Gillian Holmes (asker) Jul 4, 2012:

Thanks Jose, it is the apostrophe that had me baffled, I've never seen that before.

José J. Martínez Jul 4, 2012:

Forgetting a little about the units, I think the doubt arises from the conventions on the way notations of numbers are made depending on the country. In Mexico we are accustomed to US or "European??" types of notations. I personally do not know if the alternate notation is really European but in the US a million is 1,000,000, a billion is 1,000,000,000. In Mexico and in some parts of the Americas I have seen the apostrophe written behind the first number, making a million 1'000,000. So I think this clears up the matter. Who is right or wrong??? I think it is just a matter of being able to correctly interpret the numerical notation.