New Delhi, July 1 -- At first glance, the miniature, malformed elephant seemed as if it were created for a toy Jurassic Park. Its two tails, which turned out to be labels, were almost twice as long as the creature itself. They had information about the product in 22 languages and followed EU environmental regulations.

The Ikea product also had a note on who its importer to the UK was-to comply with regulations imposed after the UK left the European single market a decade ago. To heighten the absurdity of it all, the importer was. Ikea.

An accompanying Financial Times article last December quoted Jacob Wallenberg, vice-chairman of Ericsson and ABB and an investor who holds major stakes in both, as saying. "It's a mess for small and mediu...