cent.

Authoritative statements from senior officials about the stock market have for many years set share prices in China, where investors have taken the government’s word as gospel.

Such statements were traditionally delivered through the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the communist party, usually in articles signed by an unnamed “special correspondent”.

In the current bull market, however, with new stock trading accounts being opened at the rate of more than 1m a week, the admonitions of senior officials suddenly seem impotent.

“No one believes [Mr Zhou] can do anything to affect the market,” said Fraser Howie, the author of a book on Chinese stocks. “There are a lot of gamblers with a whole pile of money who are prepared to continue punting.”

The Shanghai composite index rose by 130 per cent last year, and is up by just 50 per cent so far in 2007.

One of the main drivers of the market remains China’s low interest rates, which offer the country’s thrifty savers a return of just 2 per cent – offering a negative real return compared with inflation of more than 3 per cent.

“If Zhou Xiaochuan really wanted to affect the market he could double the [government-controlled] bank deposit rate, but that would wipe out the state-owned banks,” Mr Howie said.

In December, 1996, the People’s Daily ran a front-page editorial entitled “On correctly understanding the current stock market,” which warned against excessive speculation.

The market fell that day by 9.91 per cent, and by a further 9.44 per cent in the following trading session as investors dutifully interpreted the editorial as the government's official stance.

By contrast, when the “special correspondent” declared in the same paper in June 1999 that a run-up in stock prices was “healthy”, the market soared.

As recently as this January, share prices fell sharply after comments about the market by Cheng Siwei, a senior member of the National People’s Congress.

The authorities do have other ways of influencing share prices. Most importantly, all issues of equity must be approved by the securities regulator, which theoretically allows it to increase the share supply and dampen price rises. The government could also use fiscal measures to calm demand.

The New York Times reports that two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses.

The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes.

Industry analysts estimate that such payments — to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers — total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, compete for market share and try to expand the overall business.

Neither Amgen nor Johnson & Johnson has disclosed the total amount of the payments. But documents given to The New York Times show that at just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its drugs last year.

Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration added to concerns about the drugs, releasing a report that suggested that their use might need to be curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared by F.D.A. staff scientists, said no evidence indicated that the medicines either improved quality of life in patients or extended their survival, while several studies suggested that the drugs can shorten patients’ lives when used at high doses. Yesterday’s report followed the F.D.A.’s decision in March to strengthen warnings on the drugs’ labels.

The report was released in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, during which an F.D.A. advisory panel will consider whether the drugs are overused.

The medicines — Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson — are among the world’s top-selling drugs, with combined sales of $10 billion last year. In this country, they represent the single biggest drug expense for Medicare and are given to about a million patients each year to treat anemia caused by kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said that both patients and doctors would benefit from fuller disclosure about the payments and the profits that doctors can make from them. “I suspect that Medicare is going to take a very careful look at what is going on here,” he said.

Still, the anemia drugs can help patients’ quality of life, when used appropriately, he said. “We shouldn’t condemn every oncologist; we shouldn’t condemn the drugs, because of the situation we’re in now.”

Federal laws bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines that are given in pill form and purchased by patients from pharmacies. But companies can rebate part of the price that doctors pay for drugs, like the anemia medicines, which they dispense in their offices as part of treatment. The anemia drugs are injected or given intravenously in physicians’ offices or dialysis centers. Doctors receive the rebates after they buy the drugs from the companies. But they also receive reimbursement from Medicare or private insurers for the drugs, often at a markup over the doctors’ purchase price.

Medicare has changed its payment structure since 2003 to reduce the markup, but private insurers still often pay more. Combined with those insurance reimbursements, the rebates enable many doctors to profit substantially on the medicines they buy and then give to patients.

The rebates are related to the amount of drugs that doctors buy, and physicians that agree to use one company’s drugs exclusively typically receive higher rebates.

Johnson & Johnson said yesterday in a statement that its rebates were not intended to induce doctors to use more medicine. Instead, the rebates “reflect intense competition” in the market for the drugs, the company said.

Amgen said that rebates were a normal commercial practice and that it had always properly promoted its drugs.

“Amgen is dedicated to patient safety,” said David Polk, a spokesman. “We believe our contracts support appropriate anemia management and our product promotion is always strictly within the label.”

Both companies’ stocks fell yesterday after release of the F.D.A. report. Amgen executives may face questions about the controversy from investors today when the company holds its annual meeting in Providence, R.I.

