25/02/2016 World Business Report

Now for the latest financial news with

Brexit jitters worsen as the pound slumps to a seven year low.

Plus, big cat showdown, Puma springs into court to see

Also in the programme, it looks like the struggling Japanese firm

Sharp will be rescued once and for all by a Taiwanese rival.

We start with growing market nerves over a possible UK exit

The referendum on EU membership is a full 4 months

away, with little to go on at this stage but opinion polls

But investors are clearly taking the possibility

The pound has had its worst three days since the depth

On Wednesday Sterling sank below $1.39 for the first time

since March 2009, marking a seven year low against the US dollar.

That means the pound has lost 12% since the end of the summer.

The head of the International Monetary Fund Christine

She told CNN that the UK leaving the EU "is bound to be a negative

Our business team has also been speaking to the Chief Executive

He said the company would remain strongly committed to the UK whether

But he did say he couldn't see how Brexit would improve the UK's

competitiveness, and wouldn't rule out job losses.

If that were to happen we would not pull out of the UK, because it is

very prominent and important, we are doing all the wings for our aircraft

here in Britain. But then it could vote would be a leap into the

unknown. It is certainly not something that business people

appreciate. I think there would be a lot of unknowns around the

industrial and political environment we would be facing, and they cannot

see how an exit would improve the competitiveness of British industry

and our position here in Britain. So there could be jobs lost in the long

run? You cannot exclude that, certainly.

As the UK contemplates what life might be like outside the EU,

some supporters of Brexit have pointed to another island nation

that has been highly successful economically, while keeping

Our Asia business correspondent, Karishma Vaswani,

From third World to first. In just 50 years since independence,

Singapore has turned into one of the world's richest cities. Not too long

ago, this was a sleepy fishing village. On the banks where once

Indian and Chinese merchants haggled over goods, now the icons of global

finance power over the horizon. Trade has or has been at the centre

of this place. This transformation has not been repeated anywhere else

in the world, but Singapore's leaders knew this tiny island could

not survive by itself, so it has used its neighbours to chart its own

course of success. Just look at where Singapore is in the region. A

tiny dot in a sea of vigor, more powerful countries. That is why in

1967 it was one of the founders of the association of south-east Asian

Nations, also known as ASEAN, which is an economic bloc of ten member

states. Singapore has also signed 21 free-trade agreements with everyone

from America to China. Looking beyond its shores is what has helped

Singapore thrive, according to the boss of the country's largest bank.

Singapore benefits enormously from the trade capital and labour

movement within ASEAN. It would not be able to survive, let alone

thrive, without access to this kind of resource. With a small

population, this country has looked elsewhere to fill its workforce.

Today, four out of ten people here are foreigners. This has brought

with it its own problems, and the government is trying to address

them, but Singapore can pick and choose who it wants to let in. If

you look at the situation of Singapore and countries in hessian.

They have a single market, not nearly as deep as Europe's, but they

have a free-trade agreement that covers almost all the trade within

ASEAN's borders. But there is no free movement of labour. There are

moves to introduce it in some skilled areas, and there is no talk

at all to find free movement. Singapore has what Britain wants.

Singapore has benefited from being part of the ASEAN grouping. It has

been able to sell products to its neighbours and make use of the

workforce in the region. Although it certainly has its limitations, at

the core of ASEAN there is a belief that member states should not get

involved in each other's business, and currently that is an option the

UK doesn't have. The Tokyo Stock Exchange has

confirmed a takeover of struggling electronics giant Sharp

by a Taiwanese rival, Foxconn. This is quite a significant step,

the first foreign takeover of a major Japanese electronics firm.

Fill us in. That is right. The deal had been rumoured for quite

sometime. Sharp, which has been struggling with massive losses, had

two options. It could go with the state backed fund in Japan, all this

offer. Many thought that Sharp would go with the Japanese fund, because

the industry has long been known to be rather reluctant to accept

foreign takeovers, but I suppose the deal was too good to reject. Early

this morning we had local reports that had been sending Sharp shares

higher by four or 5%. Just after the official announcement by Sharp to

the stock exchange, shares are now down by almost 20%. The company will

raise $4.2 billion by selling two thirds of its shares. Now onto

another European bust up. From Brexit now to another European

bust-up, After the "swoosh" of Nike

and the three stripes of Adidas, this is the world's number three

sportswear logo. You'll see it emblazoned on sports

goods worth around 3 billion euros in sales a year, as well as on the

world's fastest man, Usain Bolt. Would you mistake it though,

excuse the quality, for this? It's the logo of a small sports

shoe company called Sinda Poland. Puma have been trying unsuccessfully

to have it banned since 2012, even though it looks very

different, arguing the idea of Today the European Court of Justice

will give its judgement. With me is Sally Britton, IP Lawyer,

Mishcon de Reya. Thank you for coming in. I think

they look very different personally, but talk us through the argument. It

is based around the fact that if you look at the outlines of the shapes

it is quite similar. The Polish company has added a few elements to

try to distinguish the two, but he would argue that if you traced an

outline they would look quite similar. But they are going in

different directions, aren't they? That has found to be relevant, but

if you look at the EU registry, and this is all about whether they can

register it as a trademark. But what the registry is saying is that it is

not a leaping cat, which Kumar's logo is, they are saying it is a

whale, a dolphin, even a rabbit can be seen in the image -- Puma. We are

chuckling here, and yet Puma is probably spending a lot of time and

energy on it. Why is Puma so unhappy about this? I think they are

concerned about this because if you look at the evidence they filed, you

can see that the Polish company has done this deliberately. Puma has

already been successful in stopping it being used on their shoes, and

you can imagine if it is replicated on a shoe, it looks very similar.

But this is about registration, not use. If they are unsuccessful they

can take this further through national courts to potentially stop

the use. French authorities have

demanded that Google pays 1.6 The figure is substantially more

than the ?130 million the search engine agreed to pay

in back taxes to UK authorities. However, France's AFP news agency

reported that Google might be able to negotiate

and may not pay the full sum. The company's chief executive,

Sundar Pichai, is visiting Paris and was due to meet France's economy

minister on Wednesday night. You can see the Asian markets, and a

pound still hovering seven new lows. In the US, we can have a look at how

things ended. Here we go, the Dow up by a third of a percent. That is

all, see you soon. Rescue teams working

at Didcot power station in Oxfordshire say it's highly

unlikely that three workers buried One person was killed and five

injured when part of a disused