Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency has released a comprehensive report promoting good practice within Europe’s waste industry, in a bid to ease governments’ reliance on landfilling, which it considers too dominant. Case Studies on Waste Minimisation Practices in Europe focuses on 10 initiatives undertaken in Europe during the 1990’s to promote and encourage waste minimisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Commerce has published a guide alerting financial services businesses about how to avoid falling victim to fraud, which alerts them to the psychological tactics used by conmen. Preventing Financial Instrument Fraud describes danger signals, explaining how frauds are mounted and the psychological manipulation upon which they are based.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPANIES, especially construction firms, will have to review their asbestos worker protection procedures, following the agreement by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers of an updated directive on the subject. The new rules, also backed by the European Parliament, introduce a single maximum average airborne exposure in excess of 0.1 fibres per cm3 measured over eight hours.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
COMPANIES, especially construction firms, will have to review their asbestos worker protection procedures, following the agreement by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers of an updated directive on the subject. The new rules, also backed by the European Parliament, introduce a single maximum average airborne exposure in excess of 0.1 fibres per cm3 measured over eight hours.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CANADIAN government has stepped up to the baseball plate in response to calls from domestic and international law enforcement agencies that it raises its game in detecting, deterring and preventing money laundering, especially and terrorist financing. The result has been three new regulations that were brought into effect in January of this year.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
WITH Australia sharing the front-line in President Bush’s war against terrorism with Britain and the USA, and also having witnessed its citizens dying in last year’s Bali nightclub terror attack, it is maybe not surprising that it has been tightening its money laundering legislation, especially as regards terrorists.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ADAGE ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink’ applies in many walks of life and it is certainly relevant to the ongoing World Trade Organisation’s negotiations on liberalising market access for services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is promoting a set of guidelines it has drawn up with anti-corruption groups Transparency International and Social Accountability International to help businesses confront bribery in their operations and commercial dealings. These Business Principles for Countering Bribery are, said Jermyn Brooks, Transparency International’s Executive Director, “essentially an anti-bribery framework based on best practice.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INSURANCE sector may be so vulnerable to money laundering that the subject is probably worth in depth additional inquiries, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has said. It has released a report on Money Laundering Typologies that concludes the sector may be as vulnerable to organised criminals seeking to conceal illegal funds, as the financial securities sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Insurance companies are to be given greater freedom to operate insurance pools and to engage with other companies in the joint calculation of risks, under new regulations announced today (Thursday) by the European Commission. The new 7-year insurance block exemption regulation also provides for the establishment of non-binding standard policy conditions and the testing and acceptance of security equipment.…