Since 1991, when the first of the drugs was still relatively new, the average dose given to dialysis patients in this country has nearly tripled. About 50 percent of dialysis patients now receive enough of the drugs to raise their red blood cell counts above the level considered risky by the F.D.A.

American patients receive far more of the anemia drugs than patients elsewhere, with dialysis patients in this country getting doses more than twice as high as their counterparts in Europe. Cancer care shows a similar pattern. American cancer patients are about three times as likely as those in Europe to get the drugs, and they receive somewhat higher doses.

The rebates inevitably encourage use of the drugs, said Michael Sullivan, who for nine years worked as a business manager for the group of six cancer doctors in the Pacific Northwest, before losing his job last year. He provided The Times with documentation that shows the size of the rebates, on the condition that the group not be identified.

“Personally, I think rebates should go away,” said Mr. Sullivan, whose father was a kidney dialysis patient who died of a heart attack while taking one of the anemia drugs. “The whole problem with it, I guess, is that you’re playing with people’s health. It’s not the same as buying widgets.”

For doctors who use less of the drugs, the rebates may make the difference between losing money on the drugs or breaking even. Mr. Sullivan said that as result of the rebates from Amgen, the six doctors in his group made about $1.8 million in net profit on the drugs they prescribed.

Unlike most drugs, the anemia medicines do not come in fixed doses. Therefore, doctors have great flexibility to increase dosing — and profits. Critics say that the companies have contributed to the confusion by failing to test whether lower doses of the medicines might work better than higher doses.

“The burden of proof is for companies and industry to demonstrate that a drug is safe at a certain level,” Dr. Ajay Singh, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Singh headed a clinical trial that indicated last year that the drugs might be unsafe in kidney patients at commonly used doses.

Known generically as epoetin and darbepoetin, and often referred to simply as EPO, the drugs are genetically engineered versions of a human protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells and increase the body’s ability to carry oxygen.

Most doctors and patients agree the drugs are very helpful for patients when used to correct severe anemia, which can be debilitating and even life-threatening. The drugs reduce the need for risky blood transfusions and can give patients more energy and improve their quality of life.

“We have transformed the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease,” said Dr. Norman Muirhead, a professor at the University of Western Ontario who has given talks and consulted for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson.

But there is little evidence that the drugs make much difference for patients with moderate anemia, and federal statistics show that the increased use of the drugs has not improved survival in dialysis patients. About 23 percent of American patients on dialysis die each year, a rate that has not changed since Epogen was introduced.

Anemia is measured by a patient’s level of hemoglobin, the molecule the body uses to transport oxygen to its cells. Healthy people have around 14 grams of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood. Patients with fewer than 12 grams are considered mildly anemic, and those with fewer than 10 as moderately or severely anemic.

The labels on the drugs, as currently approved by the F.D.A., encourage doctors to aim for a hemoglobin level of 10 to 12. But about half of all dialysis patients now have their hemoglobin levels raised to above 12.

Critics of the drugs say their increased use has been driven by profit. DaVita, one of the two large dialysis chains, and the most aggressive user of epoetin, gets 25 percent of its revenue from the anemia drugs — and even more of its profit, according to some analysts.

Dr. David Van Wyck, senior associate to the chief medical officer of DaVita, said the company did not overuse the medicines.

Doctors determine how much to use, Dr. Van Wyck said. “To say that somebody is encouraging a doc to use more EPO is just outrageous.”

Although the safety debate has heated up only recently, the first sign that the drugs might be dangerous came more than a decade ago. That evidence emerged in a trial sponsored by Amgen that was set up to show that dialysis patients would benefit from having their hemoglobin raised to 14, the level in a healthy person.

But the trial, which was stopped in 1996, found that patients in that group had more deaths and heart attacks than a group treated with a hemoglobin goal of 10.

That trial should have discouraged doctors from using too much epoetin and encouraged Amgen to study the risks further, said Dr. Steven Fishbane, a nephrologist at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island.

Instead, use of epoetin continued to soar. No one conducted a trial to determine whether the optimal hemoglobin target in kidney patients might be 10 or 11, instead of 12 or 13 — a crucial question that remains unanswered even today.

Dr. Anatole Besarab of the Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, the lead author of the study that was stopped in 1996, said that Amgen and Johnson & Johnson had little incentive to conduct such a trial.

