France's Beef With Buffalo Grill

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McDonald's may think it has problems, but they're small fries compared with the woes now afflicting France's Buffalo Grill, a burger chain with 260 outlets in France and branches in Spain, Belgium and Switzerland. On Dec. 19, a French magistrate investigating the deaths of two people in 2000 and 2001 from an illness linked to "mad cow" disease charged four Buffalo Grill executives, including founder Christian Picart, with involuntary homicide, endangering the lives of others and fraud. Magistrate Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy acted on suspicions that the chain used tainted British beef in defiance of the six-year-long French ban, which was lifted in late 2002. The company, whose Wild West-themed restaurants are adorned with buffalo horns, vigorously denies wrongdoing. The CEO wrote to the Prime Minister, demanding scientific evidence linking the deaths to the chain's food and dismissing the charges as "void of any conclusive or serious elements." In support, about 1,000 of the Grill's 6,500 employees took to the streets of Paris just before New Year. But some evidence comes from at least one former employee, judicial sources say, leading police to seize two meat-processing machines used to make chili.

PETROLEUM
Pain At The Global Pump
As strikes in Venezuela enter their second month, Iraq war jitters continue and U.S. oil inventories drop to near 26-year lows, crude oil prices are soaring and European motorists are feeling the pain. According to a report to be released this week by Oil Price Assessments Limited, between the end of November and Jan. 1 petrol prices at the pump climbed over three euro cents per liter across the E.U. In the Netherlands and Germany — where the ruling coalition has proved adept at making costly problems worse — the new year ushered in fuel-tax increases that doubled those price rises. But this may just be the beginning: if the situations in Venezuela and Iraq deteriorate, crude could climb another $10 per barrel. That inflation would trickle down to everything from home heating to industrial production, and could shave .5% off global economic growth — enough to halt a euro zone recovery that's already nearly running on empty.

THE BOURSE
Taking Stock
They drank very little champagne this year, but investors greeted 2003 with one hell of a hangover, after U.S. and European markets ended a third straight year of declines for the first time since the Great Depression. The Dow Jones fell 16.8%, Britain's FTSE 100 experienced its greatest volatility ever, plunging nearly 25%, and Germany's DAX, the worst performing index, closed down 44%. The good news? The 20th century saw only one four-year losing streak, and most analysts expect markets to climb modestly this year, since the relentless decline has finally left many stocks looking fairly valued. The bad news: analysts said the same thing last year, and the potential for war and high oil prices to derail the recovery is still high enough to make you want to throw back some aspirin, draw the curtains and sleep until the world looks a little less shaky.

INDICATORS
Not The Merging Kind
For the first time since 1991, Europe had more merger and acquisition activity than the U.S., where the value of M and A plunged 41%, to $458 billion. But Europe suffered too, with activity falling 11%, to $482 billion.

Bring Good Things To Strike
Unions authorized the first strike against General Electric in 30 years, as the company jacked up the amount employees pay for health insurance by about 20%. Runaway inflation in employer health-care costs, which rose 12.7% last year, are forcing businesses across the U.S. to make similar unpopular moves.

Rolls Reich
Rolls-Royce, the car company that was once as British as the Queen and definitely more posh, became an official subsidiary of Germany's BMW, as the company unveiled its first car, the $340,000 Phantom.

They Can't Take The Heat
The coldest winter in decades has pushed the cost of heating Finland's homes to record levels and strained electricity supplies. Hence, the Ministry of Trade and Industry took desperate measures to avert electricity rationing — it has urged Finns to cut down on sauna use.

BOTTOM LINES
"Whatever job you choose in the next life, make sure it is one where you don't have meetings."
MAX HASTINGS,
former editor of Britain's Daily Telegraph, on his career

"How can I remember where I bought a can of beer?"
FRIEDHELM PRIEFERT,
electrician, on a new German law forcing customers to return aluminum cans to the place of purchase for a €.25-.50 deposit

"You have to make yourself friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness."
PETER MULLEN,
rector, on using an obscure parliamentary statute to levy church taxes on 150 firms in his parish, including the London Stock Exchange