On August 5, 2019, President Trump issued a new Executive Order (“EO“), blocking all property and interests in property of the Government of Venezuela (defined to include the Central Bank of Venezuela and Petróleos de Venezuela (“PdVSA“)) in the US or in the possession of US persons. The EO also empowers the Secretary of Treasury, … Read more
HM Treasury (“HMT“) has launched the first phase (a call for evidence on regulatory coordination) in its Future Regulatory Framework Review (“the Review“), originally announced by the then Chancellor in his Spring Statement and more recently repeated in his 2019 Mansion House speech. This Review is focused on improving the coordination between the various regulators/government … Read more
In our Corporate Crime & Investigations podcast we look to bring you timely and incisive commentary on key developments in the CC&I space. In this inaugural episode we take a look at the Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) landscape. In particular we set in context the latest DPA agreed between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and … Read more
On 12 July, the European and Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) published its Report on the licensing of FinTech business models (the Report) as part of the European Commission’s wider FinTech Action Plan. While ESMA concluded in its report that it was not necessary to put forward any recommendations to the European Commission to adapt the … Read more
On 26 July, the FCA published its latest policy statement (PS19/20) on the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR), together with the near-final rules on the extension of the SMCR to most solo-regulated firms. Read more
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has finalised its proposed amendments to the Listing Rules to tighten restrictions on backdoor listings and continuing listing criteria. The changes are aimed at combatting listed company shell activities which have been the subject of ongoing regulatory scrutiny in recent years. Read more
In a recent decision, the Commercial Court has upheld a financial institution’s decision to exercise its contractual right to close a customer’s accounts and terminate its relationship without notice, where the financial institution had a suspicion that its customer’s accounts were being used for money laundering purposes: N v The Royal Bank of Scotland plc … Read more
First published on Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence on 15 July 2019. This third article of a series on cryptoassets focuses on personal account dealing (PAD) policies and procedures. This topic is important not only for firms themselves but also for individual staff who have entered into or are considering entering into cryptoasset transactions on their … Read more
