Reuters reports that the European Commission has now reversed its legal advisors' opinion.The Commission says that a Tobin tax on financial transfers applied by 11 member countries only would not violate EU and international law. The first ruling in Sept. by the member states legal advisor was that a financial transfer tax would violate the EU and international law. As noted, the German Social Democratic Party wants a Tobin tax as one of its terms for joining a coalition government with Angela Merkel.

More news on Finland, India, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, Australia, and Britain is below. Plus, some new definitions in English: chaperone, and translational.

*In an interview with The Financial Times at a London drug conference yesterday, the interim president of Teva, Eyel Desheh, came out in favor of a more diversified board for the Israel drug company. Desheh, the former CFO, succeeded Dr. Jeremy Levin who was ousted by the board after 18 months heading TEVA, and now is a candidate for becoming CEO. He wants the board to be open to current managers (including the CEO; Dr. Levin was not on the board) and to include more non-Israelis with pharmaceutical and global expertise. Currently Dr. Levin's nemesis, Dr. Philip Frost, an American who does have pharma interests, is the only non-Israeli on the board of Teva, flying in from Miami for board meetings.

In fact, apart from Desheh, it is hard to see anyone accepting the poisoned chalice to run Teva. Of course the headhunters are trying to find a replacement for Dr. Levin, but what happened to him will scare off good candidates.

*Zurich Insurance (ZURVY) today reported that it will only meet some of its 2010-3 targets, mostly falling short on profits. It will not meet its target for general insurance earnings nor will its US Farmers sub generate profits. However it will meet its target for cutting expenses and for global life insurance earnings. It was hurt in its European markets by low earnings on its investment and lower takeup of insurance because of the financial crisis continuing.

ZURVY also posted new targets for the 2014-6 period. These including generating after-tax operating profits at 12-4% of its equity by growing its life and genera; insurance earnings. It also aims to achieve net remittances from investments and premiums of $9 bn for future dividend increases. ZURVY last month boosted its likely 2013 earnings by selling its 9.4% stake in New China Life Insurance Co. after net profits in Q3 rose 64% to $1.1 bn (or 58% per shares SwFr 6.93). ZURVY, which is listed in Switzerland, trades in Swissies and pays dividends in SwFr but reports in US$. At the end of Q2 a profit miss led to the suicide of its CFO and the resignation of its chairman of the board, when I averaged UP.

*The blip up in gold prices, a new board chairman, and new management hires at Barrick Gold (ABX) initially pulled up the price yesterday, as reported. But it fell later in the day. There is opportunity and risk.

As reported by both Reuters and Bloomberg, a deal to lure the Chinese sovereign wealth fund into ABX or one of its operations could ease the pressure on capital. Since now solo Chairman John Thornton is a China hand hired from Goldman Sachs, he may be able to swing this. However, the other news yesterday, that ABX is not abandoning its plan to build without partners a huge gold mine on the top of the Andes, between Chile and Argentina, may dash Chinese hopes. The Chilean environmental authorities held up construction until ABX deals with water contamination on its side of the border.

*India is insisting on blocking any transfer of Nokia's assets there to Microsoft under their global deal which is supposed to close Dec. 12. New Delhi tax authorities are trying to collect $321 mn in taxes and froze the Finnish firm's assets including a Chennai plant employing over 8,000 people and up to 30,000 including subcontractors. If it is excluded from Microsoft's acquisitions, it will probably be closed down. Indian tax authorities frequently harass multinational corporation subsidiaries over license fees and other receipts from other Indian firms.

MSFT got European Union competition authority approvals for the euros 5.4 bn acquisition of NOK devices and services division yesterday. Apart from India.

*GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) formed the Oncology Clinical and Translational Consortium to pool cancer research at 6 specialist hospitals including MD Anderson (U of Texas) and Memorial Sloan Kettering (NYC) and Princess Margaret Centre (Toronto, Canada) along with French, Spanish, and Dutch ones. They will work on novel therapies including kinase inhibitors, epigenome modulator compounds, and immunotherapy, on which GSK is focusing its cancer research. Translational research has nothing to do with language but refers to turning new knowledge from the laboratory into treatments for clinical use.

Separately, GSK got okays from the EU for its pneumonia vaccine Synflonix to treat staph infections in children and enfants after trials for 24,000 children in Latin America. The jab is not approved in the US. It can prevent otitis and pneumonia in kids aged 6 weeks to 5 years.

GSK granted to its biopharma partner Amicus Therapeutics won global rights to develop and sell the pharmacological "chaperone" migalastata HCl (from Amicus) to treat Fabry disease, both solo as an orphan drug, and in combination with enzyme replacement therapy (ERT). GSK will get regulatory and commercial milestone payments and royalties from Amicus based on developing the drug and selling it in 8 non-US markets. GSK has an equity stake in Amicus. A chaperone in this case means a drug designed to bind to and stabilize infused alpha-Gal A enzymes in patients with a mutation which responds to ERT by keeping it folded and active.

*The sinking A$ has hurt our stake in Origin Energy Ltd (OGFGF) which we own to benefit from its stake in a coal gas seaside liquefaction plant going live to ship to China in 2015 at fixed prices. OGFGF just signed up to provide a sub of BG Group (BRGGY) with 30 petajoules of its surplus local gas supply which cannot now be exported to raise money. Our expert on this play, Martin Ferera (now Canadian but once an Australian) worries that the fixed price contracts mean OGFGF will not do as well if gas prices rise as its rivals. On the other hand, new technology for offshore siting of monster liquefaction plants being developed may make gas prices fall.

*Our reporting on Delek Group (DGRLY) is based on news releases translated into English by the company when it issues official reports in Hebrew to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In addition to market regulation, it is also subject to the Israeli Petroleum Law and Israeli tax rules, both of which are being kicked around by competing Knesset (parliamentary) committees.

We have no source at a brokerage because DGRLY is listed in the US on pink sheets and none covers it or can be accessed from a discount online account. This is a note to explain our sources because my reporting on DGRLY was questioned by Abby Estikangi Carmel of seekingalpha.com; she wants my sources to be linked to any article they accept for their site which is run from Israel.

This is an issue because the Israeli petroleum law dates back to the early days of the Jewish State (1952) and is completely out of date. But revising the rules is a political football. A new regime was favored by the Sheshinsky Committee and another law passed by the Knesset Finance Committee blocks exports of 60% of the natural gas found offshore Israel (retaining it for home use). Other regulations limit new entrants into the big Leviathan offshore development.

As a former reporter for Platt's Oilgram (now Petroleum Intelligence Weekly) I tend to take a more global view of markets for oil and gas than Israeli MKs and the politicians around PM Netanyahu.

Today for example I was sent a notification that the Tamar Southwest fields I reported on yesterday count as a natural gas discovery under the 1952 law. The government has 60 days to respond.