Authors: Kyle Wombolt, Jeremy Birch and Charlotte Benton The US Department of Justice Criminal Division (DOJ) has issued updated guidance on the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs (guidance). Under the guidance, DOJ prosecutors evaluate the effectiveness of a company’s compliance programme when conducting an investigation, determining whether to bring charges or negotiating plea or other … Read more
Authors: William Hallatt, Hannah Cassidy and Valerie Tao On 24 April 2019, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a joint circular on their recent co-ordinated inspections of a bank and an SFC licensed corporation (LC) within a Mainland-based group. The inspections identified two key areas of concern: … Read more
Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency is currently considering amendments to expand the scope and increase the effectiveness of Japan’s whistleblower protection laws. The proposal is earmarked for implementation later this year. Read more
Robert Hunt, a partner in the firm’s corporate crime and investigations practice, has recorded a podcast for the Corporate Compliance and Ethics Blog on trends in internal investigations in Asia. Whilst investigations used to be largely corruption-related, Rob is seeing an increasing number of investigations into sales and revenue fraud, money laundering and sanctions. Robert … Read more
Authors: William Hallatt, Hannah Cassidy, Natalie Curtis, Valerie Tao and Jennifer Fong. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has recently reprimanded and fined Guosen Securities (HK) Brokerage Company (Guosen) HK$15.2 million for failures in complying with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regulatory requirements when handling third party fund deposits. This is the … Read more
Authors: Kyle Wombolt and Anita Phillips Kyle Wombolt, global head of corporate crime and investigations, and Anita Phillips, professional support consultant, have updated their guide to corporate investigations in China. This forms part of GIR’s acclaimed text, The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations 2019, third edition. It is regarded as the only text covering the nuts … Read more
On 1 February 2019, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced significant changes to its licensing forms and processes (Licensing Reforms). Included in these changes was the long-awaited arrival in Hong Kong of measures intended to stop the “rolling” of “bad apples” within the financial industry by requiring licensed corporations and registered institutions to provide … Read more
In this bulletin we cover the following key developments in the payments and fintech space: Payment Services Bill: On 14 January 2019, the Payment Services Bill (Bill) was passed by the Singapore Parliament. When it comes into force, the Payment Services Act (as the enacted Bill will be known) will introduce two regulatory frameworks: a … Read more
