MAIN HEADLINES FROM THIS ISSUE:

• Kuwait’s NOC must prove its case or face closure

  A court in Kuwait has called the National Offset Company to present its case at a hearing on March 27th in response to an application that the company’s status be declared void.  A legal team will argue that the NOC is in breach of decrees that led to the establishment of the NOC and to the transfer of the offset program from the Ministry of Finance to the NOC.

• The directive: Barnier ignores pleas on subcontracting, pushes ahead regardless

  A conference in Brussels on February 24th heard offset delegates express their concerns to senior EC officials in an open and frank debate about the sub-contracting provisions of Directive 2009/81 EC.  Just eight days later Brussels re-convened…..Commissioner Michel Barnier and his underlings, showing disdain for the views expressed earlier, said…..

• “A hundred cases of corruption involving offsets are not a lot”

  Transparency International is wrong, says an academic study by Switzerland’s University of St.Gallen. There is no evidence that arms trade offsets are often corrupt.

• India: DOMW opens dialogue unit for exasperated obligors

  The Indian MoD’s Department of Defence Production has opened a “facilitation cell” at the Defence Offsets Management Wing (DOMW).

• South Africa: We’re not going to make the deadline, says Judge Seriti

  The Commission of Inquiry into South Africa’s arms deal is at risk of not completing its mandate before its term expires in about eight months’ time, Judge Willie Seriti said.