EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union took a big step towards creating a single Europe-wide patent system on Friday (4 December), a move that is expected to save businesses many millions in annual costs.

As part of the deal, industry ministers meeting in Brussels reached a political agreement on the setting up of a single EU-patent to replace the multitude of national patents that innovators are currently forced to acquire to protect their products.

The ministers also reached a deal on the establishment of a EU patent court system that would see the setting up of a single European appeals courts for patent infringement disputes.

This would help end the need for companies to take out parallel litigation proceedings in different member states, a costly procedure.

The Government has conceded one of its vital "red lines" in the agreement to set up new pan-European financial supervisory bodies - and lost its veto on paying for any future European banking rescue.

British ministers have long insisted that "fiscal responsibility" for European banking rescues should be "aligned" with national supervision, because national governments usually pay for such episodes.

State-controlled Areva plans to sell its power transmission and distribution network to Alstom and Schneider Electric, having rejected bids from Japanese and US firms.

"I read in the press that we were are being accused of economic patriotism," Fillon told workers at an Alstom plant in eastern France.

"I would like to clarify a few points. The selection process was perfectly transparent and non-discriminatory," he added.

Fillon said the deal will "create a new French champion and frankly I am not embarrassed to take part in the creation of a new French champion."

When nine former members of Siemens' executive board agreed to pay compensation for their role in the company's corruption scandal, they may have set the ball rolling for a brave new world of corporate governance.

At a meeting between the EU and Ukraine, Kiev vowed to avoid a repeat of fuel shortages in Europe this winter by keeping its gas pipelines open. One-fifth of EU gas supplies travel to Europe from Russia via Ukraine.

Among the most interesting developments in the wake of the credit meltdown are a few recent judicial rulings that come as creditors of companies in bankruptcy protection fight over corporate carcasses that by definition don't have enough value to go around.

Two recent judicial opinions rebuking the banks offer a window into the lending practices that fuelled the boom and the tactics that banks resorted to in a belated attempt to cut their losses. These cases highlight just how reckless the banks have been and how that recklessness may come back to haunt them - and their bottom lines.

Even as credit markets rally and the prices of the loans they carry on their books improve, the banks may yet have to give back some of the gains they have already booked - a warning for investors who think most banks offer considerable upside now that the worst of the downturn is over.

Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) are close to resolving their disagreement over how to structure a new federal agency to regulate consumer financial products. The split emerged in late October with Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, favoring a single director for the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). Meanwhile, Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, supports having a commission in charge.

Steve Adamske, Frank's spokesman, said that the two chairmen are working on a compromise to have a director in place for a period of time, possibly two years, while the commission gets up and running and commissioners are named. "We want to get the commission up and running," Adamske said.

The full House is planning next week to take up wide-ranging financial overhaul legislation, one of President Barack Obama's top domestic priorities. The structure of the new regulatory agency is one of several issues that Frank and other lawmakers are attempting to resolve before next week.

Waxman and other members of Energy and Commerce had argued that having a commission with members serving staggered terms would reduce the influence of the political party in power at the time. Frank has long supported a single director with a powerful role to sit at the same table as the nation's other regulatory bodies.

Frank has said he would like to see the agency run by Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who first started talking about the agency idea. Republicans and the financial industry have criticized Warren.