Archive

A former executive of oil consultancy company, Unaoil, last week (July 15) pleaded guilty to conspiracy to give corrupt payments in a UK court case brought by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Basil Al Jarah, whom the SFO described as “Unaoil’s former partner in Iraq,” pleaded guilty in Southwark Crown Court to five charges of conspiracy to give corrupt payments linked to the award of contracts to supply and install single point moorings and oil pipelines in southern Iraq. …

A BRITISH company is to secure a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve charges that it defrauded the UK ministry of justice by concealing how it had billed for electronic monitoring services that had not taken place. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) today (July 3) announced that a judge has approved the DPA for Serco Geografix Ltd (SGL), a subsidiary of the Serco Group.…

Slovenia’s plastic industry has made a virtue out of the nation’s geographical position, located between the markets of central and western Europe and those of the Balkan states and the former Soviet Union. 

Drawing on these geographical – and historical political ties – the sector is geared towards exports, with these accounting for 62% of the value of the plastics industry, according to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia (CCIS).…

INTERNATIONAL, regional and national regulators are cooperating more widely as they create strategies and operations to fight fraud that is often conducted on a trans-national basis.

For instance, European Union (EU) police agency Europol has worked with financial intelligence units (FIUs), such as the USA’s FinCEN, and FIU umbrella organisation the Egmont Group to raise concern about business email compromise fraud (BEC).…

The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has opened an investigation into the world’s biggest banknote and passport printing company De La Rue over its operations in South Sudan. UK-based De La Rue has held the contract to print South Sudan’s currency since the country was founded in 2011.…

Japan must urgently address long-standing concerns over foreign bribery enforcement, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD’s) working group on bribery. The working group findings follow a ‘Phase 4’ assessment under the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, in which it examines an individual country assessing detection, enforcement, corporate liability, and international cooperation, plus unresolved issues from earlier reports. …

EUROPEAN Union (EU) regulations are driving change in plasticisers and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production, as well as recycling, but meeting targets on recycled content is challenging, industry speakers told participants in a June 24-25 media field trip to the Netherlands. The event, inclouding a visit to Dutch Shin-Etsu and Kras Recycling plants, was sponsored by the PVC sector’s 10-year sustainability programme VinylPlus and organised by chemical industry group European Plasticisers.…

THE TRADE in textile finishing chemicals and products made with them between the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay is likely to intensify under a new trade deal between the two regional groupings.

The agreement, which now needs ratification by both sides, will phase out all EU duties charged on industrial goods (including dyes and other finishers) over 10 years.…

BULGARIA’S plastics industry has been making the most of the growing demand for supplies from major western markets. The sector has been particularly buoyant over the past five years, with Bulgaria’s comparatively low costs and occasional regulatory light touch making its plastics companies competitive with competitors in western Europe.…

THE TANZANIAN government’s decision to increase levies on dry hair imports and associated wigs, hair pieces and extensions, and which are widely popular in the country, has been met with real concern and some anger by the east African beauty industry.…