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COMPANIES and citizens defrauding European Union (EU) revenue collection (including
customs duties and cross-border VAT fraud) and spending programmes, may from 2020 face
direct criminal proceedings brought by a European Public Prosecutor (EPPO). The EU
Council of Ministers has approved establishing this new institution in 20 of the 28 EU
member states – Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Germany, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal,
Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.…

International police agency Interpol and its European Union (EU) counterpart Europol have
announced what they say is the biggest hit ever against online piracy with law enforcers
taking down more than 20,500 websites selling counterfeit goods seized in 26 countries.
Participating countries were Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Britain,
Colombia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland,
Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Ukraine, the USA
and China special administrative region Hong Kong.…

Of course, it is not doing this by increasing policing and the number of suspicious transaction reports, but by liberalising what is now a criminal activity, the growing, processing, sale and consumption of cannabis for recreation.

By doing so, it plans to be the first G20 country to legalise and regulate the recreational use of cannabis nationwide by July 2018.…

WITH the introduction of Bill C-45 into the Canadian House of Commons earlier this year, and its securing a second reading vote in June (see https://openparliament.ca/bills/42-1/C-45/), Canada’s government has moved closer to removing millions of dollars of dirty money from its economy.…

IT would be hard to design a jurisdiction with a greater exposure to money laundering than Macao. A small autonomous Chinese jurisdiction, next to the populous province of Guangzhou, which relies on a huge gambling sector for its income, it is no wonder that Macao has come under pressure from international assessors to run a tight ship regarding anti-money laundering (AML).…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) member states and the European Commission have agreed to strengthen monitoring and information sharing systems on food fraud, to help prevent the emergence of damaging scandals such as this summer’s Netherlands egg contamination scandal. Rapid common risk assessment procedures are to be created including swift convening of Commission/member state meetings to exchange relevant scientific information.…

HIGH-END internationally-focused brands are seeking out Vietnam’s traditional artisans to source orders of high-quality, handmade textiles, moving away from the low-cost, mass-produced materials often associated with the country’s textile and garment industry.

These labour-intensive products include indigo-dyed fabrics, hand-woven textiles, and lacquer silk, all of which are created using traditional methods by skilled craftspeople.…

CONFECTIONARY manufacturers in India are having to grapple with their products and ingredients attracting a wide range of tax rates under the country’s new goods and services tax (GST), which started to be levied from July 1.

India’s GST Council, a body representing the central and state governments, has been deciding which goods will be covered by the zero, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% tax rates allowed under India’s GST legislation. …

THE GREEK government says that it and seven other European Union (EU) member states may launch legal action over the Chinese government’s refusal to ban China-registered trademarks of products falsely marketed as traditional EU-made foods.

A document released by Greece’s economy and development ministry has claimed that France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain have agreed to join forces to finance a case in the Chinese courts.…

EASTERN and central European food consumers have often complained that international branded food tastes worse in their countries than in western Europe – even when comparing the same brands in similar packaging.

But the question is whether these grumbles are effectively urban myths – or if there is evidence suggesting that these differences are real.…