Dr. Robert M. Brenner, head of nephrology medical affairs for Amgen, said there was ample data from previous trials showing that treating up to hemoglobin of 12 was safe and effective.

Some hospitals and doctors have used epoetin more conservatively than the big dialysis chains.

Dr. Ronald A. Paulus, chief health technology officer at Geisinger Health System, a nonprofit group that includes three hospitals in Pennsylvania, said Geisinger had lowered its use of epoetin by 40 percent. Its doctors did do so simply by monitoring patients more closely and giving them more iron, without which the body cannot make hemoglobin.

Dr. N. D. Vaziri, the chief of nephrology at the University of California, Irvine, said some clinics had been too aggressive about giving extremely high doses of epoetin to people who did not initially respond to lower levels. The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses.

“You create a toxicity situation,” said Dr. Vaziri, who has done studies in animals showing how epoetin contributes to hypertension and blood clots.

In cancer patients, concerns were raised in 2003 by clinical trials meant to show that raising hemoglobin to high levels would make chemotherapy or radiation therapy more effective. Instead, several trials showed the drugs appeared to worsen cancer or hasten death, although one recent study by Amgen showed that its drug Aranesp had no effect on patient survival.

The conflicting studies are among the issues the F.D.A. advisory committee is expected to discuss tomorrow. Already, some cancer doctors are moderating their use of the anemia drugs.

Dr. Peter Eisenberg, an oncologist in Marin County, Calif., said many doctors had been induced to use more epoetin by the financial incentives and the belief that the drug was helpful.

“The deal was so good,” he said. “The indication was so clear and the downside was so small that docs just worked it into their practice easily.

“Now it’s much scarier than that,” he said. “We could really be doing harm.”

The NYT also reports that Thomson, the Canadian electronic information company, on Tuesday sketched out the broad details of its $17.5 billion offer for the Reuters Group, the financial and general news service.

Although the bid was expected, the announcement did contain one surprise: the current chief executive of Reuters, Thomas Glocer, would head the combined operation, which would be called Thomson-Reuters. Richard J. Harrington, Thomson’s chief executive, plans to retire if and when the transaction closes, the two companies said in a statement.

The Thomson family of Toronto, along with other shareholders of the corporation, would be in firm control of any new company.

“Both boards believe there is a powerful and compelling logic for the combination, which would create a global leader in the business-to-business information markets,” Thomson and Reuters said in a statement. They also cautioned that a deal was not certain, adding, “much has still to be resolved.”

Both companies declined requests for an interview.

The merger would create a major rival to Bloomberg, the current leader in providing information, data and analytical software to the financial community. Combined, Thomson and Reuters would have 34 percent of the market for financial data, according to David Anderson, editor of Inside Market Data Reference, which tracks the business, with Bloomberg at 33 percent.

The proposed transaction has a complex structure. That is partly a result of the unusual corporate structure of Reuters and perhaps an attempt to diminish concerns in Britain about a company with deep British roots falling under foreign control.

Under the plan, both companies will maintain their stock listings but have identical boards.

Thomson Financial, the unit that sells financial data and services, would be joined with the financial and general news business of Reuters. The resulting operation would be known as Reuters and would operate under a set of principles intended to protect the independence of its journalism.

Thomson-Reuters, the broader company, would adopt a share structure currently used by Reuters that allows trustees to effectively block takeovers.

The Thomson family, through its private holding company Woodbridge, would own 53 percent of the new company, down from its 70 percent control of Thomson. Other current Thomson shareholders would hold a 23 percent stake.

The new company’s chairman would also be appointed by the Thomson family.

Paul Holman, managing director of DBRS, a Toronto-based bond rating service, said in a conference call with reporters and analysts that the potential merger “looks like a very good fit.”

The general lack of overlap in products and geography between the companies might ease regulatory and antitrust concerns, he said, adding, “We could see this turning into a sort of global powerhouse.”

Thomson and Reuters said they expected to generate more than $500 million in annual cost savings within three years. No details were provided about the source of those savings or whether they would involve layoffs.

Mr. Glocer of Reuters, a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer, already has a reputation for cost-cutting, with moves like expanding a news bureau in Bangalore, India, to assume work previously done in higher-wage centers like London and New York. Some Reuters reporters in the United States have protested by removing their names from articles.

In a memorandum to the staff of Reuters, Mr. Glocer said that if a deal is completed, David Schlesinger would remain the editor in chief of the Reuters news service while other senior positions would be divided among people from the two companies.