Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
A REGULATOR CALLS – HOW SHOULD AML/CFT OBLIGED ENTITIES PREPARE?
How should anti-money laundering (AML) officers prepare for a visit by a regulator, be it a scheduled inspection, or the worst-case scenario – an unexpected dawn raid? Experts say institutions need to always be prepared for checks by regulators.
However, this is not simple given a visit to assess an obliged entity’s internal controls’ ability to effectively monitor and manage compliance with national and regional AML policies and procedures can be rare.…
USA ENABLERS ACT STALLED AS SENATE REFUSES TO ADD TEXT TO DEFENCE USA APPROPRATION BILL
A planned expansion of USA anti-money laundering (AML) laws to cover so-called ‘gate-keeper professions’ including company service providers and lawyers, has been halted by the US Senate, which refused to write the law into the 2023 annual defence appropriations law.
This was the method by which the major Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) was passed in 2020.…
EU ADDS GIBRALTAR TO HIGH-RISK LIST FOR MONEY LAUNDERING
The European Commission has added the British overseas territory (BOT) of Gibraltar to European Union (EU) list of high-risk countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes. This latest update to the EU AML blacklist (1) means that banks and other AML obliged entities will have to apply enhanced due diligence when dealing with transactions with Gibraltar, which was ceded to the UK in 1713, having been seized during the War of the Spanish Succession.…
JP MORGAN SUES USD175 MILLION START-UP CLAIMING FAKE ACCOUNTS
JP Morgan Chase (JPMC) is suing the founder of student aid advice platform Frank that it bought in August 2021, claiming that its CEO and founder Ms Charlie Javice “decided to lie” about the success, size, and depth of market penetration of the start-up she created in 2017 to justify the USD175 million price tag.…
EU ROUND UP – EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT GRAPPLES WITH QATARGATE CASE
The European Parliament is grappling with the fallout of the Qatargate’ cash-for-influence corruption scandal. Greek socialist MEP Eva Kaili has been replaced as the parliament’s vice-president by a Luxembourg socialist, after Kaili was arrested by Brussels police. Officers allege they found EUR1.5 million cash at her home and that of former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, another socialist, from Italy.…
EX-MALDIVES PRESIDENT TO APPEAL CORRUPTION CONVICTION
The former President of Maldives – Abdulla Yameen – is to appeal last month’s conviction for corruption and money laundering but faces delays as his lawyers have yet to receive a detailed trial report. The Criminal Court of Maldives in the capital Malé December 25 jailed Yameen, who held office from 2013-18, for a total 11 years – four years for accepting kickbacks from a private company in the lease of the state-owned Aarah resort on Vaavu Atoll and seven for money laundering.…
ANTI-FRAUD STAFF TURNOVER IS A PROBLEM SAUS ACFE – BUT STRESSING WORK VALUE CAN EXPERT RETENTION
While the Covid-19 pandemic has seen increased spending on anti-fraud departments and corresponding increases in salaries, anti-fraud professionals are keen to explore their career options, with 48% saying they expect to leave their current company within two years.
That figure, of probable concern to HR departments, was culled from an Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) survey of 80,294 members worldwide in February 2022 and released in the ACFE’s 2022 compensation guide published in October (2022).…
USA DOJ EXPANDS PENALTY REDUCTIONS FOR COMPANIES COOPERATING WITH FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES PROBESUSA DOJ EXPANDS PENALTY REDUCTIONS FOR COMPANIES COOPERATING WITH FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES PROBES
The USA department of justice (DoJ) has expanded the benefits available to corporations involved in overseas commercial crime should they cooperate with police and prosecutors, offering them up to a 75% reduction in punishments – up from an earlier 50% maximum.…
CORPORATE MONITORING SYSTEMS DEVELOP TO CATCH FRAUD AND DECEPTION BY REMOTE WORKERS
The comprehensive and thus far sustained extension of home-based remote working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic has fuelled a growing market in surveillance devices helping managers ensure their employees are working rather than shirking. Some employers take a dim view of employees who tell managers they are at work at their desk, but instead are watching Netflix on the sofa.…
RUSSIA INVASION OF UKRAINE CREATES NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR HACKERS OF VARYING SOPHISTICATION
The battle between an invading Russia and Ukraine’s defenders has not just been conducted with military force – by January 23 killing 7,068 civilians, said the UN, but also in cyberspace. While lacking the sophistication of attacks carried out by Chinese threat actors, Russian cybercriminals are increasingly probing Ukrainian companies critical to the institutional stability and defence of the country, primarily active in Ukrainian cyberspace for data collection purposes, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1): “Intelligence collection… has been the main focus of Russia’s wartime cyber operations in Ukraine”.…