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The Netherlands has only moderate effectiveness in its AML/CFT policies regarding supervision, preventative measures, legal persons controls and financial sanctions, according to the latest FATF mutual evaluation report (MER). These assessments now highlight effectiveness assessments alongside technical compliance ratings. And while, overall, FATF concluded that the Netherlands’ AML/CFT was “delivering good results”, it added that the country “needs to do more to prevent legal persons from being used for criminal purposes, strengthen risk-based supervision, and ensure sanctions for money laundering and terrorist financing offences are proportionate and dissuasive”.…

INTRODUCTION 

With the textile industry under pressure from consumers, regulators and standards to become more sustainable, companies are looking at all aspects of the supply chain – including upstream to fibre production. Digitalisation has a key role to play here, especially in supplier countries where the use of such technology is weak – such as in Africa.…

If you listen to Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta Platforms, which runs Facebook, humanity is about to take a quantum leap into living lives online as well as offline, interacting with people’s digital representations (avatars) via ‘metaverse’ virtual platforms. The question in AML terms is whether such systems, especially if widely used and interoperable, pose a new and growing risk of dirty money flows?…

Australia’s commitment to strengthen its anti-money laundering legislation is now an eight-year-old promise that has yet to be fulfilled. However, with a change in government in May 2022, with the Labor Party taking power after nine years of government by the right-centre Liberal-National Coalition, there is renewed hope that reform could finally be delivered.…

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued a dedicated report, ‘Money Laundering and the Illegal Wildlife Trade’ in June 2020 (1) and has followed up with further analysis on a topic that is being researched in depth by a wide range of NGOs.…

Xolisile Khanyile, the director of South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) has been appointed chair of the Egmont Group (EG) of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), taking over from July for a two -year term. She replaces the Netherlands’ Hennie Verbeek-Kusters, who had served as chair since 2020.…

The Indian garment manufacturing industry is optimistic about the impact of a free trade agreement (FTA) between its country and the European Union (EU), which it thinks could be concluded next year (2023).

“It would be a game changer,” Gautam Nair, chairman of the export promotion committee of India’s Apparel Export Promotion Council told Just Style, highlighting how an anticipated “9.6 to 12 percent duty [reduction] makes a big difference in our competitive business.”…

Cambodia’s clothing sector may continue to face challenges over its weak backward linkages and pressure to increase wages – balancing reasonable pay with international competitiveness in price sensitive markets – but its apparel export receipts remain healthy. The country’s clothing export earnings were not seriously damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, which had a relatively light impact on Cambodia.…

Aircraft giant Airbus has been fined nearly EUR15.9 million to settle the final vestiges of the massive bribery scandal that initially saw EUR3.6 billion (USD3.79 billion) in fines paid to British, French and United States authorities in January 2020. A Paris court (tribunal judiciaire du Paris) November 30 cleared a November 17 accord between the French financial prosecutor, the Parquet National Financier (PNF) and Airbus.…

Europe’s food and drink industry is facing tough general and industry-focused inflation rates not witnessed since the global financial crisis and its related recession in 2008-9. These past food inflation rates dipped sharply and quickly as governments took control of this crisis – government spending was mopped up by bad debts rather than additional purchases.…