FT.com reports that “Britain will this week propose that companies employing fewer than 20 people should be exempt from future European Union regulations, in a drive to cut the burden on business of legislation agreed in Brussels.  John Hutton, business secretary, will ask for the exemption to be written into the European Small Business Act, which is currently being drafted. The legislation aims to lift the weight of regulation on small companies.  Mr Hutton argues that where an exemption is not possible, small companies should be permitted to take a ‘tailor made’ approach to implementing the rules. This would also entail simpler enforcement and more effective guidance.  His arguments go with the grain of the initiative being driven by Günter Verheugen, EU enterprise commissioner, who will publish a proposed legal framework to help small companies this year.”

According to the Register, “

[t]he Canadian government has stepped in to block the sale to America of a company which owns and operates a key surveillance satellite. The move will also safeguard Canada’s space robotics technology, for which US space agency NASA says the nation is ‘world renowned.’  CBC reports that the proposed $1.3bn deal under which the space division of MacDonald Dettweiler Associates (MDA) would be sold to US aerospace behemoth Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has received an unprecedented government smackdown.  ‘We don’t see net benefits to Canada in this transaction,’ said Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice, adding that he was ‘very confident’ his decision was the right one.”

The International Herald Tribune writes that “Yahoo’s attempt to form an alliance with Google to stave off Microsoft could run into more trouble with antitrust regulators than Microsoft’s unwelcome takeover bid.  While Yahoo is seeking a business partnership with Google – unlike the outright merger that Microsoft wants – legal experts say any deal between the world’s two largest Internet search services would draw heavy scrutiny from U.S. and European competition regulators.  ‘The Justice Department would certainly want to take a serious look at that because it would mean that a firm that would want to take advertisements or to place advertisements would have only one place to go,’ said Aaron Edlin, who teaches law and economics at the University of California, Berkeley.”

Reuters reveals that “[l]icenses for China’s homegrown third-generation (3G) wireless standard may not be granted for another one or two years, an Ernst & Young ERNY.UL partner was quoted as saying in a local newspaper report on Monday.  The rollout of the local standard TD-SCDMA will likely mirror that of GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) in Europe, where commercial trials lasted for 12 to 18 months before it became widely used, said Jonathan Dharmapalan, partner and head of Ernst & Young’s global telecommunications centre in Beijing, in a report in the official Shanghai Securities News.”

Torrent Freak points out that “[t]he new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality ‘a load of bollocks’ and claiming he’s already doing deals to deliver some people’s content faster than others. If you aren’t prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he’ll put you in the Internet ‘bus lane.’  Net neutrality really is the hot topic at the moment. Ignited by the Comcast fiasco, the concept of net neutrality has certainly been brought into the mainstream. Most ISPs are never quite forthcoming about their throttling, capping and otherwise interfering behavior, but that crowd certainly doesn’t include the CEO of Virgin Media, the UK’s second largest ISP.  In an interview with the Royal Television Society’s Television magazine, far from covering up their intentions, Virgin Media’s new incoming CEO Neil Berkett – who joined the Virgin Media Board just a few days ago – has launched an attack on the ideas and principles behind net neutrality.”