On May 14, 2020, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the US Department of State, and US Coast Guard issued a Sanctions Advisory for the Maritime Industry, Energy and Metal Sectors, and Related Communities (the "Advisory"). The Advisory focuses on Iran, North Korea, and Syria, and offers information about, and tools to combat, emerging trends related to illicit shipping and sanctions evasion practices. Read more
Those national regulators in the EU which had put in place temporary restrictions on any short selling of securities admitted to trading on regulated markets in their jurisdictions have all confirmed that the prohibitions will not be extended. However, firms should be aware that ESMA’s temporary lower net short reporting threshold will remain in force … Read more
Welcome to the Spring 2020 edition of our corporate crime update - our round up of developments in relation to corruption, money laundering, fraud, sanctions and related matters. Read more
In this blog post, we round-up forthcoming developments in the UK and at EU and International levels in financial services regulation which are expected for May 2020. Read more
On April 30, 2020, the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued a Finding of Violation to American Express Travel Related Services Company (“AMEX”). OFAC’s findings, and its decision not to penalize AMEX, highlight three important sanctions compliance considerations for US and non-US companies alike. Read more
COVID-19 and the related lockdown restrictions are placing the UK criminal justice system under considerable pressure. In this briefing we discuss a number of COVID-19 related measures impacting the investigation and prosecution of economic crime, and the criminal justice system more broadly. We also touch on fraud risks and financial crime compliance considerations arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, which we will discuss more fully in a future briefing. Read more
Germany is progressing towards a corporate sanctions law addressing the criminal conduct of companies, regarding executive bodies, managers and employees acting on behalf of the company. After the Federal Ministry of Justice unofficially released its draft "Act on the Sanctioning of Associations-Related Offences" ("Verbandssanktionengesetz", "VerSanG") in August 2019, we reported on the expected legislative changes in corporate criminal liability and internal investigations in Germany. On 22 April 2020, the Ministry of Justice officially published its (revised) draft bill. Read more
On 31 March 2020, HM Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) announced the imposition of a monetary penalty on Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”). This represents OFSI’s fourth use of its power to impose a monetary penalty in respect of suspected breaches of UK financial sanctions restrictions. Read more
[This post was last updated on 16 April 2020 to reflect the extensions to the temporary bans on short selling by EU national regulators] SHORT SELLING REGULATION During this unprecedented period of disruption, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and other national regulators have taken various extraordinary steps to address the risks faced by … Read more
