Archive

Museum and gallery professionals have long considered light a double-edge sword — vital to effectively showcase art, yet with the potential to destroy it — but recent innovations in paints and coatings could change that view.

Determining the degree of potential light damage on a painting is challenging, according to the US-based Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, due to the impact of a wide range of factors such as light intensity and type, total time of exposure and the natural resistance of the painting’s components.

THE BRITISH Coatings Federation (BCF) has continued to press the UK government to mitigate the problems caused by Britain’s Brexit withdrawal from the European Union (EU), as the country’s industry fights to preserve its income.

Both imports of raw materials and packaging supplies, as well as exports of finished products to and from the EU have been hindered by the red tape imposed on trade under the EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) that underpinned Brexit, says the BCF.…

European Union (EU) member states are lagging in compliance with a requirement in the fifth anti-money laundering directive (5 AMLD) (1) to create public ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) registers by January 10, 2020. A European Commission webpage (2) on 5AMLD compliance last updated June 2 (2022) shows 12 governments are facing infringement proceedings either because they have not adopted legislation writing the directive fully into national law or because they have implemented it incorrectly.…

Suspicious transaction reports (STRs) often receive bad press in AML circles, experts claiming they are too expensive, numerous and often containing little value for law enforcement investigations. However, the truth is that STRs are widely used to investigate and prosecute money laundering and associated predicate offences, even if the debate continues over their cost effectiveness.…

European Union (EU) governments in the EU Council of Ministers have agreed to beef up the powers of the future European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) due to launch on January 1, 2023, under a new June 29 common position (1) on the proposed AMLA regulation.…

The striking of a political agreement over a European Union (EU) directive that will guide how its 27 member states set minimum wages, with the goal of increasing pay in low salary sectors such as clothing and textile manufacturing, is being watched closely by the fashion industry.…

The European Parliament’ international trade committee has travelled to Dhaka to press the Bangladesh government to ensure that its country complies with 27 international labour, social and environmental conventions. This, MEPs will say, is needed for Bangladesh to qualify for the EU Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus’ (GSP) privileged trade access.…

The rapid escalation of Sri Lanka’s political and economic crisis, causing its former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign, has had far-reaching implications for the country’s clothing and textile manufacturing sector, which plays a crucial role in the nation’s economy.…

Vendors continue to roll out what they claim are ever more powerful CDD/KYC systems, helping enable compliance with increasingly comprehensive ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) laws.

But do these technologies offer the AML community the potential to consider a new model – focusing on robust CDD by obliged entities, without the need to report STRs, and relying on better financed law enforcement to demand information via subpoenas to firm up ML cases?…