Financial Crime

6th December 2019

Formations House leak shows need for reforms on creating companies, says anti-corruption chief

Boris Johnson’s anti-corruption champion has said that the UK must “clamp down harder” on corruption after an investigation revealed how a British company registered a global web of businesses linked to international crime gangs. John Penrose, who co-ordinates the response to corruption, said that Britain’s reputation for integrity was vital… Read More

5th December 2019

MEP calls on EU to initiate suspension procedures against Malta

The European Commission should open an investigation into the rule of law. Preparations must now be made for Article 7 proceedings against Malta, MEP Sven Giegold said today. Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union is a procedure to suspend certain rights from a member state. At the end of the two-day… Read More

5th December 2019

Remittance-dependent Tajikistan blocks Russian wire transfer service

A Russian wire transfer service popular among Tajik migrant labourers has been cut off from the Central Asian nation’s banking system, it said on Wednesday, after Dushanbe rerouted all remittances into a new processing centre. More than a million Tajiks work in Russia, sending home about $2.6 billion a year… Read More

4th December 2019

Swiss court rebuffs FINMA’s seizure of bank BSI money in 1MDB case

Swiss financial markets supervisor FINMA must reconsider its confiscation of 95 million Swiss francs ($95.27 million) from Banca della Svizzera Italiana (BSI), after a court called its calculation of the amount seized “incomprehensible”. BSI was bought by EFG International in 2016 from Brazil’s BTG Pactual after becoming tangled in legal… Read More

4th December 2019

Nordea Wins Danish Court Battle to Ban Staff Trading in Bitcoin

Nordea Bank is free to prevent its employees from investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in their own time, a Danish court ruled. The risks associated with cryptocurrencies justify the restriction, according to a verdict published on the Copenhagen-based court’s website late Monday. Denmark’s union for financial… Read More

2nd December 2019

Vatican Posed Security Threat, Says Financial Watchdog After Suspension

An international network of financial watchdogs said the Vatican’s handling of confidential information posed “an evident security threat to our organization,” in a statement explaining why it suspended the Vatican from access to its information earlier this month. The Egmont Group, a Toronto-based network of more than 160 national… Read More

29th November 2019

Ukraine’s central bank blames Kolomoisky for campaign of intimidation

Ukraine’s central bank has issued an unprecedented statement accusing local oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, the former owner of nationalized lender PrivatBank, of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation against the institution and its staff. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has been targeted by protesters accusing the bank’s management of corruption and… Read More

29th November 2019

Top HSBC Risk Head to Take Sabbatical as Bank Faces BOE Warnings

HSBC Holdings Plc’s head of operational risk, who has been in the role for almost six years, has asked to take a sabbatical. Mark Cooke, whose role involves overseeing non-financial risks such as financial crime, staff misconduct and compliance breaches, has requested a sabbatical, the bank said in an email. Read More

27th November 2019

Swedish bank SEB missed money laundering ‘red flags’ in Estonia: TV report

Swedish Television (SVT) reported on Wednesday that it had obtained a list of 194 clients of Swedish bank SEB (SEBa.ST) connected to suspected money laundering in Estonia. The public broadcaster’s investigative show “Uppdrag Granskning” reported that the client list, which also showed about 2,000 transactions, contained “red flags”… Read More

27th November 2019

Money-Laundering Trouble Spot Says It’s Turned Over a New Leaf

After a string of bank closures and a high-level bribery scandal put it at the heart of Europe’s dirty-money storm last year, Latvia declared efforts to clean up its act a success. The Baltic nation of 1.9 million people, once seen by clients in the former Soviet Union as a… Read More