Search Results for: Russia

With the lifting of the Covid-19 induced lockdown in Shanghai at the start of June, the world’s largest wool exporters are hoping for less disruption to their business with China. But ongoing Covid outbreaks in the country, alongside the government’s continued zero-Covid policy, whereby cities are closed to control infections, and a backlog at its ports, are still causing concern.…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – which as of June 10 had killed 4,339 civilians (UN figures) – sparked an unprecedented range of sanctions against Russia’s financial, business and political elite. But there is little evidence as of June – with the invasion entering its fourth month – of upset Russian oligarchs pressuring President Vladimir Putin to abandon his bloody invasion, because they had lost access to their yachts, mansions and bank accounts.…

FATF has announced it will “severely limit” Russia’s role within FATF, following it invasion of Ukraine, which as of June 17 had killed 4,509 civilians (UN figures). Following its plenary from June 14-17, FATF announced Russia “can no longer hold any leadership or advisory roles or take part in decision-making on standard-setting, FATF peer review processes, governance and membership matters”.…

The Covid-19 pandemic forced many AML/CFT practitioners to work remotely, forcing training away from the face-to-face learning that has been dominant in the past. But now, as the pandemic wanes, combining innovative remote AML/CFT learning practices developed during Covid-19 with longer established in-person training is under consideration.…

The publication in its official journal of the European Union’s (EU) sixth sanctions package against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has shown the EU bent over backwards to secure unanimity in its agreed restrictions of Russian oil imports.

Not only have all pipeline imports of crude oil from Russia been excluded from sanctions for the time being, Bulgaria was excluded from an otherwise unanimous block on tankered crude oil imports, which in any case will be phased out over six months.…

A spate of recent high-profile investigations into suspected money laundering through cryptocurrency and a failure to prevent it have drawn attention to the capacity of law enforcement to tackle AML/CFT activity in the crypto sphere.

In July 2021, the UK’s Metropolitan Police force in London said it had seized a record GBP180 million (USD219 million) worth of cryptocurrency linked to international money laundering.…

The creation crypto-currency units through the arcane process of ‘crypto-mining’ presents peripheral money laundering risks, during the initial validation of a crypto coin and where the transaction is mined. There could be a need for a new type of KYC – KYM, ‘Know Your Miner’.…

The publication in its official journal of the European Union’s (EU) sixth sanctions package against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has shown the EU bent over backwards to secure unanimity in its agreed restrictions of Russian oil imports.

Not only have all pipeline imports of crude oil from Russia been excluded from sanctions for the time being, Bulgaria was excluded from an otherwise unanimous block on tankered crude oil imports, which in any case will be phased out over six months.…

Although China’s 13th Five-Year Development Outline for the Textile Industry (2016–2020) mandated sustainability improvements for China’s entire textile industry, the government’s efforts to improve the environmental performance of the country’s synthetic dye segment have gained visible momentum more recently, under the 2021-25 14th Five-Year plan.   …

While the torrent of international sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 have slowed, the breadth and complexity of these measures have continued to challenge compliance officials in banks and other financial services.

An American Bankers Association (ABA) paper released this month noted that the sanctions deluge had been “unprecedented in its speed, complexity, and global impact”.…