Search Results for: International business

When France’s fast-food chain O’Tacos (www.o-tacos.fr) announced in 2020 that it would be selling in Italy its halal-certified French-style meat and vegetable wraps, Italian Muslims took this as a sign that halal was going mainstream in their country. O’Tacos’ first Italian outpost will open in January 2022 in Rome (delayed by Covid-19) and more openings in 2022 are planned in major Italian cities, including Milan and Bologna, said Yassin Baradai, founder of Milan-based Meem Communication (https://meemcommunication.com/…

London-based Haloodies (https://haloodies.com/), which claims to be “one of the UK’s most trusted suppliers of Halal meats”, has fought against challenges posted by the Covid-19 outbreak and Brexit though expanding its online sales and reshoring production to Britain. Now, its co-founder and CEO says the company is ready to tap global markets.…

The annual value of South Africa’s paints and coatings market will nudge USD2.1 billion (South African Rand ZAR33.3 billion) by 2026 after growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.6% between 2021 and 2026.

These predictions from market researcher IndustryARC came in May (2021) as the industry battled the continued impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic.…

Malaysia is expected to launch in January a detailed (although voluntary) halal certification for medical devices in an innovative regulatory move, making the country a world leader in this segment.

Its government published a halal medical device standard in September 2019, known as MS2636, but the halal division of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM) agency has since been enhancing “their online system” and staff, since the new “scheme for halal medical devices must comply with other requirements”, Johari Ab Latiff, senior assistant director at JAKIM’s Malaysia Halal Council Secretariat, told Salaam Gateway.…

Fraud in the global halal food sector is emerging as a widespread problem. A series of scandals have rocked the industry worldwide, and shone a spotlight on the difficulty of eliminating non-halal practices from increasingly large and complicated food supply chains. …

Britain’s largest retail bank has been fined GBP264.7 million (USD350 million) for breaking UK AML laws through handling GBP365 million from a jeweller, suspected of being a major money launderer. (1)

NatWest staff were shown by the case at Southwark Crown Court to have ignored red flags that former Bradford, Yorkshire, jewellers, Fowler Oldfield, was processing millions of pounds of illicit cash.…

Higher education institutions are being warned they could be a target for money laundering, with fees being financed by the proceeds of crime, including corruption, which might also buy property, cars and other items for students.

The problem has been highlighted in a series of reports.…

A former DEA agent who laundered money undercover to attack the Medellín and Cali cartels has called for a root-and-branch reform of AML, so that its vast resources target the most suspicious transactions and the professional launderers who facilitate them. Speaking to MLB, Robert Mazur, who offered ML services to drug kingpins such as Pablo Escobar in the 1980s and 1990s to undermine their criminal networks, said that many laundering techniques used then are still in use today.…

THE UK’S Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined HSBC GBP63.9 million (USD84.7 million) for maintaining weak and ineffective suspicious transaction monitoring systems for six years after being fined USD1.9 billion in 2012 for helping launder Mexican drug cartel proceeds.

Following this major fine from the US department of justice, the FCA concluded that the HSBC continued to operate a faulty automatic transaction monitoring system across its global operations.…

USA FIU FinCEN has sought to clarify ambiguities in how it will collect beneficial ownership information under ‘Anti-Money Laundering Act’ (AMLA) passed by Congress in January, highlighting significant weaknesses in the system, said an AML expert.

While the law increases transparency in US business by creating a new beneficial ownership register, authorising a new AML whistleblowing system, increasing AML fines, and expanding powers to subpoena foreign banks for AML/CFT information, the UBO system has significant exemptions.…