Search Results for: England

THE BRITISH government is launching a new regulatory, business and law enforcement taskforce to crack down on the more than 5 million frauds that are undertaken annually in the UK. This Joint Fraud Taskforce will bring together the City of London Police, the National Crime Agency, Financial Fraud Action UK, the Bank of England, fraud prevention body Cifas, plus bank and credit card companies.…

THE AMOUNT of fraud committed in the UK appears to be rising, according to a detailed report from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) – although the agency accepts the many difficulties in gathering reliable data on the topic. A headline figure generated by the ONS based on data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), UK fraud reporting body Action Fraud (which feeds information into the crime survey), plus industry bodies Cifas and Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) suggest that in the year ending September 2015, 604,601 fraud offences were recorded in England and Wales – 11 offences per 1,000 population.…

The European Union’s (EU) Energy Roadmap 2050 project is certainly ambitious – looking to decarbonise Europe’s energy sector – and it anticipates that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will play an important role. Yet, it is clear that this technology is far from ubiquitous and significant efforts will be required to enable CCS to play a key part in Europe’s CCS future.…

Financial experts struck off for misconduct from professional bodies, such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), should be actively barred from working as accountants, a Brussels conference on ‘Fighting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: The Role of Accountants and Finance Professionals’ has heard.…

While many economies in Africa are growing fast, there is a consensus amongst accountants that the continent has to build its business reporting and administration to make sure this growth is sustainable. Indeed, the third African Congress of Accountants (ACOA), staged in Port Louis, Mauritius, from May 11 to 14, heard that this essential work is needed now, even as some countries remain marred by severe socio-political unrest, economic instability, poverty, famine and disease.…

EUROPEAN cigarette smuggling has evolved and diversified over the past ten years, and international cooperation is often the best way to counter them, argue European Union (EU) anti-fraud officials. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry has accepted that liaising with these initiatives does bring benefits.…

A BREAKTHROUGH project that could return all olive oil waste back to the olive oil production cycle by turning it into onsite energy could bring significant profit margin improvements to the industry, while reducing its environmental impact. 
The European Union (EU)-funded pilot project Biogas2PEM-FC, based in Andalucía, southern Spain, uses  “valourisation” techniques to deal with waste, as opposed to the traditional method of “depositing or using physical, physicochemical or biological methods for detoxification, which is costly,” explained Per Ekdunge, the Swedish fuel cell technology company PowerCell’s vice  president and chief technology officer.…

PLASTIC banknotes have been in circulation since their introduction in Australia in 1988 and their use is expanding. Counterfeiters beware. Alan Osborn, in London; Kitty So, in Ottawa; and Lee Adendorff, in Byron Bay, Australia, report.

FAKING banknotes is considerably more difficult on plastic than on cotton-based paper, and while printing technology improvements may aid forgers, central banks seem happy to avail themselves of the competitive advantage.

The challenge of maintaining the integrity and efficient operation of remote oil and gas pipelines under deep water will become more taxing in future. And their potential failure will cost companies more in commercial losses and in regulatory penalties, according to industry experts.…

As they looks at the rewards of shale gas production seen over recent years in the US, European producers are edging closer to commercial shale gas production. However, it faces a wide range of challenges, and the debate within Europe over shale gas is intensifying.…